"Goodness, no!" denied Sheila in a horrified tone, and the alarmed young blood rose in a slow, rich tide over her neck and face and temples.
"Oh, you needn't be so shocked. Somebody will some day!" And Charlotte laughed lightly out of her own precocious experience.
Of the two girls, Sheila was the one to be loved, but Charlotte was the one to be made love to—if the love-making were only the pastime of the hour. Charlotte was clever and daring and cold, and could take care of herself. She knew, even at sixteen, all the rules of the game: when to advance, when to retreat, and, most important of all, when to laugh. But Sheila would never be able to laugh at love or love's counterpart.
"Somebody will make love to you some day!" repeated Charlotte teasingly.
"Well, nobody has yet!" Sheila assured her crossly. "And what's more, I hope nobody will! That isn't what I want!"
"What do you want?" asked Charlotte curiously, detecting the underlying earnestness of the words. But she received no response, and so, bent upon an interesting topic, she harked back to Sheila's flight from the party: "If nobody made love to you, why did you run away? Did your conscience hurt you, Sheila?"
"Yes," admitted Sheila, "that was what made me come home. But I stayed home because of something else."
"What?"
Sheila groped for the language of Mrs. Caldwell's lesson: "Because I—I didn't want to be pretty in somebody else's clothes. I was happy for a little while, but it didn't last. You see, I'd borrowed that—the happiness—along with the frock. And of course I couldn't keep it. I just want what belongs to me after this, Charlotte. It isn't fair to take anything else—and it isn't any use either."
Charlotte stared at her with puzzled eyes. "You are queer," she remarked reflectively. "You are queer, Sheila. Theodore Kent always said so, and he was right. I wonder what he'll think of you when he gets back from college."