“Not, as it were, a lover; I mean, not worth mentioning, Harry,” she faltered.
Knight, overstrained in sentiment as he knew the feeling to be, felt some sickness of heart.
“Still, he was a lover?”
“Well, a sort of lover, I suppose,” she responded tardily.
“A man, I mean, you know.”
“Yes; but only a mere person, and——”
“But truly your lover?”
“Yes; a lover certainly—he was that. Yes, he might have been called my lover.”
Knight said nothing to this for a minute or more, and kept silent time with his finger to the tick of the old library clock, in which room the colloquy was going on.
“You don’t mind, Harry, do you?” she said anxiously, nestling close to him, and watching his face.