'You—mostly.'
'Oh, Ted! To call me a fish, and speak of frying me, and pull that beautiful burning-red rose to pieces at the same time! Why, it had hardly opened, and roses just now are scarce.'
'What would you like me to do?'
'Why, let me see. I think, in this crisis of Australian history, every squatter should study how to exterminate rabbits and conserve water.'
'Confound the rabbits and conserving water! Look here, Stella, you always twist me round your fingers in this way.'
Stella held up her hands deprecatingly.
'What makes you say such dreadful things about my poor fingers?'
'Oh, you know very well what I mean. Time after time I've asked you to marry me, and said to myself, "Now I'll decide it one way or the other." But you turn it into a sort of joke. "What has put this funny notion of marrying into your head, Ted?" you say; or you hold up your fingers before I've said a word, and laugh, saying: "Now, Ted, when you knit your brow in that way it always means something spoony."'
'Oh, Ted! I never used that word—never!' cried Stella, laughing despite her efforts to keep serious.
'Well, it doesn't matter about one word. You know what I mean, don't you?'