"You couldn't have stopped it."

"I'm sorry."

"What about?"

"That. It isn't any good. It really isn't."

"Why isn't it? I know I'm rather a queer chap. And I've got an ugly face—"

"I love your face…."

She loved it, with its composure and its candour, its slightly flattened features, laid back; its little surprised moustache, its short-sighted eyes and its sadness.

"It's the dearest face. But—"

"I suppose," he said, "it sounds a bit startling and sudden. But if you'd been bottling it up as long as I have—Why, I loved you the first time I saw you. On the boat…. So you see, it's you. It isn't just anything you've done."

"If you knew what I have done, my dear. If you only knew. You wouldn't want to marry me."