The remark broke in upon her thoughts as something almost silly in its irrelevancy. Again she looked up at him as he stood before her rather as if expecting rebuke. Again he span round and continued his pacing of the room. As he walked he threw staccatoed remarks from him rather than directed them at Dorothy. "There's nothing wrong with the _Destroyer_. When you're after one thing you don't seem to notice all the other things buzzing around. One day you wake up to find out that you've been missing things. I've been telling myself all the time that some things didn't matter, but they do." He paused in front of Dorothy, expressing the last three words with almost savage emphasis. "There's never been anybody except Jim--and the boys," he added, "until your mother was----" He stopped dead, then a moment later continued: "I'd like her to know." To Dorothy his voice seemed a little husky. "May be it'ud please her to think that she had--you see I'm telling you the whole shooting-match," he blurted out as he resumed his restless pacing up and down. "But that's just what you're not doing," said Dorothy. "I don't in the least understand what you mean, and---- Oh, I wish you could stand still, if only for a minute." Instantly John Dene stopped in his walk, and stood in the middle of the room looking over Dorothy's head. "I'm trying to ask you to marry me, only I haven't got the sand to do it," he blurted out almost angrily. "Oh!" Dorothy's hands slipped into her lap, her eyes widened and her lips parted, as she looked up at him utterly dumbfounded. "There, I knew what it would mean," he said, as he continued his pacing. "What have I got to offer? Look at me. I'm not good-looking. My clothes are not right. I don't wear them properly. I can't say pretty things. The best I can do is to buy flowers and chocolates and express them. I daren't even hand them to you. Oh, I've thought it all over. What use am I to a woman?" Then as an after-thought he added, "to a girl?" He turned and paced away from Dorothy without looking at her. "Oh, shucks!" John Dene swung round on his heel as if he had been struck. His jaw dropped, his cigar fell from his mouth, and he looked at her as if she had said the most surprising thing he had ever heard. "I said 'shucks'" she repeated. Her eyelids flickered a little and she was unusually pale. "You mean----" His voice was far from steady. "I mean," said Dorothy quietly, "that a man who could invent the _Destroyer_ ought to be able to learn how to talk to--to--be nice to a girl." The last five words came tumbling over each other, as if she had found great difficulty in uttering them, and then had thrown them all out at one time. "Say," he began, hope shining from his eyes. Then he stopped abruptly and walked over to his chair, throwing himself into it with a sigh. "You mean."