Ruth smiled uneasily. "Not at all. Don't you really understand?"

Susan shook her head.

"He--he betrayed her--and left her--and then everybody knew
because you came."

Susan's violet-gray eyes rested a grave, inquiring glance upon
her cousin's face. "But if he betrayed her----What does `betray'
mean? Doesn't it mean he promised to marry her and didn't?"

"Something like that," said Ruth. "Yes--something like that."

"Then _he_ was the disgrace," said the dark cousin, after reflecting.
"No--you're not telling me, Ruth. _What_ did my mother do?"

"She had you without being married."

Again Susan sat in silence, trying to puzzle it out. Ruth lifted
herself, put the pillows behind her back. "You don't
understand--anything--do you? Well, I'll try to explain--though
I don't know much about it."

And hesitatingly, choosing words she thought fitted to those
innocent ears, hunting about for expressions she thought
comprehensible to that innocent mind, Ruth explained the
relations of the sexes--an inaccurate, often absurd,
explanation, for she herself knew only what she had picked up
from other girls--the fantastic hodgepodge of pruriency,