Let us go to papa,' responded Elfride, with somewhat of a flurried delivery.
'Well, I'll tell you my object in getting the present,' said Knight, with a composure intended to remove from her mind any possible impression of his being what he was--her lover.

'You see it was the very least I could do in common civility.' Elfride felt rather blank at this lucid statement.
Knight continued, putting away the case: 'I felt as anybody naturally would have, you know, that my words on your choice the other day were invidious and unfair, and thought an apology should take a practical shape.' 'Oh yes.' Elfride was sorry--she could not tell why--that he gave such a legitimate reason.

It was a disappointment that he had all the time a cool motive, which might be stated to anybody without raising a smile.
Had she known they were offered in that spirit, she would certainly have accepted the seductive gift.

And the tantalizing feature was that perhaps he suspected her to imagine them offered as a lover's token, which was mortifying enough if they were not.
Mrs.Swancourt came now to where they were sitting, to select a flat boulder for spreading their table-cloth upon, and, amid the discussion on that subject, the matter pending between Knight and Elfride was shelved for a while.

He read her refusal so certainly as the bashfulness of a girl in a novel position, that, upon the whole, he could tolerate such a beginning.