For some minutes neither could make up her mind to break the ice and speak. They sat shame-faced beside one another on the sofa, like a pair of shy and frightened maidens. At last Mrs. Clifford braced herself up to interrupt the awkward silence. “You’ve been in Chetwood Forest, Elma,” she murmured low, looking down and averting her eyes carefully from her trembling daughter.
“Yes, mother,” Elma answered, all aglow with conscious blushes. “In Chetwood Forest.”
“And you met him, dear?” The mother spoke tenderly and sympathetically.
Elma’s heart stood still. “Yes, mother, I met him.”
“And he had the snake there?”
Elma started in surprise. Why dwell upon that seemingly unimportant detail? “Oh yes,” she answered, still redder and hotter than ever. “He had it there. He was painting it.”
Mrs. Clifford paused a minute. Then she went on, with pain. “And he asked you, Elma?”
Elma bowed her head. “Yes, he asked me—and I refused him,” she answered, with a terrible wrench.
“Oh, darling; I know it,” Mrs. Clifford cried, seizing both cold hands in hers. “And I know why, too. But, Elma, believe me, you needn’t have done it. My daughter, my daughter, you might just as well have taken him.”
“No, never,” Elma cried, rising from her seat and moving towards the door in an agony of shame. “I couldn’t. I daren’t. It would be wrong. It would be cruel. But, mother, don’t speak to me of it. Don’t mention it again. Even before you it makes me more wretched and ashamed than I can say to allude to it.”