frankly cried out, "Who cares?" for the first time. And later,
upstairs in her room, in his house, she had asked him to leave her;
and he had gone, because he understood that she wanted to remain
irresponsible for a time and must not be taken by the shoulders and
shaken into caring until she had had her fling. He understood
everything--especially as to what she meant by saying that she would
go joy-riding, that she would make life spin whichever way she
wanted it to go. It was the right of youth, and what was she but
just a kid? He had never stood over her and demanded payment, and
yet he had given her everything. He understood that she was new to
the careless and carefree, and had never flung the word honest at
her head, because, being so young, she considered that she could be
let off from making payments for a time.

She wanted Martin. She wanted the comforting sight of his clean eyes
and deep chest and square shoulders. She wanted to sit down knee to
knee with him as they had done so often on the edge of the woods,
and talk and talk. She wanted to hear his man's voice and see the
laughter-lines come and go round his eyes. He was her pal and was as
reliable as the calendar. He would wipe out the effect of the
reproaches that she had been made to listen to by Alice and Gilbert.
They might be justified; they were justified; but they showed a lack
of understanding of her present mood that was to her inconceivable.
She was a kid. Couldn't they see that she was a kid? Why should they
both throw bricks at her as though she were a hawk and not a mere
butterfly?

Where was Martin? Why hadn't she seen him for several days? Why had
he stayed away from home without saying where he was and what he was
doing? And what was all this about a girl with a white face and red