So no more was
said by either on the subject of hair, eyes, or development.
Elfride's mind had been impregnated with sentiments of her own
smallness to an uncomfortable degree of distinctness, and her
discomfort was visible in her face. The whole tendency of the
conversation latterly had been to quietly but surely disparage
her; and she was fain to take Stephen into favour in self-defence.
He would not have been so unloving, she said, as to admire an
idiosyncrasy and features different from her own. True, Stephen
had declared he loved her: Mr. Knight had never done anything of
the sort. Somehow this did not mend matters, and the sensation of
her smallness in Knight's eyes still remained. Had the position
been reversed--had Stephen loved her in spite of a differing
taste, and had Knight been indifferent in spite of her resemblance
to his ideal, it would have engendered far happier thoughts. As
matters stood, Stephen's admiration might have its root in a
blindness the result of passion. Perhaps any keen man's judgment
was condemnatory of her.
During the remainder of Saturday they were more or less thrown
with their seniors, and no conversation arose which was
exclusively their own. When Elfride was in bed that night her
thoughts recurred to the same subject. At one moment she insisted
that it was ill-natured of him to speak so decisively as he had
done; the next, that it was sterling honesty.
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