He was silent. He did not gainsay her. He wanted to hide his face. Something started up in his breast and beat against his breathing, hurt him. Not the denial of the kiss. It was the sudden pierce of her insensitiveness. She had not cared to understand how he cared for her. And when he had longed for her mouth, her mood had not changed! If only it had! If only she had been moved--though it was in denial. He had at times believed he saw her little body stir with passion when he was near her. But so faintly, so containedly. Never a doubt of her control. Something she tasted in exquisite moderation and enjoyed. In her denial she was cool. It was as if her hunger for a closer kiss were a question answered in her catechism: one she knew all about: one she had learned the answer of by rote. There she was smiling, chatting. She had already forgotten. He looked away and heard the mutterings of his pain that she could be smiling, chatting. * * * * * With dull head David went to his work. He loved Lois and rebelled against his love. She gave him no ground on which to hate her. Always his love was watching, watching for a pause in which to whisper: “See? You do her injustice. She is not hard and flippant. She is young and unknowing. She does not feel a deeper love. How much sun can a bud hold in its tight petals?” She was not different. She sought him out. She allowed him no escape. One day, she said: “Why don’t you kiss me any more?” David took her hand and kissed that, tenderly, hopelessly. Lois laughed. She thought he was teasing her. She fell in with his little game. Work was already a tune David knew by heart. Fortunately, since his head was dull. The year approached its scintillant climax. And David’s head was dull and his heart was heavy. One bitter cold day he stepped out for his lunch. When he could he lunched alone. It was a problem of avoiding Duer Tibbetts whom he emphatically did not like, but who went on blandly liking David. It surprised David how little his own attitude and his inner mood affected his relations with that blossoming gentleman of affairs. It was almost as if, in the reality of their business and family connections, so slight a thing as personal taste must fade away, did not count. He had often lunched with other boys in the office--the sort who Duer said were not “their sort.” He liked them, until he began in this very approach to have discomfort in their friendship. Since the bursting of his wound with Lois he sought to be alone. He was equally surprised by the sensitive response of these others. They felt his aloofness in the office: they honored it. They were different indeed from Duer.