"Do you?" She said nothing more. She had nothing to more to say. She felt calm, and almost happy. It was as though that kiss had cleansed her, even while it soiled. She sensed that he was thinking hard. She could almost hear his baffled mind scurrying about for words. She sensed, too, that he had almost spoken of marriage but had cautiously thought better of it in time. They were at the curb outside the Prairie Avenue house. "Lottie, you're sore; and I don't blame you. I'm dead sorry. On the square. I'm--say, you'll prob'ly never speak to me again." He was as argumentative as though he had trod on her toe. She smiled as she turned at the steps. "I'm glad you kissed me, Ben. I didn't like it. But I'm glad you kissed me." She left him staring. She let herself into the house, ran quietly up the stairs to the second floor. She went into the bathroom and turned on the cold water faucet and washed her mouth inside and out with cold water. Then with listerine. Then she saw a bottle marked peroxide and took a mouthful. I think that if there had been a carbolic in the house she might have taken a gargle of that, as a final cleanser, in her zeal to be rid of the taste of the wet red kiss. She spat forcefully and finally now, made a wry face and went into her bedroom. She took off her clothes, came back and washed with soap and a rough cloth, brushed her hair, put on a fresh nightgown and went to bed. Lottie's middle-aged romance with Ben Gartz was over. CHAPTER XV The Paysons and the Kemps, together with the rest of the world, were to be tossed about now like straws in a storm. But Mrs. Carrie Payson, reading the paper next morning in the dining room window, after breakfast, was the dispassionately interested spectator. Though this was a manless household it received its morning and evening paper regularly. You saw Mrs. Payson in that. She had no patience with women who did not read the newspapers. Sometimes when Belle said, "What wedding?" or "What murder?" or "What sale?" Mrs. Payson would exclaim, "For heaven's sake, don't you read the papers! How do you expect to know what's going on!"