I, who had been hailed Prince of the Oyster Pirates, who could go anywhere in the world as a man amongst men; who could sail boats, lay aloft in black and storm, or go into the toughest hang-outs in sailor town and play my part in any rough-house that started or call all hands to the bar--I didn't know the first thing I might say or do with this slender little chit of a girl-woman whose scant skirt just reached her shoe-tops and who was as abysmally ignorant of life as I was, or thought I was, profoundly wise.
I remember we sat on a bench in the starlight.

There was fully a foot of space between us.

We slightly faced each other, our near elbows on the back of the bench; and once or twice our elbows just touched.

And all the time, deliriously happy, talking in the gentlest and most delicate terms that might not offend her sensitive ears, I was cudgelling my brains in an effort to divine what I was expected to do.

What did girls expect of boys, sitting on a bench and tentatively striving to find out what love was?
What did she expect me to do?
Was I expected to kiss her?
Did she expect me to try?
And if she did expect me, and I didn't what would she think of me?
Ah, she was wiser than I--I know it now--the little innocent girl-woman in her shoe-top skirt.