for which her mother and father had ever predestined her. But she
knew nothing of it, except that no "nice" girl allowed a boy to put
his arm about her or kiss her unless they were engaged. She knew
that girls got into "trouble" by being careless on these matters,
but what that trouble was, or what led to it, she did not know. She
and Sally innocently believed that some mysterious cloud enveloped
even the most staid and upright girl at the touch of a man's arm, so
that of subsequent events she lost all consciousness. A girl might
attract a man by words and smiles to the point of wishing to marry
her, but she must never permit the slightest liberties, she must
indeed assume, to the very day of her marriage, that the desire for
marriage lived in the heart of the man alone.

Martie never dreamed that the youth and sex within her had as
definite a claim on her senses as hunger had in the hour before
dinner time, or sleep had when she nodded over her solitaire at
night. But she drank in enchantment with Rodney's voice, his
laughter, his nearness, and the night was too short for her dreams
or the days for her happiness.

They left the Roman-nosed horse and the surrey at Beetman's livery
stable, a damp and odorous enclosure smelling of wet straw, and with
the rear quarters of nervous bay horses stirring in the stalls. The
various men, smoking and spitting there in the Sunday afternoon
leisure, knew Martie and nodded to her; knew who her companion was.

Martie and Rodney walked down South California Street, into the
town's nicest quarter, and passed the old-fashioned wooden houses,
set far back in bare gardens: the Wests' with its wooden palings;
the Clifford Frosts', with a hooded baby carriage near the side