“Oh, I was merely going to say that in that case I should never have given myself the pleasure of proposing to you, since your freedom from that experience was your attraction, darling.”
“You are severe on women, are you not?”
“No, I think not. I had a right to please my taste, and that was for untried lips. Other men than those of my sort acquire the taste as they get older—but don’t find an Elfride——”
“What horrid sound is that we hear when we pitch forward?”
“Only the screw—don’t find an Elfride as I did. To think that I should have discovered such an unseen flower down there in the West—to whom a man is as much as a multitude to some women, and a trip down the English Channel like a voyage round the world!”
“And would you,” she said, and her voice was tremulous, “have given up a lady—if you had become engaged to her—and then found she had had ONE kiss before yours—and would you have—gone away and left her?”
“One kiss,—no, hardly for that.”
“Two?”
“Well—I could hardly say inventorially like that. Too much of that sort of thing certainly would make me dislike a woman. But let us confine our attention to ourselves, not go thinking of might have beens.”
So Elfride had allowed her thoughts to “dally with false surmise,” and every one of Knight’s words fell upon her like a weight. After this they were silent for a long time, gazing upon the black mysterious sea, and hearing the strange voice of the restless wind. A rocking to and fro on the waves, when the breeze is not too violent and cold, produces a soothing effect even upon the most highly-wrought mind. Elfride slowly sank against Knight, and looking down, he found by her soft regular breathing that she had fallen asleep. Not wishing to disturb her, he continued still, and took an intense pleasure in supporting her warm young form as it rose and fell with her every breath.