Reluctantly, Elsie forced herself to the realisation that the film must soon come to an end, and the lights reappear. She looked at the screen again, and when the lovers, in magnified presentment, exchanged a long embrace, responsive vibrations shook her, and she felt all the elation of conscious and recent initiation. The lights suddenly flashed out, a moment sooner than she expected them, and she flung herself across into her own seat, pressing the backs of her hands against her flushed, burning cheeks and dazzled eyes. She knew that Norman Roberts was looking at her, but she would not turn her head and meet his eyes, partly from shyness, and partly from coquetry. “Isn’t this the end?” she said, knowing that it was not, but speaking in order to relieve her sense of embarrassment. “No, it isn’t over till half-past ten; there’s another forty minutes yet.” He consulted his wrist-watch elaborately. “I expect they’ll have a comic to finish up with.” Elsie sensed constraint in him, too, and in sudden alarm turned and faced him. As their eyes met, both of them smiled and flushed, and Roberts slipped his arm under hers and possessed himself of her hand again. “Did you like that?” he whispered, bending towards her. “The picture?” “You know I don’t mean that.” She laughed and then nodded. “Elsie, tell me something truly. Has any other fellow ever kissed you?” Her first impulse was to lie glibly. Then her natural, instinctive understanding of the game on which they were engaged, made her laugh teasingly. “That’s telling, Mr. Inquisitive.” “That means they have. I must say, Elsie, that considering you’re only sixteen, I don’t call that very nice.” Elsie snatched away her hand. “I get quite enough of that sort of thing at home, thank you, Mr. Norman Roberts, _Es_quire. There’s no call for you to interfere in my concerns, that I’m aware of.” His instant alarm gratified her, although she continued to look offended, and to sit very upright in her chair. “Don’t be angry, Elsie. I didn’t mean to offend you, honour bright. Make it up!” The pianist began some rattling dance-music and the lights went out again. Elsie immediately relaxed her pose, feeling her heart beat more quickly in mingled doubt and anticipation. The doubt was resolved almost within the instant. Roberts pulled her towards him, bringing her face close to his, and whispered: “Kiss and be friends!” All the while that the last film was showing, Elsie lay almost in his arms, seeing nothing at all, conscious only of feeling alive as she had never felt alive before. Even when it was all over and they rose to go, that sense of awakened vitality throbbed within her, and made her unaware of fatigue.