Behind the youth and maiden was a tempting alcove and seat, formed naturally in the beetling mass, and wide enough to admit two or three persons. Elfride sat down, and Stephen sat beside her.
“I am afraid it is hardly proper of us to be here, either,” she said half inquiringly. “We have not known each other long enough for this kind of thing, have we!”
“Oh yes,” he replied judicially; “quite long enough.”
“How do you know?”
“It is not length of time, but the manner in which our minutes beat, that makes enough or not enough in our acquaintanceship.”
“Yes, I see that. But I wish papa suspected or knew what a VERY NEW THING I am doing. He does not think of it at all.”
“Darling Elfie, I wish we could be married! It is wrong for me to say it—I know it is—before you know more; but I wish we might be, all the same. Do you love me deeply, deeply?”
“No!” she said in a fluster.
At this point-blank denial, Stephen turned his face away decisively, and preserved an ominous silence; the only objects of interest on earth for him being apparently the three or four-score sea-birds circling in the air afar off.
“I didn’t mean to stop you quite,” she faltered with some alarm; and seeing that he still remained silent, she added more anxiously, “If you say that again, perhaps, I will not be quite—quite so obstinate—if—if you don’t like me to be.”