“You’re quite right,” he said. “I am in love with her. Furthermore, I asked her to marry me this morning.”
“Good Lord!” said Francis. “And do you mean to say she refused you?”
“She didn’t accept me,” said Michael. “We--we adjourned.”
“But why on earth didn’t she take you?” asked Francis.
All Michael’s old sensitiveness, his self-consciousness of his plainness, his awkwardness, his big hands, his short legs, came back to him.
“I should think you could see well enough if you look at me,” he said, “without my telling you.”
“Oh, that silly old rot,” said Francis cheerfully. “I thought you had forgotten all about it.”
“I almost had--in fact I quite had until this morning,” said Michael. “If I had remembered it I shouldn’t have asked her.”
“No, I don’t think that’s true,” he said. “I should have asked her, anyhow; but I should have been prepared for her not to take me. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t.”
Francis turned sideways to the table, throwing one leg over the other.
“That’s nonsense,” he said. “It doesn’t matter whether a man’s ugly or not.”
“It doesn’t as long as he is not,” remarked Michael grimly.
“It doesn’t matter much in any case. We’re all ugly compared to girls; and why ever they should consent to marry any of us awful hairy things, smelling of smoke and drink, is more than I can make out; but, as a matter of fact, they do. They don’t mind what we look like; what they care about is whether we want them. Of course, there are exceptions--”
“No, I don’t. Good Lord, you’ve only asked her once. You’ve got to make yourself felt. You’re not intending to give up, are you?”
“Well then, just hold on. She likes you, doesn’t she?”
“Certainly,” said Michael, without hesitation. “But that’s a long way from the other thing.”
“It may be,” he said, “but it strikes me it’s round the corner. You can’t even see one from the other.”
“Possibly not. But you never know how near the corner really is. Go for her, Mike, full speed ahead.”
“Oh, there are hundreds of ways. I’m not sure that one of the best isn’t to keep away for a bit. Even if she doesn’t want you just now, when you are there, she may get to want you when you aren’t. I don’t think I should go on the mournful Byronic plan if I were you; I don’t think it would suit your style; you’re too heavily built to stand leaning against the chimney-piece, gazing at her and dishevelling your hair.”