All Michael’s old sensitiveness, his self-consciousness of his plainness, his awkwardness, his big hands, his short legs, came back to him.
“I should think you could see well enough if you look at me,” he said, “without my telling you.”
“Oh, that silly old rot,” said Francis cheerfully. “I thought you had forgotten all about it.”
“I almost had—in fact I quite had until this morning,” said Michael. “If I had remembered it I shouldn’t have asked her.”
He corrected himself.
“No, I don’t think that’s true,” he said. “I should have asked her, anyhow; but I should have been prepared for her not to take me. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t.”
Francis turned sideways to the table, throwing one leg over the other.
“That’s nonsense,” he said. “It doesn’t matter whether a man’s ugly or not.”
“It doesn’t as long as he is not,” remarked Michael grimly.
“It doesn’t matter much in any case. We’re all ugly compared to girls; and why ever they should consent to marry any of us awful hairy things, smelling of smoke and drink, is more than I can make out; but, as a matter of fact, they do. They don’t mind what we look like; what they care about is whether we want them. Of course, there are exceptions—”