for something I had said, how she tapped my lips with a tiny flirt
of those gloves. I was like to swoon with delight. It was the
most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me. And I remember
yet the faint scent that clung to those gloves and that I breathed
in the moment they touched my lips.

Then came the agony of apprehension and doubt. Should I imprison
in my hand that little hand with the dangling, scented gloves
which had just tapped my lips? Should I dare to kiss her there and
then, or slip my arm around her waist? Or dared I even sit closer?

Well, I didn't dare. I did nothing. I merely continued to sit
there and love with all my soul. And when we parted that evening
I had not kissed her. I do remember the first time I kissed her,
on another evening, at parting--a mighty moment, when I took all
my heart of courage and dared. We never succeeded in managing
more than a dozen stolen meetings, and we kissed perhaps a dozen
times--as boys and girls kiss, briefly and innocently, and
wonderingly. We never went anywhere--not even to a matinee. We
once shared together five cents worth of red-hots. But I have
always fondly believed that she loved me. I know I loved her; and
I dreamed day-dreams of her for a year and more, and the memory of
her is very dear.



CHAPTER XIX


When I was with people who did not drink, I never thought of