He went on saying "No" to her, on principle, for he never yielded to a woman on account of her sex.

And here, dropping his eyes to his plate, he became autobiographical.

He had not married himself for the sufficient reason that he had never met a woman who commanded his respect.

Condemned to pass the susceptible years of youth in a railway station in Bombay, he had seen only coloured women, military women, official women; and his ideal was a woman who could read Greek, if not Persian, was irreproachably fair in the face, and able to understand the small things he let fall while undressing.

As it was he had contracted habits of which he was not in the least ashamed.