In the name of wonder, what had possessed him? The night? The moon?
The mystery of the unknown?... If he had never really kissed her he
might have convinced himself that he had never really wanted to. But
having kissed her--!

He looked upon himself as a stranger. A stranger of whom he would be
remarkably wary, in the days and nights to come ... but a stranger
for whom he entertained a sort of secret, amazed respect. There had
been an undeniable dash and daring to that stranger....

During the third period he slept.

When he awoke, late in the morning, and descended from a cold tub to
a breakfast room from which McLean had long since departed, he
brought yet another mood with him, a mood of dark, deep disgust and
a shamed inclination to dismiss these events very speedily from
memory. For that shadowy and rather shady affair he had abandoned
the merry and delightful Jinny Jeffries and got himself involved now
in the duty of explanations and peacemaking.

What in the world was he going to say?

He meditated a note--but he hated a lie on paper. It looked so
thunderingly black and white. Besides, he could not think of any.
"Dear Jinny--Awfully sorry I was called away."

No, that wouldn't do. He could take refuge in no such vagueness.
Unfortunately, he and Jinny were on such terms of old intimacy that
a certain explicitness of detail was expected.