"When?"
"The first time we ever spoke about it."
"My dear Jimmy, I haven't spoken to anybody about it till to-night."
"We spoke about it years ago," he said.
"We couldn't possibly have spoken about it years ago."
"At Bruges. Perhaps it was I who spoke. I tell you I saw it coming. Don't you remember I gave you six months?"
"You were out there, anyhow. It's taken three and a half years."
"Because you were such a duffer. You behaved as if you expected the poor child to propose to you herself. I've been trying to make you see it for the last three and a half years, and you wouldn't. There never was such a chap for not seeing what's under his nose."
"Norah isn't under my nose; she's miles above it, and if it comes to that, I've seen it for the last three years."
He had tripped me up by the heels.