She flashed round at him. "Sixteen! Gee! I thought you was my age if you was a day. Honest I did. I'm eighteen, an old lady compared with you."
"Oh, but boys are always older than girls, for their age."
"You are, sure. Anyways, you saved me on that slippery hill, and I think you ought to have a kiss for it. Come, baby, kiss your poor old ma."
Though the hallway was dark, the kiss had to be given and taken furtively. Whatever it was to Maisie Danker, to Tom Whitelaw it was the entrance to a higher and an increased life. The pressure of her lips on his sent through his frame a dynamic glow he had not supposed to be among nature's possibilities. Moreover, it threw light on that experience as to which he had mused ever since he had first talked confidentially to Bertie Tollivant. Though instinct had taught him something in the intervening years, he had up to this minute gained nothing in the way of practical discovery. Now an horizon that had been dark was lifting to disclose a wonderland.
With her light laugh Maisie had run into her aunt's apartment, and shut the door. Tom began heavily, pensively, to climb the stairs. But halfway up he paused to mark off another stage in his perceptions.
"So that's what it's like! That's why they all think so much about it—and try to hush it up!"
XXIV
He himself found something to hush up when he recounted the incident to Honey in the evening. He told of meeting Mrs. Danker's niece on the ice-coated hill, and helping her down to the door. Of his sensations as she clung to him he said nothing. He said nothing of the kiss in the dark hallway. During the rest of the evening, and after he had gone to bed, he wondered why. They all hushed these things up, and he did as the rest; but what was the basic reason?