Then she asked gravely, 'Do you think that is quite a nice way to talk to a married woman ?' 'No,' he admitted frankly, 'I don't.' For a few minutes the conversation lagged.
This was, however, Fielding's first visit since his home-coming, and Clarice yielded to certain promptings of curiosity.
'I hardly expected you would be persuaded to go out to Africa, even by--any one,' she concluded lamely.
'Neither did I,' he replied.
'Did you enjoy it ?' she asked.
'I went out a Remus, I return a Romulus.' There were points in Clarice's behaviour which never failed to excite Fielding's admiration.

Amongst these was a habit she possessed of staring steadily into the speaker's face with all the appearance of complete absence of mind whenever an allusion was made which she did not understand, and then continuing the conversation as though the allusion had never been made.

'Of course you had a companion,' she said.
Fielding agreed that he had.
'I have not seen him,' she added.
'No ?' 'No.' Clarice was driven to name the companion.

'You seem to have struck up a great friendship with Mr.Drake.I should hardly have thought that you would have found much in common.' '_Arcades ambo_, don't you know ?' Clarice did not know, and being by this time exasperated, she showed that she did not.

Fielding explained blandly, 'We both drive the same pigs to the same market.' Clarice laughed shortly, and stroked the cover of her _Morte d'Arthur_.
'I suppose that's just what friendship means nowadays ?' 'Between man and man--yes.