“And I have brought you these,” he continued, awkwardly pulling out the case, and opening it while holding it towards her.
“O Mr. Knight!” said Elfride confusedly, and turning to a lively red; “I didn’t know you had any intention or meaning in what you said. I thought it a mere supposition. I don’t want them.”
A thought which had flashed into her mind gave the reply a greater decisiveness than it might otherwise have possessed. To-morrow was the day for Stephen’s letter.
“But will you not accept them?” Knight returned, feeling less her master than heretofore.
“I would rather not. They are beautiful—more beautiful than any I have ever seen,” she answered earnestly, looking half-wishfully at the temptation, as Eve may have looked at the apple. “But I don’t want to have them, if you will kindly forgive me, Mr. Knight.”
“No kindness at all,” said Mr. Knight, brought to a full stop at this unexpected turn of events.
A silence followed. Knight held the open case, looking rather wofully at the glittering forms he had forsaken his orbit to procure; turning it about and holding it up as if, feeling his gift to be slighted by her, he were endeavouring to admire it very much himself.
“Shut them up, and don’t let me see them any longer—do!” she said laughingly, and with a quaint mixture of reluctance and entreaty.
“Why, Elfie?”
“Not Elfie to you, Mr. Knight. Oh, because I shall want them. There, I am silly, I know, to say that! But I have a reason for not taking them—now.” She kept in the last word for a moment, intending to imply that her refusal was finite, but somehow the word slipped out, and undid all the rest.