"I'm always definite," said John.
"Yes. M' yes, I suppose you are!"
They walked down Tottenham Court Road and caught a 'bus going along Oxford Street.
"You don't seem very pleased now that I've said I'll marry you," she murmured, as they sat together on the back seat on top of the 'bus.
"I believe you're only marrying me to get away from that club you're living in!" he replied.
"That's one reason, but it isn't the only reason. I do like you, John. Really, I do!"
"I want you to love me, love me desperately, the way I love you."
"But you've no right to expect that. Women don't love men for a long time after men love them ... and sometimes they never love them. There's a girl in our club ... well, she's not a girl, but she's unmarried, so, of course we call her a girl ... and she says that most of us can live fairly happily with quite a number of people. She says that a person has one supreme love affair ... which may not come to anything ... and enough liking for about a hundred people to be able to marry and live happily with anyone of them. I think that's true. I've known plenty of men that I think I could have married and been happy enough with. You're one of them!..."
"This is a nice thing to be telling me when my heart's bursting for you. I tell you, Eleanor, I love you till I don't know what I'm doing or thinking, and all you tell me is that I'm one out of a hundred and you like me well enough to put up with me!..."
"You don't want me to tell you that I'm in love with you ... like that ... when I'm not?"