He was naturally so young, and their intimacy was so abstract, he did not know he wanted to crush her on to his breast to ease the ache there.

He was afraid of her.
The fact that he might want her as a man wants a woman had in him been suppressed into a shame.

When she shrank in her convulsed, coiled torture from the thought of such a thing, he had winced to the depths of his soul.

And now this "purity" prevented even their first love-kiss.
It was as if she could scarcely stand the shock of physical love, even a passionate kiss, and then he was too shrinking and sensitive to give it.
As they walked along the dark fen-meadow he watched the moon and did not speak.

She plodded beside him.