Women like you, I suppose." "I wonder whether that isn't really what matters most ?" said Hewet.
Lying now flat on the bed he waved his hand in vague circles above him.
"Of course it is," said Hirst.

"But that's not the difficulty.

The difficulty is, isn't it, to find an appropriate object ?" "There are no female hens in your circle ?" asked Hewet.
"Not the ghost of one," said Hirst.
Although they had known each other for three years Hirst had never yet heard the true story of Hewet's loves.

In general conversation it was taken for granted that they were many, but in private the subject was allowed to lapse.

The fact that he had money enough to do no work, and that he had left Cambridge after two terms owing to a difference with the authorities, and had then travelled and drifted, made his life strange at many points where his friends' lives were much of a piece.
"I don't see your circles--I don't see them," Hewet continued.