"Hasn't anybody ever held yours?"

Displeasure tinted her cheeks a deeper red, but she merely shrugged her
shoulders.

It was true that in the one evanescent and secret affair of her first
winter she had not escaped the calf-like transports of Bunbury Gray. She
had felt, if she had not returned them, the furtively significant
pressure of men's hands in the gaiety and whirl of things; ardent and
chuckle-headed youth had declared itself in conservatories and in
corners; one impetuous mauling from a smitten Harvard boy of eighteen
had left her furiously vexed with herself for her passive attitude while
the tempest passed. True, she had vigorously reproved him later. She
had, alas, occasion, during her first season, to reprove several
demonstrative young men for their unconventionally athletic manner of
declaring their suits. She had been far more severe with the humble,
unattractive, and immobile, however, than with the audacious and
ornamental who had attempted to take her by storm. A sudden if awkward
kiss followed by the fiery declaration of the hot-headed disturbed her
less than the persistent stare of an enamoured pair of eyes. As a child
the description of an assault on a citadel always interested her, but
she had neither sympathy nor interest in a siege.

Now, musing there in the sunlight on the events of her first winter, she
became aware that she had been more or less instructed in the ways of
men; and, remembering, she lifted her disturbed eyes to inspect this
specimen of a sex which often perplexed but always interested her.

"What are you smiling about, Duane?" she asked defiantly.