oesn't amount
to anything. It happened a long time ago--and everybody's
forgotten--and----" His stammering falsehoods died away before
her steady look. "How did you find out?"

"Someone just told me," replied she. "And they said you'd never
respect or marry a girl who had no father. No--don't
deny--please! I didn't believe it--not after what we had said
to each other."

Sam, red and shifting uneasily, could not even keep his downcast
eyes upon the same spot of ground.

"You see," she went on, sweet and grave, "they don't understand
what love means--do they?"

"I guess not," muttered he, completely unnerved.

Why, how seriously the girl had taken him and his words--such a
few words and not at all definite! No, he decided, it was the
kiss. He had heard of girls so innocent that they thought a kiss
meant the same as being married. He got himself together as well
as he could and looked at her.

"But, Susie," he said, "you're too young for anything
definite--and I'm not halfway through college."

"I understand," said she. "But you need not be afraid I'll change."

She was so sweet, so magnetic, so compelling that in spite of
the frowns of prudence he seized her hand. At her touch he flung
prudence to the winds. "I love you," he cried; and putting his
arm around her, he tried to kiss her. She gently but strongly
repulsed him. "Why not, dear?" he pleaded. "You love me--don't you?"

"Yes," she replied, her honest eyes shining upon his. "But we
must wait until we're married. I don't care so much for the
others, but I'd not want Uncle George to feel I had disgraced him."

"Why, there's no harm in a kiss," pleaded he.

"Kissing you is--different," she replied. "It's--it's--marriage."

He understood her innocence that frankly assumed marriage where
a sophisticated girl would, in the guilt of designing thoughts,
have shrunk in shame from however vaguely suggesting such a
thing. He realized to the full his peril. "I'm a damn fool," he
said to himself, "to hang about her. But somehow I can't help
it--I can't!" And the truth was, he loved her as much as a boy
of his age is capable of loving, and he would have gone on and
married her but for the snobbishness smeared on him by the
provincialism of the small town and burned in by the toadyism of
his fashionable college set. As he looked at her he saw beauty
beyond any he had ever seen elsewhere and a sweetness and
honesty that made him ashamed before