You'll have to do it at the last moment, you know." "I suppose you have begun to review your past life," I said grimly, "and that's why you are using so much American slang." Then, as Dicky was again holding my hands, I maintained a dignified silence.

You cannot possibly quarrel with a person who is holding your hand, no matter how you feel.
"There's only one thing that consoles me in connection with those matches," Dicky mentioned after a time.

"They were French ones." "I don't know what that has to do with it," I said.
"That's because you don't smoke," Dicky replied.

And I had not the heart to pursue the inquiry.

Time went on, black and silent, as it had been doing down there for sixteen centuries.