"The Bible's such a big book, I thought the bigger the book was, the nearer it was like the Bible," said Absalom.
"But there's the dictionary, Absalom. It's as big as the Bible."
"Don't the size make nothin'?" Absalom asked.
Tillie shook her head, still smiling. She glanced down and read aloud the title of the book she held: "'What a Young Husband Ought to Know.'"
"But, Absalom!" she faltered.
"Well? What?"
She looked up into his heavy, blank face, and suddenly a faint sense of humor seemed born in her—and she laughed.
The laugh illumined her face, and it was too much for Absalom. He seized her and kissed her, with resounding emphasis, squarely on the mouth.
Instantly Tillie wrenched herself away from him and stood up. Her face was flushed and her eyes sparkled. And yet, she was not indignant with him in the sense that a less unsophisticated girl would have been. Absalom, according to New Canaan standards, was not exceeding his rights under the circumstances. But an instinct, subtle, undefined, incomprehensible to herself, contradicted, indeed, by every convention of the neighborhood in which she had been reared, made Tillie feel that in yielding her lips to this man for whom she did not care, and whom, if she could hold out against him, she did not intend to marry, she was desecrating her womanhood. Vague and obscure as her feeling was, it was strong enough to control her.
"I meant what I said, Absalom. If you won't leave me be, I won't stay here with you. You'll have to go home, for now I'm going right up-stairs."