“I—I do not understand,” he said.
“I am so unhappy,” she wailed.
“Why unhappy?”
“Because … he … he wants me to marry him.”
His face cleared on the instant, and he placed a hand soothingly on hers.
“That should not make any girl unhappy,” he remarked sagely. “Because you don’t love him is no reason—of course, you don’t love him?”
Loretta shook her head and shoulders in a vigorous negative.
“What?”
Bashford wanted to make sure.
“No,” she asserted explosively. “I don’t love Billy! I don’t want to love Billy!”
“Because you don’t love him,” Bashford resumed with confidence, “is no reason that you should be unhappy just because he has proposed to you.”
She sobbed again, and from the midst of her sobs she cried—
“That’s the trouble. I wish I did love him. Oh, I wish I were dead!”
“Now, my dear child, you are worrying yourself over trifles.” His other hand crossed over after its mate and rested on hers. “Women do it every day. Because you have changed your mind or did not know your mind, because you have—to use an unnecessarily harsh word—jilted a man—”
“Jilted!” She had raised her head and was looking at him with tear-dimmed eyes. “Oh, Ned, if that were all!”
“All?” he asked in a hollow voice, while his hands slowly retreated from hers. He was about to speak further, then remained silent.
“But I don’t want to marry him,” Loretta broke forth protestingly.
“Then I shouldn’t,” he counselled.
“But I ought to marry him.”
“Ought to marry him?”
She nodded.
“That is a strong word.”
“I know it is,” she acquiesced, while she strove to control her trembling lips. Then she spoke more calmly. “I am a wicked woman, a terribly wicked woman. No one knows how wicked I am—except Billy.”
There was a pause. Ned Bashford’s face was grave, and he looked queerly at Loretta.
“He—Billy knows?” he asked finally.
A reluctant nod and flaming cheeks was the reply.
He debated with himself for a while, seeming, like a diver, to be preparing himself for the plunge.
“Tell me about it.” He spoke very firmly. “You must tell me all of it.”
“And will you—ever—forgive me?” she asked in a faint, small voice.
He hesitated, drew a long breath, and made the plunge.
“Yes,” he said desperately. “I’ll forgive you. Go ahead.”
“There was no one to tell me,” she began. “We were with each other so much. I did not know anything of the world—then.”
She paused to meditate. Bashford was biting his lip impatiently.
“If I had only known—”
She paused again.
“Yes, go on,” he urged.
“We were together almost every evening.”
“Billy?” he demanded, with a savageness that startled her.
“Yes, of course, Billy. We were with each other so much … If I had only known … There was no one to tell me … I was so young—”
Her lips parted as though to speak further, and she regarded him anxiously.
“The scoundrel!”
With the explosion Ned Bashford was on his feet, no longer a tired Greek, but a violently angry young man.
“Billy is not a scoundrel; he is a good man,” Loretta defended, with a firmness that surprised Bashford.
“I suppose you’ll be telling me next that it was all your fault,” he said sarcastically.
She nodded.
“What?” he shouted.
“It was all my fault,” she said steadily. “I should never have let him. I was to blame.”
Bashford ceased from his pacing up and down, and when he spoke, his voice was resigned.
“All right,” he said. “I don’t blame you in the least, Loretta. And you have been very honest. But Billy is right, and you are wrong. You must get married.”
“To Billy?” she asked, in a dim, faraway voice.
“Yes, to Billy. I’ll see to it. Where does he live? I’ll make him.”
“But I don’t want to marry Billy!” she cried out in alarm. “Oh, Ned, you won’t do that?”
“I shall,” he answered sternly. “You must. And Billy must. Do you understand?”
Loretta buried her face in the cushioned chair back, and broke into a passionate storm of sobs.
All that Bashford could make out at first, as he listened, was: “But I don’t want to leave Daisy! I don’t want to leave Daisy!”
He paced grimly back and forth, then stopped curiously to listen.
“How was I to know?—Boo—hoo,” Loretta was crying. “He didn’t tell me. Nobody else ever kissed me. I never dreamed a kiss could be so terrible … until, boo-hoo … until he wrote to me. I only got the letter this morning.”
His face brightened. It seemed as though light was dawning on him.
“Is that what you’re crying about?”
“N—no.”
His heart sank.
“Then what are you crying about?” he asked in a hopeless voice.
“Because you said I had to marry Billy. And I don’t want to marry Billy. I don’t want to leave Daisy. I don’t know what I want. I wish I were dead.”
He nerved himself for another effort.
“Now look here, Loretta, be sensible. What is this about kisses. You haven’t told me everything?”
“I—I don’t want to tell you everything.”
She looked at him beseechingly in the silence that fell.
“Must I?” she quavered finally.
“You must,” he said imperatively. “You must tell me everything.”
“Well, then … must I?”
“You must.”
“He … I … we …” she began flounderingly. Then blurted out, “I let him, and he kissed me.”
“Go on,” Bashford commanded desperately.
“That’s all,” she answered.
“All?” There was a vast incredulity in his voice.
“All?” In her voice was an interrogation no less vast.
“I mean—er—nothing worse?” He was overwhelmingly aware of his own awkwardness.
“Worse?” She was frankly puzzled. “As though there could be! Billy said—”
“When did he say it?” Bashford demanded abruptly.
“In his letter I got this morning. Billy said that my … our … our kisses were terrible if we didn’t get married.”
Bashford’s head was swimming.
“What else did Billy say?” he asked.
“He said that when a woman allowed a man to kiss her, she always married him—that it was terrible if she didn’t. It was the custom, he said; and I say it is a bad, wicked custom, and I
