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.]