They stood still and began to laugh at him, and to ask him whether the gastric juices--but he stopped them and began to speak very quickly and stiffly.
"D'you remember the morning after the dance ?" he demanded.

"It was here we sat, and you talked nonsense, and Rachel made little heaps of stones.
I, on the other hand, had the whole meaning of life revealed to me in a flash." He paused for a second, and drew his lips together in a tight little purse.

"Love," he said.

"It seems to me to explain everything.
So, on the whole, I'm very glad that you two are going to be married." He then turned round abruptly, without looking at them, and walked back to the villa.

He felt both exalted and ashamed of himself for having thus said what he felt.