Something impelled the girl to utter frankness. She was done with acting. "I didn't, and you know I didn't," she gulped. "I accepted him. I was engaged to him!"
"Engaged?"
"Yes!—and then the next day he was gone."
"Stole away," murmured Mrs. Rossiter amusedly. "That was rather crude of Eduard. He doesn't usually run to such lengths.... You mean he actually in so many words invited you to marry him?"
Joan covered her eyes again. "I suppose not," she said in a small, miserable voice. "No, he didn't. But he—he kissed me as if we were engaged, and I kissed him back!"
"Oh," murmured the other. "You find engaged kisses so very different, then, from the other kind?"
Joan cried indignantly, "I don't know anything about the other kind! I've never kissed a man before in my life."
"No? 'More kissed against than kissing,' perhaps?"
The girl lifted her chin as haughtily as it is possible to lift a chin that is quivering with held-in sobs. "I have never been kissed either—except on the hand or the ear or something, which doesn't count."
"No, that hardly counts," agreed her inquisitor, looking at the girl quite curiously. "See here," she asked in another tone, "how old are you, Miss Darcy?"