"I doubt if I can succeed in telling you how selfish I am, but there's no harm in trying." Speech hung fire for a moment, to seek for words; then found them. "I am a thing in the dark, with an object, and I call it Gwen. I am an atom adrift in a huge black silence, and it crushes my soul, and I am misery itself. Then I hear the voice that I call Gwen's, and forthwith I am happy beyond the wildest dreams of the Poets—though really that isn't saying much, because their wildest dreams are usually unintelligible, and frequently ungrammatical...."
"Never mind them! Go on with how selfish you are."
"Can't you let a poor beggar get to the end of his parenthesis? I was endeavouring to sketch the situation, as a preliminary to going on with how selfish I am. I was remarking that however dissatisfied I feel with the Most High, however sulky I am with the want of foresight in the Primum Mobile—or his indifference to my interests; it comes to the same thing—however inclined to cry out against the darkness, the darkness that once was light, I no sooner hear that voice that I call Gwen's than I am at least in the seven-hundredth heaven of happiness. When I hear that voice, I am all Christian forgiveness towards my Maker. When it goes, my heart is dumb and the darkness gains upon me. That I beg to state, is a simple prosaic statement of an everyday fact. When I have added that the powers that I ascribe to the voice that I know to be Gwen's are also inherent in the hand that I believe to be Gwen's.... Don't pull it away!"
"I only wanted to look at it. Just to see why you shouldn't know it was mine, as well as the voice."
"I know I couldn't be mistaken about the voice. I don't think I could be wrong about the hand, but I don't know that I couldn't."
"Well—now you've got it again! Now go on. Go on to how selfish you are—that's what I want!"
"I will endeavour to do so. I hope my imperfect indication of my view of my own position...."
"Don't be prosy. It is not fair to expect any girl to keep a popular lecturer's head in her lap...."
"I agree—I agree. It was my desire to be strictly practical. I will come to the point. I want to make it perfectly clear that you are my life...."
"Don't get too loud!"