About Marie Ivanovna he of course knew nothing at all.
His first weeks in our Otriad had been like the painful return to drab reality after a splendid dream.

"After all I am the hopeless creature I thought I was.

What was there, in those days in Petrograd, that could blind me ?" His shyness returned, his awkwardness, his mistakes in tact and resource were upon him again like a suit of badly made clothes.

He knew this but he believed that it could make no difference to his lady.

So sure was he of himself in regard to her--she might be transformed into anything hideous or vile and still now he would love her--that he could not believe that she would change.