Page:A Virgin Heart.pdf/177

Rh The darkness made Rose receive her lover's caresses more willingly than usual. She was expecting them. The thing which had appeared so bold to M. Hervart obviously seemed already quite natural to her....

"Much more natural, perhaps, than allowing me to touch her breast or the under side of her arm...."

M. Hervart made bold to ask for more.... "Rose! Rose!"

But the girl recoiled. Suppressing a cry, Rose got up and said: "Let's go indoors."

She added, a moment later, "It's wrong Xavier, it's wrong. Respect me."

"What logic," said M. Hervart to himself. "Respect me! But it's true, I made a mistake. With young girls especially one must begin at the end."

The next day they met very early and Rose, refusing to listen to anything he had to say, refusing even to give him a friendly kiss, pronounced the sentence on which she had been meditating:

"I am angry. If you want me to pardon you, go away at once and write to me a week hence that everything's arranged for our mar-