"Not to me, it wasn't."
"But why, for Pete's sake? Tell me why? What did I do, that was so unusual? Do you mind if I tell you something? Please don't get on a high horse, don't lose your temper—"
"I've already lost it. It's so far lost I'll probably never get it back again."
"All right, but just listen ... please. You're a wonderful person. But you have so low a boiling point at times that you're your own worst enemy. You cut off your nose to spite your face. I do it, too ... often enough. Maybe that's why we get along so well together."
"Do we? Right now I'd say we were more like a tiger and a lion in a cage together."
"All right. A tiger and a lion can get along very well together, if their temperaments coincide. They can even mate and give birth to a tigron. There's one at the Bronx Zoo. In fact—"
"Now you're trying to be amusing again. You'd better be damned serious, because I was never more serious in my life ... about what happened on that dance floor. I'm going to say something that will shock you. You think I'm a prude. You've said so often enough, despite the fact that I've never behaved like one with you in bed, have I? Have I?"
His eyes became suddenly serious. "No, darling—of course not. And if I ever called you a prude I'm sorry. That was only when I first met you and you did seem—"
"A scared virgin? All right, maybe I was. You wouldn't understand, probably, if I told you what torments I went through before I met you; what a high, terrible price I had to pay for feeling that way, for being like that. Most people think it amusing."
"I never did. I thought it tragic but I loved you all the more because of it."