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 the next morning, dear, dear, Ethel—but I'd found nothing out, you know; nothing about myself. I've found out nothing now of the knowledge I ought to have."

"But you've found I don't care except about you."

He bent his head and drew her hands to his lips; and his kiss, though not at all like the first love kiss she had dreamed to be hers some day, brought her amazing ecstasy. She loved this boy who so loved her and yet, half in fear of himself, half in fear of her, held from her even in their rapture. She wanted him nearer now; she wanted his arms about her, his strength subduing hers, overpowering and holding her; and yet she delighted too in his courtly awe of her when he had kissed her hands and released her, catching his breath, after no more than that.

"I've never—" he said, "I've never had anything like that before."

"Nor I! Nor I!" Ethel cried; she caught his hands now and held him before her.

"You'd not? All the men in the world must have loved you, Ethel, the moment they caught sight of you."

"And the women, you! Yet you didn't care until you saw me! Not even abroad, Barney, in England and France where girls—"

He gazed steadily into her eyes, knowing what she would not, and yet wished to ask. Had he been, even without love, another girl's?

"There are some advantages in being brought up in an Indian shack, Ethel," he said. "They've only one room often, you know; with sometimes two families or three; and lots of human living is there. What you learn turns you straight either one way or the