It has--it has,truly.
Perhaps the most extraordinary feature in this conversation was the circumstance that,though each interlocutor had at first his suspicions of the others abiding passion awakened by several little acts,neither would allow himself to see that his friend might now be speaking deceitfully as well as he.
Stephen.resumed Knight,now that matters are smooth between us,I think I must leave you.You wont mind my hurrying off to my quarters?
Youll stay to some sort of supper surely?didnt you come to dinner!
You must really excuse me this once.
Then youll drop in to breakfast to-morrow.
I shall be rather pressed for time.
An early breakfast,which shall interfere with nothing?
I'll come,said Knight,with as much readiness as it was possible to graft upon a huge stock of reluctance.Yes,early;
eight oclock say,as we are under the same roof.
Any time you like.Eight it shall be.
And Knight left him.To wear a mask,to dissemble his feelings as he had in their late miserable conversation,was such torture that he could support it no longer.It was the first time in Knights life that he had ever been so entirely the player of a part.And the man he had thus deceived was Stephen,who had docilely looked up to him from youth as a superior of unblemished integrity.
He went to bed,and allowed the fever of his excitement to rage uncontrolled.Stephen--it was only he who was the rival--only Stephen!There was an anti-climax of absurdity which Knight,wretched and conscience-stricken as he was,could not help recognizing.Stephen was but a boy to him.Where the great grief lay was in perceiving that the very innocence of Elfride in reading her little fault as one so grave was what had fatally misled him.Had Elfride,with any degree of coolness,asserted that she had done no harm,the poisonous breath of the dead Mrs.
Jethway would have been inoperative.Why did he not make his little docile girl tell more?If on that subject he had only exercised the imperativeness customary with him on others,all might have been revealed.It smote his heart like a switch when he remembered how gently she had borne his scourging speeches,never answering him with a single reproach,only assuring him of her unbounded love.
Knight blessed Elfride for her sweetness,and forgot her fault.
He pictured with a vivid fancy those fair summer scenes with her.
He again saw her as at their first meeting,timid at speaking,yet in her eagerness to be explanatory borne forward almost against her will.How she would wait for him in green places,without showing any of the ordinary womanly affectations of indifference!
How proud she was to be seen walking with him,bearing legibly in her eyes the thought that he was the greatest genius in the world!
He formed a resolution;and after that could make pretence of slumber no longer.Rising and dressing himself,he sat down and waited for day.
That night Stephen was restless too.Not because of the unwontedness of a return to English scenery;not because he was about to meet his parents,and settle down for awhile to English cottage life.He was indulging in dreams,and for the nonce the warehouses of Bombay and the plains and forts of Poonah were but a shadows shadow.His dream was based on this one atom of fact:
Elfride and Knight had become separated,and their engagement was as if it had never been.Their rupture must have occurred soon after Stephens discovery of the fact of their union;and,Stephen went on to think,what so probable as that a return of her errant affection to himself was the cause?
Stephens opinions in this matter were those of a lover,and not the balanced judgment of an unbiassed spectator.His naturally sanguine spirit built hope upon hope,till scarcely a doubt remained in his mind that her lingering tenderness for him had in some way been perceived by Knight,and had provoked their parting.
To go and see Elfride was the suggestion of impulses it was impossible to withstand.At any rate,to run down from St.
Launces to Castle Poterel,a distance of less than twenty miles,and glide like a ghost about their old haunts,making stealthy inquiries about her,would be a fascinating way of passing the first spare hours after reaching home on the day after the morrow.
He was now a richer man than heretofore,standing on his own bottom;and the definite position in which he had rooted himself nullified old local distinctions.He had become illustrious,even sanguine clarus,judging from the tone of the worthy Mayor of St.
Launces.
