scarlet fever is a form of experience, but I don't wish to know
what it's like," Roger answered.

"My God, you are a prig, Roger!" said Gilbert simply.

"I know that," Roger answered. "That's why I don't get on with women.
They find me out. No," he continued, "I've no experience of women in
that way. I daresay I shall get experience some day, but in the
meantime, I've got my job to do...."

"We shall have a virgin Lord Chancellor on the woolsack," said Gilbert,
"and then may God have mercy on all poor litigants!"

"We really ought to go to bed," Ninian protested.

"Not yet," Henry exclaimed.

He had recovered from his feeling of dejection, and he was eager to
retrieve the good opinion which he thought he had lost.

"My own view," he said, beginning as they always began their oracular
pronouncements, "my own view is that we make the mistake of thinking in
masses instead of in individuals. Everybody who tries to reform the
world, tries to make it uniform, but what we want is the most complete
diversity that's obtainable. It's the variations from type that make
type bearable!..."

"That's a good phrase, Quinny. Where'd you get it from?" Gilbert
interrupted.

Henry flushed with pleasure. "I made it up," he answered. "All men are
different," he went on, "and therefore the morals that suit one person
are unlikely to suit another person. Roger doesn't bother about women.
He looks upon them as a ... a sideline. Don't you, Roger? He'll marry in
due course, and he'll have one woman, and he'll have her all to himself.
Won't you, Roger?"

"Probably," Roger replied, "but there's no certainty about these
things."

Henry proceeded. "Gilbert wants lots and lots of women, but he doesn't
want to talk about it, and he wants to keep his women and his work
separate ... in watertight compartments, as it were. As if you could do
that! And Ninian wants to have a good old hearty coarse time like ...
like Tom Jones ... and then he'll repent and praise God and lay his
stick about the backsides of all the young sinners he meets!"

"No, I don't, ..." said Ninian, but Henry, having started, would not let
himself be interrupted. "I want to have lots and lots of women," he went
on hurriedly, "but I don't care who knows about them. I like talking
about my love-affairs...."

"Well, why don't you talk about 'em?" Gilbert demanded.

Henry was nonplussed. His speech became hesitant. "I ... I said I'd like
to talk about them," he replied.