“No, no! I would rather have your anger than that cool aggrieved politeness. Do drop that, Harry! Why should you inflict that upon me? It reduces me to the level of a mere acquaintance.”
“You do that with me. Why not confidence for confidence?”
“Yes; but I didn’t ask you a single question with regard to your past: I didn’t wish to know about it. All I cared for was that, wherever you came from, whatever you had done, whoever you had loved, you were mine at last. Harry, if originally you had known I had loved, would you never have cared for me?”
“I won’t quite say that. Though I own that the idea of your inexperienced state had a great charm for me. But I think this: that if I had known there was any phase of your past love you would refuse to reveal if I asked to know it, I should never have loved you.”
Elfride sobbed bitterly. “Am I such a—mere characterless toy—as to have no attrac—tion in me, apart from—freshness? Haven’t I brains? You said—I was clever and ingenious in my thoughts, and—isn’t that anything? Have I not some beauty? I think I have a little—and I know I have—yes, I do! You have praised my voice, and my manner, and my accomplishments. Yet all these together are so much rubbish because I—accidentally saw a man before you!”
“Oh, come, Elfride. ‘Accidentally saw a man’ is very cool. You loved him, remember.”
—“And loved him a little!”
“And refuse now to answer the simple question how it ended. Do you refuse still, Elfride?”
“You have no right to question me so—you said so. It is unfair. Trust me as I trust you.”
“That’s not at all.”