He held himself erect under the incredible words, and gazed blankly at
her. The magnitude of what he confronted bewildered him; his mind was
incapable of taking it in. "You mean--" he started to say, and then
stopped, helplessly staring into her face, with a dropped jaw. It was
too much to try to think what she meant.

A little side-thought sprouted in the confusion of his brain. It grew
until it spread a bitter smile over his pale face. "I know so little
about kisses," he said; "I am such a greenhorn at that sort of thing.
You should have had pity on my inexperience, and told me just what brand
of kiss it was I was getting. Probably I ought to have been able to
distinguish, but you see I was brought up in the country--on a farm.
They don't have kisses in assorted varieties there."

She bowed her head slightly. "Yes, you are entitled to say that," she
assented. "I was to blame, and it is quite fair that you should tell
me so. You spoke of your inexperience, your innocence. That was why I
kissed you in saying good-bye. It was in memory of that innocence of
yours, to which you yourself had been busy saying good-bye ever since I
first saw you. The idea seemed to me to mean something at the moment. I
see now that it was too subtle. I do not usually err on that side."

Theron kept his hold upon her gaze, as if it afforded him bodily
support. He felt that he ought to stoop and take up his hat, but he
dared not look away from her. "Do you not err now, on the side of
cruelty?" he asked her piteously.

It seemed for the instant as if she were wavering, and he swiftly thrust
forth other pleas. "I admit that I did wrong to follow you to New York.