MARCHBANKS. I beg your pardon. I thought clever people--people who can do business and write letters, and that sort of thing--always had love affairs. PROSERPINE (rising, outraged). Mr. Marchbanks! (She looks severely at him, and marches with much dignity to the bookcase.) MARCHBANKS (approaching her humbly). I hope I haven't offended you. Perhaps I shouldn't have alluded to your love affairs. PROSERPINE (plucking a blue book from the shelf and turning sharply on him). I haven't any love affairs. How dare you say such a thing? MARCHBANKS (simply). Really! Oh, then you are shy, like me. Isn't that so? PROSERPINE. Certainly I am not shy. What do you mean? MARCHBANKS (secretly). You must be: that is the reason there are so few love affairs in the world. We all go about longing for love: it is the first need of our natures, the loudest cry Of our hearts; but we dare not utter our longing: we are too shy. (Very earnestly.) Oh, Miss Garnett, what would you not give to be without fear, without shame-- PROSERPINE (scandalized), Well, upon my word! MARCHBANKS (with petulant impatience). Ah, don't say those stupid things to me: they don't deceive me: what use are they? Why are you afraid to be your real self with me? I am just like you. PROSERPINE. Like me! Pray, are you flattering me or flattering yourself? I don't feel quite sure which. (She turns to go back to the typewriter.) MARCHBANKS (stopping her mysteriously). Hush! I go about in search of love; and I find it in unmeasured stores in the bosoms of others. But when I try to ask for it, this horrible shyness strangles me; and I stand dumb, or worse than dumb, saying meaningless things--foolish lies. And I see the affection I am longing for given to dogs and cats and pet birds, because they come and ask for it. (Almost whispering.) It must be asked for: it is like a ghost: it cannot speak unless it is first spoken to. (At his normal pitch, but with deep melancholy.) All the love in the world is longing to speak; only it dare not, because it is shy, shy, shy. That is the world's tragedy. (With a deep sigh he sits in the spare chair and buries his face in his hands.) PROSERPINE (amazed, but keeping her wits about her--her point of honor in encounters with strange young men). Wicked people get over that shyness occasionally, don't they? MARCHBANKS (scrambling up almost fiercely). Wicked people means people who have no love: therefore they have no shame. They have the power to ask love because they don't need it: they have the power to offer it because they have none to give. (He collapses into his seat, and adds, mournfully) But we, who have love, and long to mingle it with the love of others: we cannot utter a word. (Timidly.) You find that, don't you? PROSERPINE. Look here: if you don't stop talking like this, I'll leave the room, Mr. Marchbanks: I really will. It's not proper. (She resumes her seat at the typewriter, opening the blue book and preparing to copy a passage from it.)