"How could you do it? I was honest with you; I had had no experience with a man I cared for. You knew it. You let me care for you until I didn't understand—until the sincerity and force of what I felt for you bewildered me!
"And now—and now I am—unhappy—unhappy—miserable, ashamed—" She caught her breath, scarcely able to see him through her tears—no longer able to control the quivering lip.
She rose swiftly, encountered something—his arm—felt herself drawn resistlessly into his embrace.
"Forgive me, Karen," he said. "I did not realize—what was happening to—us both."
She rested her forehead on his shoulder for a moment.
"Can you forgive me, Karen?"
"Yes."
"You know I truly care for you?"
"Yes."
Scarcely knowing what he was doing, he bent to touch her forehead with his lips, and she lifted her face at the same moment. His kiss fell on her mouth, and she responded. At the same instant her girlhood ended forever—vanished on her lips in a little sigh.