第67章

Heh-heh!Two ineradicable defects,said Knight,there being a faint ghastliness discernible in his laugh.They are much worse in a ladys eye than being thought self-conscious,I suppose.

Ah,thats very fine,she said,too inexperienced to perceive her hit,and hence not quite disposed to forgive his notes.You alluded to me in that entry as if I were such a child,too.

Everybody does that.I cannot understand it.I am quite a woman,you know.How old do you think I am?

How old?Why,seventeen,I should say.All girls are seventeen.

You are wrong.I am nearly nineteen.Which class of women do you like best,those who seem younger,or those who seem older than they are?

Off-hand I should be inclined to say those who seem older.

So it was not Elfrides class.

But it is well known,she said eagerly,and there was something touching in the artless anxiety to be thought much of which she revealed by her words,that the slower a nature is to develop,the richer the nature.Youths and girls who are men and women before they come of age are nobodies by the time that backward people have shown their full compass.

Yes,said Knight thoughtfully.There is really something in that remark.But at the risk of offence I must remind you that you there take it for granted that the woman behind her time at a given age has not reached the end of her tether.Her backwardness may be not because she is slow to develop,but because she soon exhausted her capacity for developing.

Elfride looked disappointed.By this time they were indoors.

Mrs.Swancourt,to whom match-making by any honest means was meat and drink,had now a little scheme of that nature concerning this pair.The morning-room,in which they both expected to find her,was empty;the old lady having,for the above reason,vacated it by the second door as they entered by the first.

Knight went to the chimney-piece,and carelessly surveyed two portraits on ivory.

Though these pink ladies had very rudimentary features,judging by what I see here,he observed,they had unquestionably beautiful heads of hair.

Yes;and that is everything,said Elfride,possibly conscious of her own,possibly not.

Not everything;though a great deal,certainly.

Which colour do you like best?she ventured to ask.

More depends on its abundance than on its colour.

Abundances being equal,may I inquire your favourite colour?

Dark.

I mean for women,she said,with the minutest fall of countenance,and a hope that she had been misunderstood.

So do I,Knight replied.

It was impossible for any man not to know the colour of Elfrides hair.In women who wear it plainly such a feature may be overlooked by men not given to ocular intentness.But hers was always in the way.You saw her hair as far as you could see her sex,and knew that it was the palest brown.She knew instantly that Knight,being perfectly aware of this,had an independent standard of admiration in the matter.

Elfride was thoroughly vexed.She could not but be struck with the honesty of his opinions,and the worst of it was,that the more they went against her,the more she respected them.And now,like a reckless gambler,she hazarded her last and best treasure.

Her eyes:they were her all now.

What coloured eyes do you like best,Mr.Knight?she said slowly.

Honestly,or as a compliment?

Of course honestly;I dont want anybodys compliment!

And yet Elfride knew otherwise:that a compliment or word of approval from that man then would have been like a well to a famished Arab.

I prefer hazel,he said serenely.

She had played and lost again.