I had never in any tolerable sense of the word been dirty.

“I drifted into this—as men do,” I said after a little pause and stopped again.

She was looking at me with her wide blue eyes.

“Did you imagine,” she began, “that I thought you—that I expected—”

“But how can you know?”

“I know. I do know.”

“But—” I began.

“I know,” she persisted, dropping her eyelids. “Of course I know,” and nothing could have convinced me more completely that she did not know.

“All men—” she generalised. “A woman does not understand these temptations.”

I was astonished beyond measure at her way of taking my confession. ...