Yet he did not know how to make love to a girl like Ruth.

Then, too, he was handicapped by the possession of a great fund of experience with girls and women who had been absolutely different from her.

They had known about love and life and flirtation, while she knew nothing about such things.

Her prodigious innocence appalled him, freezing on his lips all ardors of speech, and convincing him, in spite of himself, of his own unworthiness.

Also he was handicapped in another way.