She glanced up at the dark front of the house. "I guess the family's
gone to bed," she said, absently.

"I s'pose so."

"Well, good-night, Ramsey." She said this but still did not release his
arm, and suddenly, in a fluster, he felt that the time he dreaded had
come. Somehow, without knowing where, except that it was somewhere upon
what seemed to be a blurred face too full of obstructing features, he
kissed her.

She turned instantly away in the darkness, her hands over her cheeks;
and in a panic Ramsey wondered if he hadn't made a dreadful mistake.

"S'cuse me!" he said, stumbling toward the gate. "Well, I guess I got to
be gettin' along back home."





Chapter IX

He woke in the morning to a great self-loathing: he had kissed a girl.
Mingled with the loathing was a curious pride in the very fact that
caused the loathing, but the pride did not last long. He came downstairs
morbid to breakfast, and continued this mood afterward. At noon Albert
Paxton brought him a note which Milla had asked Sadie to ask Albert to
give him.