“Very much.  One naturally wants to please delightful people.  And I think they are both delightful.  Especially the girl; but then she starts with the tremendous advantage of being—­of being a girl.  I believe you are in love with her, Mike, just as I am.  It’s that which makes you so grumpy.  But then you never do fall in love.  It’s a pity; you miss a lot of jolly trouble.”

Michael felt a sudden overwhelming desire to make Francis stop this maddening twaddle; also the events of the morning were beginning to take on an air of reality, and as this grew he felt the need of sympathy of some kind.  Francis might not be able to give him anything that was of any use, but it would do no harm to see if his cousin’s buoyant unconscious philosophy, which made life so exciting and pleasant a thing to him, would in any way help.  Besides, he must stop this light banter, which was like drawing plaster off a sore and unhealed wound.

“You’re quite right,” he said.  “I am in love with her.  Furthermore, I asked her to marry me this morning.”

This certainly had an effect.

“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.”

He corrected himself.

“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—­”

“You see one,” said Michael.

“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?”

“I couldn’t give up.”

“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.”