.

'You have been trifling with me till now!' he exclaimed, his face
flushing. 'You did not play your best in the first two games?'

Elfride's guilt showed in her face. Stephen became the picture of
vexation and sadness, which, relishable for a moment, caused her the
next instant to regret the mistake she had made.

'Mr. Smith, forgive me!' she said sweetly. 'I see now, though I did not
at first, that what I have done seems like contempt for your skill.
But, indeed, I did not mean it in that sense. I could not, upon my
conscience, win a victory in those first and second games over one who
fought at such a disadvantage and so manfully.'

He drew a long breath, and murmured bitterly, 'Ah, you are cleverer than
I. You can do everything--I can do nothing! O Miss Swancourt!' he burst
out wildly, his heart swelling in his throat, 'I must tell you how I
love you! All these months of my absence I have worshipped you.'

He leapt from his seat like the impulsive lad that he was, slid round
to her side, and almost before she suspected it his arm was round her
waist, and the two sets of curls intermingled.

So entirely new was full-blown love to Elfride, that she trembled as
much from the novelty of the emotion as from the emotion itself. Then
she suddenly withdrew herself and stood upright, vexed that she had
submitted unresistingly even to his momentary pressure. She resolved to
consider this demonstration as premature.

'You must not begin such things as those,' she said with coquettish
hauteur of a very transparent nature 'And--you must not do so again--and
papa is coming.'

'Let me kiss you--only a little one,' he said with his usual delicacy,
and without reading the factitiousness of her manner.

'No; not one.'

'Only on your cheek?'

'No.'

'Forehead?'

'Certainly not.'

'You care for somebody else, then? Ah, I thought so!'

'I am sure I do not.'

'Nor for me either?'

'How can I tell?' she said simply, the simplicity lying merely in the
broad outlines of her manner and speech. There were the semitone of
voice and half-hidden expression of eyes which tell the initiated how
very fragile is the ice of reserve at these times.

Footsteps were heard. Mr. Swancourt then entered the room, and their
private colloquy ended.

The day after this partial revelation, Mr. Swancourt proposed a drive to
the cliffs beyond Targan Bay, a distance of three or four miles.

Half an hour before the time of departure a cr