or?' she said, after a long musing look at a
flying bird.

'I don't know,' he replied idly.

'Oh yes, you do,' insisted Elfride.

'Perhaps, for your eyes.'

'What of them?--now, don't vex me by a light answer. What of my eyes?'

'Oh, nothing to be mentioned. They are indifferently good.'

'Come, Stephen, I won't have that. What did you love me for?'

'It might have been for your mouth?'

'Well, what about my mouth?'

'I thought it was a passable mouth enough----'

'That's not very comforting.'

'With a pretty pout and sweet lips; but actually, nothing more than what
everybody has.'

'Don't make up things out of your head as you go on, there's a dear
Stephen. Now--what--did--you--love--me--for?'

'Perhaps, 'twas for your neck and hair; though I am not sure: or for
your idle blood, that did nothing but wander away from your cheeks
and back again; but I am not sure. Or your hands and arms, that they
eclipsed all other hands and arms; or your feet, that they played about
under your dress like little mice; or your tongue, that it was of a dear
delicate tone. But I am not altogether sure.'

'Ah, that's pretty to say; but I don't care for your love, if it made a
mere flat picture of me in that way, and not being sure, and such
cold reasoning; but what you FELT I was, you know, Stephen' (at this
a stealthy laugh and frisky look into his face), 'when you said to
yourself, "I'll certainly love that young lady."'

'I never said it.'

'When you said to yourself, then, "I never will love that young lady."'

'I didn't say that, either.'

'Then was it, "I suppose I must love that young lady?"'

'No.'

'What, then?'

''Twas much more fluctuating--not so definite.'

'Tell me; do, do.'

'It was that I ought not to think about you if I loved you truly.'

'Ah, that I don't understand. There's no getting it out of you. And I'll
not ask you ever any more--never more--to say out of the deep reality of
your heart what you loved me for.'

'Sweet tantalizer, what's the use? It comes to this sole simple thing:
That at one time I had never seen you, and I didn't love you; that then
I saw you, and I did love you. Is that enough?'

'Yes; I will make it do....I know, I think, what I love you for. You are
nice-looking, of course; but I didn't mean for that. It is because you
are so docile and gentle.'

'Those are not quite the correct qualities for a man to be loved for,'
said Stephen, in rather a dissatisfied tone