Elfride edged away.
'I hope you allow me my place ungrudgingly ?' he whispered.
'Oh yes; 'tis the least I can do in common civility,' she said, accenting the words so that he might recognize them as his own returned.
Both of them felt delicately balanced between two possibilities.

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 man's 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 Knight's drowsy thoughts of that day to precipitate themselves upon.