orever! You must go away!

OCEANA. Why, my dear boy, how can they hurt me?

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.

OCEANA. [Gravely.] Freddy, come sit down here. Be rational now.

FREDDY. Yes.

[He sits watching her, in a kind of daze.]

OCEANA. In the first place, Freddy... you must understand, it isn't the
first time this has happened to me.

FREDDY. No, I suppose not.

OCEANA. The officers of the ships always used t