"You can't forgive that, can you! You think I ought to have come grovelling to you. It's not proper to ask you to come to me ... to believe you might come ... to have everything ready in _case_ you might come. Prude, Jenny! That's what you are." "A prude wouldn't have come." "That's all you know," said Keith, teasingly. "She'd have come--out of curiosity; but she'd have made a fuss. That's what prudes are. That's what they do." "Well, I expect you know," Jenny admitted, sarcastically. The words wounded her more than they wounded him. Where Keith laughed, Jenny quivered. "You don't know what it means to me--" she began again, and checked her too unguarded tongue. "To come?" He bent towards her. "Of course, it's marvellous to me! Was that what you meant?" "No. To think ... other girls ..." She could not speak distinctly. "Other girls?" Keith appeared astonished. "Do you really believe ..." He too paused. "No other girls come on this yacht to see me. I've known other girls. I've made love to other girls--what man hasn't? You don't get to my age without ..." "Without what?" Jenny asked coolly. "I'm not pretending anything to you. I'm thirty and a bit over. A man doesn't get to my age...No man does, without having been made a fool of." "Oh, I don't mind that," Jenny said sharply. "It's the girls you've fooled." "Don't you believe it, Jenny. They've always been wiser than me. Say they've known a bit more. You're different ..." Jenny shook her head, sighing. "I bet they've all been that," she slowly said. "Till the next one." The old unhappiness had returned, gripping her heart. She no longer looked at him, but stared away, straight in front of her. "Well, what if they had all been different?" Keith persisted. "Supposing I were to tell you about them, each one.... There's no time for it, Jenny. You'll have to take my word for it. You'll do that if you want to. If you want to believe in me. Do you?" "Of course I do!" Jenny blazed. "I can't! Be different if I was at home. But I'm here, and you knew I'd come. D'you see what I mean?" "You're not in a trap, old girl," said Keith. "You can go home this minute if you think you are." His colour also rose. "You make too much fuss. You want me to tell you good fat lies to save your face. Don't be a juggins, Jenny! Show your spirit! Jenny!" Keith still held her hand. He drew it towards him, and Jenny was made to lean by his sudden movement. He slipped his arm again round her. Jenny did not yield herself. He was conscious of rebuff, although she did not struggle. "You want me to trust you blindfold," she said in a dreary voice. "It's not good enough, Keith. Really it isn't! When you don't trust me. You sent for me, and I came. As soon as I was here you ... you were as beastly as you could be ..." Her voice trembled. "Not really beastly ..." Keith urged, and his coaxing tone and concerned expression shook her. "Nice beastly, eh?"