Thus they reached home.
To Knight this mild experience was delightful.It was to him a gentle innocent time--a time which,though there may not be much in it,seldom repeats itself in a mans life,and has a peculiar dearness when glanced at retrospectively.He is not inconveniently deep in love,and is lulled by a peaceful sense of being able to enjoy the most trivial thing with a childlike enjoyment.The movement of a wave,the colour of a stone,anything,was enough for Knights drowsy thoughts of that day to precipitate themselves upon.Even the sermonizing platitudes the vicar had delivered himself of--chiefly because something seemed to be professionally required of him in the presence of a man of Knights proclivities--were swallowed whole.The presence of Elfride led him not merely to tolerate that kind of talk from the necessities of ordinary courtesy;but he listened to it--took in the ideas with an enjoyable make-believe that they were proper and necessary,and indulged in a conservative feeling that the face of things was complete.
Entering her room that evening Elfride found a packet for herself on the dressing-table.How it came there she did not know.She tremblingly undid the folds of white paper that covered it.Yes;it was the treasure of a morocco case,containing those treasures of ornament she had refused in the daytime.
Elfride dressed herself in them for a moment,looked at herself in the glass,blushed red,and put them away.They filled her dreams all that night.Never had she seen anything so lovely,and never was it more clear that as an honest woman she was in duty bound to refuse them.Why it was not equally clear to her that duty required more vigorous co-ordinate conduct as well,let those who dissect her say.
The next morning glared in like a spectre upon her.It was Stephens letter-day,and she was bound to meet the postman--to stealthily do a deed she had never liked,to secure an end she now had ceased to desire.