FREDDY. They will, they will! I've been thinking about it all day! I didn't go to college... I spent the whole day pacing the streets.
OCEANA. Why, Freddy!
FREDDY. And I want you to come away! Come away with me! I want you.. . [Wildly.]... I want you to marry me!
OCEANA. [Aghast.] Why, Freddy!
FREDDY. Oh, I know it's a fool way... to blurt it out at you like that. I thought up a hundred ways to say it to you. I had a fine speech all by heart, but I can't remember a word of it. When I see you I can't even think straight. I'm simply beside myself... I can't rest, I can't sleep, I can't do anything. I used to laugh at such ideas, but now I'm frightened at myself. Can't you understand me, Oceana? Oceana... I love you!
OCEANA. [Whispers.] My poor boy!
FREDDY. I don't ask you to say yes... I just ask you to give me a chance... a hope. If I thought I might win you, I'd do anything.. . anything! I'd wait for you... I'd work for you... I'd worship you! Oceana! [He stops.] May I... May I take your hand? [She does not give it.] Ah, no! I have no right! Oceana, listen to me! I have thought that I was in love before... but it was just childish, it was nothing like this. This has been a revelation to me... it makes all the world seem different to me. And just see how suddenly it's come... why, yesterday I was a boy! Yesterday I thought some things were interesting... and to-day I wonder how I could have cared about them. Nothing seems the same to me. And it all happened at once, it was like an explosion... the first instant I laid eyes on you I knew that you were the one woman I could ever love. And I said to myself, she will laugh at you.
[He hesitates.]
OCEANA. No, I won't laugh at you.
FREDDY. I tried to keep it to myself, but I couldn't... not if I were to be hanged for it. I'm just... just torn out of myself. I'm trembling with delight, and then I'm plunged into despair, and then I stop to think and I'm terrified. For I don't know what I can do. Everything in my life is gone—I won't know how to live if you send me away.