OCEANA. [Smiles.] See him run! Well, Freddy, what is it? FREDDY. [Intensely.] Oceana! OCEANA. What's the matter? FREDDY. You mustn't stay here! OCEANA. Why not? FREDDY. They'll ruin you, Oceana! They'll crush you, they'll spoil you forever! 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 to fall in love with me. There were three on this last steamer. FREDDY. Yes. OCEANA. You say to marry you. But it's difficult for me to imagine myself marrying any man, no matter how much I loved him. One has to make so many promises, you know. FREDDY. How do you mean? OCEANA. You have to "love, honor and obey."