It was a rude awakening.  Every moment he was up against something new.  There were quite a lot of things, he discovered, which a fellow ought to know, and doesn’t.  Too many of them to assimilate with comfort.  They crowded in upon him and unsettled his mind.  He kept up a brave exterior, but his inner core was suffering; he was no longer certain of himself.  He became easily swayed and changeful in his moods.  That sure touch in lyrics, as in daily life, was deserting him.  His dreams were not coming true.  He was not going to set the Thames on fire with poetry or anything else.  He would probably be a failure.  Aware of this weakness, he looked up to what was strong.  Everything was different from himself, everything forceful, emphatic and clear-cut, exercised a fascination upon him.  He tried in an honest, groping fashion, to learn what it was all about.  That was why he had taken to Edgar Marten, the antithesis of himself, bright but dogmatic, a slovenly little plebeian but a man who after all had a determined, definite point of view.

Denis repeated: 

“Sanidin?”

“Let’s have a look at it then,” said Marten condescendingly, “though I can’t say I’m in a geological temper this morning.  The south wind seems to rot one’s intelligence somehow.  Hand it here.  Sanidin be blowed!  It’s specular iron.  Now I wonder why you should hit upon sanidin?  Why?”

He, too, did not pause for a reply.  He turned his glance once more down the steep hill-side which they had climbed with a view to exploring some instructive exposure of the rock.  Marten intended to utilize the site as a text for a lay sermon.  Arrived on the spot they had sat down.  As if by common consent, geology was forgotten.  To outward appearances they were absorbed in the beauties of nature.  Sirocco mists rose upwards, clustering thickly overhead and rolling in billowy formations among the dales.  Sometimes a breath of wind would convulse their ranks, causing them to trail in long silvery pennants across the sky and, opening a rift in their gossamer texture, would reveal, far down below, a glimmer of olives shining in the sunlight or a patch of blue sea, framed in an aureole of peacock hues.  Stones and grass were clammy with warm moisture.

“It’s a funny thing,” said Marten, after a long pause.  “I’ve often noticed it.  When I’m not actually at work, I’m always thinking about girls.  I wish I could talk better Latin, or Italian.  Not that I should be running after them all day long.  I’ve got other fish to fry.  I’ve got to catalogue my minerals, and I’m only half-way through.  For the matter of that, I haven’t come across half as many nice ones here as I thought I would.”

“Minerals?”

“Girls.  I don’t seem to take to these foreigners.  But there’s one—­”

“Go on.”