Mrs. Jethway's seeming words had so
depressed the girl that she herself now painted her flight in the
darkest colours, and longed to ease her burdened mind by an
instant confession. If Knight had ever been imprudent himself, he
might, she hoped, forgive all.
'I wanted to ask you,' she went on, 'if--you had ever been engaged
before.' She added tremulously, 'I hope you have--I mean, I don't
mind at all if you have.'
'No, I never was,' Knight instantly and heartily replied.
'Elfride'--and there was a certain happy pride in his tone--'I am
twelve years older than you, and I have been about the world, and,
in a way, into society, and you have not. And yet I am not so
unfit for you as strict-thinking people might imagine, who would
assume the difference in age to signify most surely an equal
addition to my practice in love-making.'
Elfride shivered.
'You are cold--is the wind too much for you?'
'No,' she said gloomily. The belief which had been her sheet-
anchor in hoping for forgiveness had proved false. This account
of the exceptional nature of his experience, a matter which would
have set her rejoicing two years ago, chilled her now like a
frost.
'You don't mind my asking you?' she continued.
'Oh no--not at all.'
'And have you never kissed many ladies?' she whispered, hoping he
would say a hundred at the least.
The time, the circumstances, and the scene were such as to draw
confidences from the most reserved.
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