She was only twenty-two, and though her emancipation had been accomplished in its way somewhat in advance of her generation, it had its origin in a very early period of her life, when she had been allowed to read books of verse--Shelley, Byron, Shakespeare, Verlaine, Rossetti, Swinburne, and many others--unchallenged and unguided.

The understanding of things, reserved for "the wise and prudent," had been at first vaguely and then definitely conveyed to her by slow but subtle means--an apprehension from instinct, not from knowledge.

There had never been a shock to her mind.
The knowledge of things had grown imperceptibly, and most of life's ugly meanings were known--at a great distance, to be sure, but still known.

Yet there came a sudden half-angry feeling when she heard Rudyard Byng say, so loosely, that Al'Mah had kissed him.

Was it possible, then, that a man, that any man, thought she might hear such things without resentment; that any man thought her to know so much of life that it did not matter what was said?
Did her outward appearance, then, bear such false evidence?
He did not understand quite, yet he saw that she misunderstood, and he handled the situation with a tact which seemed hardly to belong to a man of his training and calibre.
"She thought no more of kissing me," he continued, presently, in a calm voice--"a man she had seen only once before, and was not likely to see again, than would a child of five.