What is the significance in this quote? "You see I've been leading a sort of a funny life. And I never even talk English. And you are so very beautiful."

Henry is an outsider. We really don't get to know him very well. He is one of those aloof narrators that defies us to get to know him. He is an American volunteer on the Italian front. There is a sense he is an outsider even when it comes to Catherine. Frederick had just been slapped by Catherine for kissing her. Frederick's response is like something out of a Bogart film. He is cryptic at best probably because the finer points of intimacy are not his specialty.