“No, not now. I did not mean to-night,” Elfride responded, with a slight decline in the firmness of her voice. “It is not light as you think it—it troubles me a great deal.” Fearing now the effect of her own earnestness, she added forcedly, “Though, perhaps, you may think it light after all.”
“But you have not said when it is to be?”
“To-morrow morning. Name a time, will you, and bind me to it? I want you to fix an hour, because I am weak, and may otherwise try to get out of it.” She added a little artificial laugh, which showed how timorous her resolution was still.
“Well, say after breakfast—at eleven o’clock.”
“Yes, eleven o’clock. I promise you. Bind me strictly to my word.”
Chapter XXVIII
“I lull a fancy, trouble-tost.”
Miss Swancourt, it is eleven o’clock.”
She was looking out of her dressing-room window on the first floor, and Knight was regarding her from the terrace balustrade, upon which he had been idly sitting for some time—dividing the glances of his eye between the pages of a book in his hand, the brilliant hues of the geraniums and calceolarias, and the open window above-mentioned.
“Yes, it is, I know. I am coming.”