It was the first time, as far as he was concerned, that Roger had referred to the incident.

Yet the tone of the questioner implied a past history.

It was to him, indeed, that Roger had come, in the first bitterness of his young grief and anger, after the "jilting." French had tried to help him, only to find that he was no more a match for the lady than the rest of the world.
As to the call and the invitation, he agreed heartily that a person of delicacy would have omitted them.

The Fairmile marriage, it was generally rumoured, had broken down hopelessly.
"Faults on both sides, of course.

Fairmile is and always was an unscrupulous beggar! He left Eton just as you came, but I remember him well." Roger began a sentence to the effect that if Fairmile had no scruples of his own, Chloe would scarcely have taught him any; but he checked himself abruptly in the middle, and the two men passed to other topics.
French began to talk of East London, and the parish he was to have there.