ou look like business.
Do you really mean it? Are you really going to Flanders?"

"Do you suppose any woman would go and get herself up like this if she
wasn't going _some_where?"

He said (surprisingly), "I don't see what's wrong with it." And then:
"It makes you look about eighteen."

"That's because you can't see my face for the dirt."

"For the chin-strap, you mean. Dorothy--do you realize that you're not
eighteen? You're eight and twenty."

"I do," she said. "But I rather hoped you didn't; or that if you did,
you wouldn't say so."

"I realize that I'm thirty-eight, and that between us we've made a
pretty mess of each other's lives."

"Have I made a mess of _your_ life?'

"A beastly mess."

"I'm sorry. I wouldn't have done it for the world if I'd known. You know
I wouldn't.

"But one doesn't know things."

"One doesn't if one's Dorothea. One knows some things awfully well; but
not the things that matter."

"Well--but what could I do?" she said.

"You could have done what you can do now. You could have married me. And
we would have had three years of each other."

"You mean three centuries. There was a reason why we couldn't manage
it."

"There wasn't a reason. There isn't any reason now.

"Look here--to-day's Wednesday. Will you marry me on Friday if I get
leave and a licence and fix it up tomorrow? We shall have three days."

"Three days." She seemed to be saying to herself that for three
days--No, it wasn't worth while.

"Well, three months perhaps. Perhaps six, if my rotten luck doesn't
change. Because, I'm doing my level best to make it change. So, you see,
it's got to be one thing or another."

And still she seemed to be considering: Was it or was it not worth
while?

"For God's sake don't say you're going to make conditions. There really
isn't time for it. You can think what you like and say what you like and
do what you like, and wear anything--wear a busby--I shan't care if
you'll only marry me."

"Yes. That's the way you go on. And yet you don't, say you love me. You
never have said it. You--you're leaving me to do all that."

"Why--what else have I been doing for seven years? Nine years--ten
years?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all. You just seem to think that I can go off and
get married to a man without knowing whether he cares for me or not.

"And now it's too late. My hands are all dirty. So's my
face--filthy--you mustn't--"

"I don't care. They're your hands. It's your face