He said:
"It didn't need your putting up all that blue stocking erudition to convince me. . . ."
"Blue stocking!" she exclaimed contemptuously. "There's nothing of the blue stocking about me. I know Latin because father spoke it with us. It was your pompous blue socks I was pulling."
Suddenly she began to laugh. Tietjens was feeling sick, physically sick. She went on laughing. He stuttered:
"What is it?"
"The sun!" she said, pointing. Above the silver horizon was the sun; not a red sun: shining, burnished.
"I don't see . . ." Tietjens said.
"What there is to laugh at?" she asked. "It's the day! . . . The longest day's begun . . . and to-morrow's as long. . . . The summer solstice, you know. . . . After to-morrow the days shorten towards winter. But to-morrow's as long. . . . I'm so glad . . ."
"That we've got through the night? . . ." Tietjens asked.
She looked at him for a long time. "You're not so dreadfully ugly, really," she said.