"Oh yes, many a time."
"I did not enjoy it at first. I hope you did. I think Christina did. It was the fairest evening imaginable; and my oar, every stroke I made, broke and shivered purple and golden waters. It was sailing over the rarest possible mosaic in which the pattern was constantly shifting. I studied it, while I was studying how to begin what I had to do. Then, after a while, when we were well out from shore, I lay on my oars, and asked Miss Thayer whether she were sure that her judgment was according to her words, in the matter we had been discussing at the house? She asked what I meant. I put it to her then, whether she would choose to marry a man who liked another woman better than he did herself?
"Christina's eyes opened a little, and she said 'Not if she knew it.'
"'Then you gave a wrong verdict up there,' I said.
"'But that was about what the man should do,' she replied. 'If he has made a promise, he must fulfil it. Or the woman, if it is the woman.'
"'Would not that be doing a wrong to the other party?'
"'How a wrong?' said Christina. 'It would be keeping a promise. Every honourable person does that.'
"'What if it be a promise which the other side no longer wishes to have kept?'
"'You cannot tell that,' said Christina. 'You cannot know. Probably the other side does wish it kept.'
"I reminded her that she had just declared she, in the circumstances, would not wish it; but she said, somewhat illogically, 'that it made no difference.'