rary home. They had the house to
themselves, moreover, save for the native boy in the kitchen. The
others were out somewhere. It seemed to him that in the face looking up
into his the lips were raised temptingly. His blood was in a whirl. In
a moment she was in his embrace, and he kissed them full and
passionately.

He was hardly prepared for what followed. She wrenched herself from him
with a sinuous strength for which he would scarcely have given her
credit.

"Why did you do that?" she blazed forth, and he could see that her face
grew white and quivering as she confronted him in the dusk. "Why did
you? Heavens! are all men alike that they think a girl is only made to
be their plaything? I hate them. Yes, I hate them all."

The fierce bitterness of her tone was so incisive, so genuine, that most
men under the circumstances would have felt extremely foolish, and
looked correspondingly abject. Into Kenneth Kershaw's very heart her
words seemed to cut like so many whip lashes. By a mighty effort he
restrained himself from pleading provocation, feeling, any mitigation
whatever; which would have been the worst line he could possibly have
taken. Instead he adopted a kind of quietly resigned tone, with just a
touch of the dignified; apologetic, yet without a trace of abjectness--
which was the best.

"May, dear, forgive me," he said. "I was not thinking, I suppose. Have
I offended you beyond recall? Well, I must pay the penalty; for of
course you are going to tell me you never want to set eyes on me again."

He knew how to play his cards. Even then his words seemed to open a
dreadful blank before her mind's eye. Not to set eyes on him again? He
seemed to mean it, too. That air of sad self-composure with which he
had spoken them disarmed her, and her anger melted.

"No, no, I don't mean that," she answered, slowly, in a dazed kind of
manner. "But why did you do it? We were such friends before."

"And are we not to be again?" is the reply that would have arisen to
most men's lips. But this one knew when to let well alone.

"Forget it, May," he said. "Believe me, I never wanted to offend you.
And don't think hard things of me when I am away, will you? Good-bye."

"No, no. But you had better go now. Good-bye."

Her tone was flurried, with an admixture of distress. It was just the
time not to answer. He went out, and as he walked away from the house,
he felt not ill-satisfied with himself an