“I wonder if Elfride has ever had a lover before?” he said aloud, as a new idea, quite. This and companion thoughts were enough to occupy him completely till he fell asleep—rather later than usual.
The next day, when they were again alone, he said to her rather suddenly—
“Do you love me more or less, Elfie, for what I told you on board the steamer?”
“You told me so many things,” she returned, lifting her eyes to his and smiling.
“I mean the confession you coaxed out of me—that I had never been in the position of lover before.”
“It is a satisfaction, I suppose, to be the first in your heart,” she said to him, with an attempt to continue her smiling.
“I am going to ask you a question now,” said Knight, somewhat awkwardly. “I only ask it in a whimsical way, you know: not with great seriousness, Elfride. You may think it odd, perhaps.”
Elfride tried desperately to keep the colour in her face. She could not, though distressed to think that getting pale showed consciousness of deeper guilt than merely getting red.
“Oh no—I shall not think that,” she said, because obliged to say something to fill the pause which followed her questioner’s remark.
“It is this: have you ever had a lover? I am almost sure you have not; but, have you?”