"I haven't an idea what you're driving at," said Louise. Cynthia was making her thoroughly uncomfortable.
Cynthia was flushed, laughing, pure devilry in her eyes. Her lips were pouted, her little teeth gleamed. She looked a child licking its lips over forbidden dainties. She had pulled Louise into her lap and her voice had dropped to a whisper.
"Shall I tell you? Would you like to know? You ought to—you're fourteen—it's absurd—not knowing about things—shall I tell you?"
Louise fidgeted. Cynthia's manner had aroused her curiosity, but none the less she was repelled. Why, she could not have said. She hesitated, aroused, yet half frightened.
"I'll tell you," said Cynthia lusciously.
With a sudden effort Louise freed herself from the encircling arm. She edged away from the elder girl, stammering a little.
"I don't think I want to know anything. It's awfully sweet of you. I'd rather—I always ask Daffy things. Do you mind?"
Cynthia, good-tempered as ever, laughed aloud.
"Lord, no! But what a little saint! Aren't you ever curious, Louise? All right! I won't tease. Have a candy?"
And Louise, eating chocolates, was not long in forgetting the conversation and all the curious discomfort it had aroused. If a leaf had fallen on the white garment of her innocence—a leaf from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—she had brushed it aside, all unconscious, before it could leave a stain.