'
'You are severe on women, are you not?'
'No, I think not. I had a right to please my taste, and that was
for untried lips. Other men than those of my sort acquire the
taste as they get older--but don't find an Elfride----'
'What horrid sound is that we hear when we pitch forward?'
'Only the screw--don't find an Elfride as I did. To think that I
should have discovered such an unseen flower down there in the
West--to whom a man is as much as a multitude to some women, and a
trip down the English Channel like a voyage round the world!'
'And would you,' she said, and her voice was tremulous, 'have
given up a lady--if you had become engaged to her--and then found
she had had ONE kiss before yours--and would you have--gone away
and left her?'
'One kiss,--no, hardly for that.'
'Two?'
'Well--I could hardly say inventorially like that. Too much of
that sort of thing certainly would make me dislike a woman. But
let us confine our attention to ourselves, not go thinking of
might have beens.'
So Elfride had allowed her thoughts to 'dally with false surmise,'
and every one of Knight's words fell upon her like a weight.
After this they were silent for a long time, gazing upon the black
mysterious sea, and hearing the strange voice of the restless
wind. A rocking to and fro on the waves, when the breeze is not
too violent and cold, produces a soothing effect even upon the
most highly-wrought mind.
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