"Oh, no, no."
"Well, I, I—I'm awfully glad you like it."
"Yes, I do like it. I—I think it's lovely."
"I—I thought you'd like it."
Alex began to feel as though she was in a nightmare, but she was mysteriously unable to put an end to their sorry dialogue.
"It's perfectly lovely, I think. I don't know how to thank you."
Noel swallowed two or three times, visibly and audibly, and then took a couple of determined steps towards her.
"I think you—you'd better let me kiss you," he said hoarsely. "You haven't yet, you know."
Something deep down within Alex was surging up in angry bewilderment, and she was sufficiently aware of a sense of protest to rebut it indignantly and with lightning-swift determination.
It was the humility of love that had prompted her lover to crave that permission which should never have been asked.