"Vivie!"
"Michael!"
"My dear! You're handsomer than ever!"
"Michael! Your khaki uniform becomes you; and I'm so glad you've got rid of that beard. Now we can see your well-shaped chin. But still: we mustn't stand here, paying one another compliments, though this meeting is too wonderful: I never thought I should see you again. Let's come to realities. I suppose the real heart-felt question at the back of your mind is: can I let you have a room? I can, but not a bath-room suite; they're all taken..."
Michael: "Nonsense! I'm going to be put up at the Palace Hotel. Jenkins—you remember the butler of old time?—Jenkins, and my batman, a refined brigand, a polished robber, have already been there and commandeered something....
"No. I came here, firstly to find out if you were living; secondly to ask you to marry me" ... (a pause) ... "and thirdly to find out what happened to Bertie Adams. A message came through the Spanish Legation here, a year and a half ago, to the effect that he had died at Brussels from the consequences of the War. However, unless you can tell me at once this is all a mistake, we can go into his affairs later. My first question is—Oh! Bother all this cackle.... Will you marry me?"
Vivie: "Dear, brave Bertie, whom I shall everlastingly mourn, was shot here in Brussels by the abominable Germans, as a spy, on April 8th, 1917. He was of course no more a spy than you are or I am. The poor devoted fool—I rage still, because I shall never be worth such folly, such selfless devotion—got into Belgium with false passports—American: in the hope of rescuing me. He came and enquired here—my last address in his remembrance—and came by sheer bad luck just as the Kaiser was about to arrive. They jumped to the conclusion that—"
Rossiter: "Awfully, cruelly sad. But you can give me the details of it later on. You must have a long, long story of your own to tell which ought to be of poignant interest. But ... will you marry me? I suppose you know dear Linda died—was killed by a bomb in a German air-raid last year—October, 1917. I really felt heart-broken about it, but I know now I am only doing what she would have wished. She came at last to talk about you quite differently, quite understanding—"
Vivie: "That's what all widowers say. They always declare the dead wife begged them to marry again, and even designated her successor. Poor Linda! Yes, I read an account of it in a copy of the Times; but I couldn't of course communicate with you to say how truly, truly sorry I was. I am glad to know she spoke nicely of me. Did she really? Or have you only made it up?"