A very charming, short novel. Fred is the classic over-intellectual man, all Mind and no Body; Daisy is not quite the opposite, but she introduces what Prof. Flowerdew would call an “unobservable” into his life. There is something mysterious about her, and it is not clear why she acts the way she does sometimes. (Like why would she leave Cambridge after the trial, when she knows Fred is in love with her? Can she really not accept his love?)
So much of the book depends on happenstance, from their initial encounter with the accident to the end, when Daisy delays long enough to bump into Fred walking back to St. Angelicus---like, indeed, people acting like particles bumping against each other.
This is the second Fitzgerald book I’ve read, after The Blue Flower. I’m always surprised at how finely wrought, richly detailed her books are, even if they are slender.