'And I mustn't ask you if you'll wait for me, and be my wife some day?'
'Why not?' she said naively.
'There is a reason why, my Elfride.'
'Not any one that I know of.'
'Suppose there is something connected with me which makes it almost impossible for you to agree to be my wife, or for your father to countenance such an idea?'
'Nothing shall make me cease to love you: no blemish can be found upon your personal nature. That is pure and generous, I know; and having that, how can I be cold to you?'
'And shall nothing else affect us--shall nothing beyond my nature be a part of my quality in your eyes, Elfie?'
'Nothing whatever,' she said with a breath of relief. 'Is that all? Some outside circumstance? What do I care?'
'You can hardly judge, dear, till you know what has to be judged. For that, we will stop till we get home. I believe in you, but I cannot feel bright.'
'Love is new, and fresh to us as the dew; and we are together. As the lover's world goes, this is a great deal. Stephen, I fancy I see the difference between me and you--between men and women generally, perhaps. I am content to build happiness on any accidental basis that may lie near at hand; you are for making a world to suit your happiness.'
'Elfride, you sometimes say things which make you seem suddenly to become five years older than you are, or than I am; and that remark is one. I couldn't think so OLD as that, try how I might....And no lover has ever kissed you before?'
'Never.'
'I knew that; you were so unused. You ride well, but you don't kiss nicely at all; and I was told once, by my friend Knight, that that is an excellent fault in woman.'
'Now, come; I must mount again, or we shall not be home by dinner-time.' And they returned to where Pansy stood tethered. 'Instead of entrusting my weight to a young man's unstable palm,' she continued gaily, 'I prefer a surer "upping-stock" (as the villagers call it), in the form of a gate. There--now I am myself again.'
They proceeded homeward at the same walking pace.
Her blitheness won Stephen out of his thoughtfulness, and each forgot everything but the tone of the moment.
'What did you love me for?' she said, after a long musing look at a flying bird.
'I don't know,' he replied idly.