The next day, about noon, Culpepper Buxton rang the Wistar doorbell. Aunt Viney opened the door, still adjusting the apron she had tied on as she came.

"No, not Miss Ann Eliza this time, Aunt Viney. Is Miss Selina here?"

Viney, cautious soul, true to her race in this, never was known to commit herself or her white household.

"I'll go up an' see, Mr. Culpepper."

"Tell her it's only for a moment, I've run 'round between classes."

Plump brown Viney, not without panting, mounted the stairs and went on back to Selina's room. "Yes'm, I knew you's here, an' I knew you's goin' to see him. But 'tain't my way, an' you know 'tain't, to keep my white folks too ready on tap. Get up f'om that sew-in'-machine, an' turn roun' an' lemme untie thet ap'on you got on. Think you's sewin' foh yo'se'f, don't you? Think it's a petticoat you's goin' to learn to make, don' you? An' firs' time you lay it down an' go off an' leave it, yo' aunt or yo' ma'll take it up foh you an' finish it."

"Aunt Viney, you do understand, don't you? And you're the only one here that does! Tell 'em I want to do it, I want to make mistakes, and I want to rip 'em out and do it over again. Tell 'em so for me, won't you, Aunt Viney?"

"Go on down to thet thar youn' man. He ca'ies his haid high, but 'tain't no proof we don't ca'y our'n higher. He'n Miss Maria, his ma, ain't got it all; we're folks our own se'f."

But for all this by way of support while she smoothed her hair, Selina went downstairs slowly and constrainedly, conscious in the sense she had been conscious when coming home through the snowstorm with Tuttle Jones.

She had known Culpepper would come from the moment she dropped her note to him in the letterbox at the corner last night. And now that he had come she was afraid to go down and meet him. Afraid of what? She couldn't have said; instinct didn't take her that far; it only sent her down the steps hesitatingly and constrainedly.

Culpepper the undemonstrative, the coolly unflattering in his attitude always, swung about at the sound of her footsteps and met her at the parlor door.

She held out a hand, a soft and pretty hand, its mate going up at the same time to push back some imaginary troublesome lock, a characteristic gesture with her when she was embarrassed.

But Culpepper having taken the soft hand proffered, put it over into his left one, and——

("Oh, Culpepper, no, I'm not ten now!")

—with the frowning and horrific air of a fearsome captor, undoubtedly an ogre captor intent and not to be deterred, went creepingly after its mate and cunningly caught it and brought it down and put it, with even more diablerie of horrific cunning alongside the other upon his big left palm, and—

("Culpepper, don't—don't do it, it frightens me still!")

—like as when the compassionless keeper of the ogre dungeon into which the victim is thrust, lowers the overhead stone that fits into its place—lowered his big right hand upon these two soft ones——

And why not? So he used to catch her and tease her when she was ten, playing the thing through in realistic pantomime until she, throwing herself on him, clung to him perforce! But she was not that little girl! Nor did she feel as a little girl feels any longer! She tried to take her hands away.

As well try any other feat in strength which is impossible. And now Culpepper bending his head a little was trying to make her look up, those bold eyes in teasing wait to catch her gaze when she did.

Not for worlds could Selina have looked up. Her heart beat wildly, and the blood pulsed in her throat and pounded at her ears. And as Culpepper holding the hands captive, went on bending to surprise her gaze, her lashes swept lower and yet lower upon her cheeks.

As a picture of shy maidenliness, Mamma and Auntie, the thing as you fancy it in perfection, behold your handiwork!

As a piteous young creature, ignorantly innocent, or innocently ignorant, as you prefer to put it, Mamma and Auntie, the choice in terms is yours, a piteous young creature suddenly overswept with conscious sex that nor you nor any creature has seen fit to explain to her, behold your handiwork! Groping by her young self, filled with terror and horror of self, of life, even of the God who made her as she was, you have left your child to battle as she may with things hideous to her distorted imaginings, rather than know them as attributes natural, decent, and sanctioned of God!

Culpepper bent yet lower to find her eyes through the down sweep of those lashes. The warmth from his young, gloriously alive face, so close to hers, the lift and fall of his breathing, reached her consciousness.

"I had your note, Selina. I wonder, writing me that, if you knew how sweet you were being to me?"

And here she got her hands away because in truth his heart was touched by her piteous terror, and he let her go. She found a chair and pointed one to him.

"You didn't come round any more," she said hurriedly.

He looked across at her oddly, those blue eyes of his within their accentuating black lashes, even humorously baffled in their expression. Seeing that this speech from her was honest and not arch, it was disarming to a lover by its very nature. And yet allowing that it was the child in her that was honest, was he not to gather that the maid in her was disturbed?

And again allowing that it was the child in her that spoke, was it not the maiden in her whose fingers even now were plaiting her dress nervously into folds, her eyes upon these fingers and her color coming and going? Peradventure, Mamma and Auntie, she does you proud, this proper and becoming picture of fluttered and timid maidenhood. You, Mamma, who have been girl, maiden, wife and mother, and have no woman's word for your woman-child! You, Auntie, who discussed the situation frankly enough with Culpepper, the man, but as with a flaming sword of vigilance, have stood guard lest even a breath of the truth reach the ignorance of Selina, the woman.

Culpepper watching her as she sat there, lovely and drooping and fair-haired, with her clear young profile partly averted, spoke, and watched anew to note the effect upon her of what he said.

"I concluded I'd keep away, Selina. I wasn't in the least satisfied with what you were giving me. I'm an outspoken brute. If there's no show that my share's going to be any more, I'll go on keeping away."

She shrank as though something had struck her. And in truth something had. Comprehension of what he meant, so far as knowledge went with her, the lightning flash of it stunned while it revealed.

Yet even as the poor child reeled pale with the shock, she rallied to her womanhood as she had had womanhood impressed on her. Courageously rallied! And bravely dissembled! A thing well-nigh synonymous with womanhood as taught to her!

Which is to say the child restored herself with a long, deep breath, laughed with a disarming little throw back to the head, swept her hands across the plaits she had so busily gathered there in the breadths of her dress, as though she swept away with these all but an everyday interpretation of Culpepper's word, and spoke frankly, frankness being a most excellent dissembling weapon.

"It's good to have you back, Culpepper." Her voice, traitorous at first, gained in composure. As said before it was a nice voice, and under conditions, full of cadences. When she was ten, Culpepper used to kiss her in her pretty neck to tickle her, because he liked these cadences when she laughed.

Meanwhile with the aid of that dissembling weapon, frankness, she was going on. "Don't stay away ever again. And, Oh, there's so much to ask you, and so much to tell you about!"

He looked across at her and her pretty dissembling and laughed. "You little goose! You haven't known me all this while to think you can put me off if I'm really ready?"

Her gaze at this was hurried, beseeching, pleading. It seemed to beg for time, respite, mercy!

He laughed again, and she hurried on. "As I said, there's so, so much to talk about——"

"As for instance——?"

One saw her hurriedly and desperately searching her mind. "Why, er—of course—Judy!"

The tone even implied reproach that he could have thought it anything but Judy.

"All right, my lady," his name for her of old. "I accept the cue. Judy it's to be, is it? You're sparring for time, I'm to understand? The idea's planted now alongside any foolishness which Tuttle may have been putting there and I'm to let you get used to it awhile? And what's the trouble with Judy, now? Still sore with her father, or something fresh?"

"We're not supposed to know what she's doing," with a rush of evident relief at his docility, "but we do. She's being coached for her college examinations by some college chap Algy found and arranged with. It's mostly done through Algy, too, with an occasional meeting at the circulating library to outline more work. She'll have to go to Cincinnati for the examinations when they come, in June, which her father won't let her do, so we can't see how any of it's going to help her?"

"Go on," from Culpepper. "Talk along, amuse yourself. But one of these days when my time comes, my lady——"

Selina's breath came piteously in its flutterings. And for all her rallyings to that womanhood, her heart had never ceased its cruel clamberings, and her blood its beatings in her ears and its pulsings in her throat. And on all that vast sea of terror fast returning on her again, terror not of him, that was secondary, but of that within her innocent self she could no longer deny as being there, on all this rising sea of fear and terror, she could see but the one absurd little spar of inconsequence to cling to still—Judy.

"We feel so sort of dishonorable toward her father and mother, Maud and Adele and I do, Culpepper. But we're not supposed to know she's doing this. And of all people, little Judy!"

"Certainly, by all means, little Judy."

She rose with a pretty dignity which seemed to say she didn't like this tone from him.

He rose with her. She had to look up to him when they stood thus, which gives the man the advantage.

"It's lunch time, Culpepper, though we'll be glad to have you stay?"

No doubt he had really meant to be merciful and bide his time when he said he would. Instead, as she finished her little speech with its implied reproof, he laughed and with a mighty sweep of his arms, gathered this suddenly white-cheeked Selina up and kissed her, kissed her roughly, kissed her gloriously, kissed her exultingly. And set her down.

She stayed white-cheeked and looked at him. She spoke so quietly it was a bit discomforting. "That was outrageous of you. And cruel. I'll listen to you if ever I make up my mind now I want to listen and not before. Right now I hate you! Yes, I'm sure that's it, hate you! Not so much because you're Culpepper—"and here it became evident she was going to cry, one hates to have to tell it on her so soon again—"but because of something in you that made you think you could!" And the storm of tears now upon her, she turned and fled upstairs.

Late that afternoon when Selina went into her mother's room, she found Auntie talking about her paragon and favorite Culpepper. "He's his father right over again, Lavinia. Women like to be coerced and decided for. And anything that once belonged to Culpepper, he'd be fierce to the death caring for."

"I don't agree with you about what women like, Auntie," from Selina, to this startled lady who didn't know she was around. "Why should a person like to be coerced because she's a woman? And why should she want to be decided for, for the same reason?"

Auntie looked not only startled but alarmed. "Why, Selina!"

Selina took a calmer tone. "Maybe we're beginning to feel differently about these things, Auntie," curiously, as if wondering about it herself. "Maybe women are different from what you and the ones you knew were?"

"Lavinia," from Auntie, "do you hear your child?"

Selina overswept by the fury of swift and sudden rage, stamped her foot and—terrible as it is to have to set it down again—burst into tears.

"But I'm not a child! That's the trouble! If anybody'd only understand and—help me!"