.

Natalie.
Now what Bastin had said about marriage stuck in my mind as his blundering remarks had a way of doing, perhaps because of the grain of honest truth with which they were often permeated.

Probably in my position it was more or less my duty to marry.

But here came the rub; I had never experienced any leanings that way.

I was as much a man as others, more so than many are, perhaps, and I liked women, but at the same time they repelled me.
My old fastidiousness came in; to my taste there was always something wrong about them.