Her voice when she spoke had adopted the ease of casual conversation. “Do you believe in chastity, Bobby? Could you love a girl who wasn’t—chaste?”
Bobby winced as if she had struck his face with a whip. He went white. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“Plainly,” she said.
For a time neither of them said a word.
“You have had your experiences,” she thrust. “In France. They all did.”
Bobby made no answer to that.
“Now you know,” she flung at him.
For a little while the light had gone out of Bobby’s world.
“Did you love the man?” he asked.
“If I did I don’t remember it. It was just—curiosity. And the stir of growing up. And the intolerable sense of being forbidden. No—I think I was almost—cold-blooded. I liked the look of him. And then I disliked him.... But there it is, Bobby. That’s how things are.”