, I shall have a whole week's happenings to tell
her. They won't lose in the telling, Mr. Mallory. Our little breakfast
here this morning--she will love to hear about that. I can see her
happy excited face as I tell her all that I said to you, and--if I
can remember it--all that you said to me.

GERVASE (eagerly). I say, how jolly! (Thoughtfully) You won't forget
what I said about the Great Percy? I thought that was rather good.

SUSAN. I hope it wasn't too good, Mr. Mallory. If it was, I shall find
myself telling it to her as one of my own remarks. That's why I say
"Get married." Then you can make things fair for yourself. You can
tell her all the good things of mine which _you_ said.

GERVASE. But there must be more in marriage than that.

SUSAN. There are a million things in marriage, but companionship is at
the bottom of it all. . . . Do you know what companionship means?

GERVASE. How do you mean? Literally?

SUSAN. The derivation of it in the dictionary. It means the art of
having meals with a person. Cynics talk of the impossibility of
sitting opposite the same woman every day at breakfast. Impossible to
_them_, perhaps, poor shallow-hearted creatures, but not impossible to
two people who have found what love is.

GERVASE. It doesn't sound very romantic.

SUSAN (solemnly). It is the most romantic thing in the whole world. . . .
Some more cheese?

GERVASE (taking it). Thank you. . . . (Thoughtfully) Do you believe in
love at first sight, Master Susan?

SUSAN. Why not? If it's the woman you love at first sight, not only
the face.

GERVASE. I see. (After a pause) It's rather hard to tell, you know. I
suppose the proper thing to do is to ask her to have breakfast with
you, and see how you get on.

SUSAN. Well, you might do worse.

GERVASE (laughing). And propose to her after breakfast?

SUSAN. If you will. It is better than proposing to her at a ball as
some young people do, carried away suddenly by a snatched kiss in the
moonlight.

GERVASE (shaking his head). Nothing like that happened last night.

SUSAN. What does the Great Alfred say of the kiss?

GERVASE. I never read the _Daily Mail_.

SUSAN. Tennyson, Mr. Mallory, Tennyson.

GERVASE. Oh, I beg your pardon.

SUSAN. "The kiss," says the Great Alfred, "the woven arms, seem but to
be weak symbols of the settled bliss, the comfort, I have found in
thee." The same idea, Mr. Mallory. Companionship, or the art of having
breakfast with a perso