to fall on?" she said mischievously.

"No, half-holidays when he's fed up with work." He looked at her,
laughing at her indignant face. "Why be superior, Marcella? You're just
as bad as anyone else, only you're not used to it and haven't thought of
it before. Who likes being kissed?"

"Oh, but it wouldn't get in the way of my work," she cried, flushing
hotly.

"Wait till you try it, dear child. The first time I ever got the fever
taught me a lot. It wasn't love, of course."

"When you loved Violet?" she asked in low tones.

"Oh Lord no! This was a little French girl who picked me up when I was
squiffed after I'd passed the First. About twenty of us--all from St.
Crispin's--had been up for the First. We all passed but two, and we all
had to get drunk to buck those two up. We went to the Empire and kicked
up such a gory din that we were helped out. A little mamzelle from the
Promenade took charge of me. I--I hadn't thought about those things much
before. At home they were taboo. I'd always been terrified of girls--If
I hadn't been drunk then I'd never have done it. I thought it
unutterably beastly. For months after that I was afraid to look the
Mater in the face. I thought she was unutterably beastly, as well, just
because she was a woman. It made a tremendous dint on me."

Marcella grasped about a tenth of what he meant. The rest sank into her
mind to puzzle her later. But something sprang to the top of her
consciousness and raised a question.

"Louis," she said quickly, "That night at Naples--when you were naughty.
You talked French to me. I don't know what you said, but the
schoolmaster looked shocked."

He flushed.

"Yes, I've been told that before. I always do talk French if I meet a
girl when I'm boozy. I used to, to Violet, and she was--oh frightfully
disgusted. And once I did to my sister! She, unfortunately, understands
French. I suppose it's a good thing you don't."

"Louis, do you say--_wrong_ things in French" she whispered.
"Things--you know, beastly things?"

He hesitated a moment and an impulse of honesty made him tell her the
truth.

"Yes, I believe I say perfectly appalling things. You see--it's like
this. I'm a queer inhibited sort of thing, dear. I'm always--till you
took me in hand--fighting drink. I'm in a state of fighting and
inhibiting. I've always been like that. Even when I was a little kid I
was afraid to be natural because I was taught that the natural impulse
was the wrong one