"Maria Angelina," he said softly, "how old are you?"
"Eighteen."
"How many men have you known?"
"You, first, Signor, then the others here."
"But you did care for him," he said. "You kissed him."
Her eyes dropped, her cheeks flamed and he saw her lips quiver—those soft, sensitive lips of hers which seemed to breathe such tender warmth and perfume like the warmth and perfume of a flower. But through the shine of tears her eyes came back to his.
"No, Signor, it was he who kissed me—and without my consent! I did not kiss him—never, never, never!"
"Is there such a difference?"
"But there is all the difference——"
"Maria Angelina, you are sure that to kiss a man yourself, to kiss him deliberately, unmistakably upon the lips, is a final seal and ultimate surrender, and that if you do not marry a man you have so kissed you would be no better than a worthless deceiver, an outrageous flirt, an abandoned trifler——"