It was all he needed that she liked him enough for what they were doing, and even should they do a good deal more would still like him enough for that; the essential freshness of a relation so simple was a cool bath to the soreness produced by other relations.

These others appeared to him now horribly complex; they bristled with fine points, points all unimaginable beforehand, points that pricked and drew blood; a fact that gave to an hour with his present friend on a bateau-mouche, or in the afternoon shade of the Champs Elysees, something of the innocent pleasure of handling rounded ivory.

His relation with Chad personally--from the moment he had got his point of view--had been of the simplest; yet this also struck him as bristling, after a third and a fourth blank day had passed.

It was as if at last however his care for such indications had dropped; there came a fifth blank day and he ceased to enquire or to heed.
They now took on to his fancy, Miss Gostrey and he, the image of the Babes in the Wood; they could trust the merciful elements to let them continue at peace.

He had been great already, as he knew, at postponements; but he had only to get afresh into the rhythm of one to feel its fine attraction.