e spoilt by too much kindness, and
Elfride's uniform submissiveness had given Knight a rather exacting
manner at crises, attached to her as he was. 'Why should she have
refused the one I first chose?' he now asked himself. Even such slight
opposition as she had shown then was exceptional enough to make itself
noticeable. He was not vexed with her in the least: the mere variation
of her way to-day from her usual ways kept him musing on the subject,
because it perplexed him. 'It was a gift'--those were her words.
Admitting it to be a gift, he thought she could hardly value a mere
friend more than she valued him as a lover, and giving the plant into
his charge would have made no difference. 'Except, indeed, it was the
gift of a lover,' he murmured.

'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?'

'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 m