They sat close together, and Eunice rested her head against Bunny’s shoulder and whispered, “Do you care for me a little bit?” He assured her that he did, but she said, no, he must think she was a horrid bold thing; and when he declared that he didn’t, she said, “Then why don’t you kiss me?” He began to kiss her, but she wasn’t satisfied—he didn’t mean it, she said; and suddenly she whispered, “Bunny, I don’t believe you’ve ever really loved a girl before!” He admitted that he had not. “I’ve always known you were a queer boy,” she said. “What is the matter?” Bunny said he didn’t quite know; he was trembling violently, because he had never had anything like this happen to him, and several different emotions clamored at the same time, and which one should he follow? “Let me teach you, Bunny,” whispered the girl; and when he did not answer at once, she put her lips upon his, in a long kiss that made him dizzy. He murmured faintly that something might happen, she might get into trouble; but she told him not to worry about that, she knew about those things and had taken the needed precautions. II Such was the way of Bunny’s initiation into the adult life. Gone were the days of happy innocence when he could be content to sit holding hands with Rosie Taintor. “Holding hands” was now walking on a slippery ledge, over a dark abyss where pleasure and pain were so mingled you could hardly tell them apart. Bunny was frightened by the storm of emotion which seized upon him, and still more by the behavior of the girl in his arms; a kind of frenzy shook her, she clung to him in a convulsion of excitement, half sobbing, half laughing, with little cries as of an animal in pain. And Bunny must share this delirium, she would not have it otherwise, she was furious in her exactions, the mistress of these dark rites, and he must obey her will. The first time, the boy was overwhelmed by the realization of what he had done, but she clung to him, whispering, “Oh, Bunny don’t be ashamed! No, no! I won’t let you be ashamed! Why haven’t we got a right to be happy? Oh, please, please, be happy!” So he had to promise, and do his best. “Oh, Bunny, you are such a sweet lover! And we are going to have such good times.” This was her crooning song, wrapped in his arms, there under the springtime moon, which is the same in California as everywhere else in the world. And when the chill of the California night began to creep into their bones, they could hardly tear themselves apart, but all the way over the dunes they walked arm in arm, kissing as they went. “Oh, Bunny, it was bold and bad of me, but tell me you forgive me, tell me you’re glad I did it!” It appeared to be his duty to comfort her.