“What?” said Eve, distrait.
“Marry me, you know. What I mean to say is, I worship the very ground you walk on, and all that sort of rot . . . I mean, and all that. And now that you realise that I’m going to get this couple of thousand . . . and the bookie’s business . . . and what not, I mean to say . . .”
“Freddie,” said Eve tensely, expressing her harassed nerves in a voice that came hotly through clenched teeth, “go away!”
“Eh?”
“I don’t want to marry you, and I’m sick of having to keep on telling you so. Will you please go away and leave me alone?” She stopped. Her sense of fairness told her that she was working off on her hapless suitor venom which should have been expended on herself. “I’m sorry, Freddie,” she said, softening; “I didn’t mean to be such a beast as that. I know you’re awfully fond of me, but really, really I can’t marry you. You don’t want to marry a girl who doesn’t love you, do you?”
“Yes, I do,” said Freddie stoutly. “If it’s you, I mean. Love is a tiny seed that coldness can wither, but if tended and nurtured in the fostering warmth of an honest heart . . .”
“But, Freddie.”
“Blossoms into a flower,” concluded Freddie rapidly. “What I mean to say is, love would come after marriage.”
“Nonsense!”
“Well, that’s the way it happened in ‘A Society Mating.’”