"Nonsense, Kelly! they don't grow. Think of something more plausible."
"Give me time, then." As he speaks he absently breaks off a piece of the cake and puts it in his [mouth]. Desmond, in quite as abstracted a manner, does likewise. Silence ensues.
"I think the idea was so sweet," says Desmond, presently, his thoughts being (as they should be) with Monica.
"As honey and the honeycomb!" says Mr. Kelly, breaking off another piece, with a far-off, rapt expression.
"She said she couldn't be happy, thinking we were hungry. Her dear heart is too big for her body."
"Her cake is certainly," says Mr. Kelly: here he takes a third enormous pinch out of it, and Desmond follows his example.
"I didn't tell her we had had dinner," says Brian. "It would have taken the gloss off it."
"Off this?" pointing to the smoking structure between them. "I don't believe it."
"No, the deed."
Another silence.