tell you my trouble is that it's best you shouldn't know? You're a young
girl; you don't know life; you haven't seen it as I've seen it--in the
sewage, in the ditch, on the road, on the mountain and in the bog. I
want you to keep faith with your old friend who doesn't care what the
rest of the world thinks, but who wants your confidence. Trust me--don't
condemn me. Believe me, I haven't been wanton. Won't you trust me?"

The spirit of egotism was alive in her. She knew how much she had denied
herself in the past months. She did not know whether she loved him, but
injured pride tortured her. Except in a dance and in sports at a picnic
or recreation-ground no man had ever put his arms around her. No man
except Carnac, and that he had done it was like a lash upon the raw
skinless flesh. If she had been asked by the Almighty whether she loved
Carnac, she would have said she did not know. This was not a matter of
love; but of womanhood, of self-respect, of the pride of one who cannot
ask for herself what she wants in the field of love, who must wait to be
wooed and won.

"You don't think I'm straight," he said in protest. "You think I'm no
good, that I'm a fraud. You're wrong. Believe me, that is the truth."
He came closer up to her. "Junia, if you'll stand by me, I'm sure I'll
come out right. I've been caught in a mesh I can't untangle yet, but it
can be untangled, and when it is, you shall know everything, because then
you'll understand. I can free myself from the tangle, but it could never
be explained--not so the world would believe. I haven't trifled with
you. I would believe in you even if I saw, or thought I saw, the signs
of wrong in you. I would know that at heart you were good. I put my
faith in you long ago--last year I staked all on your friendship, and I
haven't been deceived."