Maggie Lou had a brother of seventeen, and one night in the corner of a moonlit porch, when they happened to be alone for a half hour, he had asked Eleanor to kiss him.
“I don’t want to kiss you,” Eleanor said. Then, not wishing to convey a sense of any personal 189 dislike to the brother of a friend to whom she was so sincerely devoted, she added, “I don’t know you well enough.”
He was a big boy, with mocking blue eyes and rough tweed clothes that hung on him loosely.
“When you know me better, will you let me kiss you?” he demanded.
“I don’t know,” Eleanor said, still endeavoring to preserve the amenities.
He took her hand and played with it softly.
“You’re an awful sweet little girl,” he said.
“I guess I’ll go in now.”
“Sit still. Sister’ll be back in a minute.” He pulled her back to the chair from which she had half arisen. “Don’t you believe in kissing?”
“I don’t believe in kissing you,” she tried to say, but the words would not come. She could only pray for deliverance through the arrival of some member of the family. The boy’s face was close to hers. It looked sweet in the moonlight she thought. She wished he would talk of something else besides kissing.