This was magnificently startling and thrilling and quite unexpected, that is in intensity and extent. There was something else that was intoxicating: the lightning intuition that he would not have gone as far as those devouring kisses, had I imposed restraint, even the raising of a finger. I had not invited him, being too modest for that, but neither had I exactly disinvited him.

The old wives’ tales of men that filter to the most secluded girl represent men of maniacal sexual greed. I knew the gruesome tales told by midwives who have to protect their patients. The denigrating knowledge of prostitution was also known to me; there were milder confidences but always of feminine weariness opposed to merciless demands. No one had ever suggested that there would be any sensitiveness among men, that some men, however few, would, like myself, be incapable of amour if they were unacceptable or unless many other things such as the loved one, the time, the place and response struck twelve together.

This was a revelation of another side of the lure of the Groves of Daphne. One felt as the Ancient Mariner when he was the first that ever burst into that silent sea, for all I had heard of this previously.

Ned Crispin, Arthur Masters, Billy Olliver and others had not laid a finger on me. Was that too, male sensitiveness? I had not speculated on this before. Were men sensitive only in the presence of virginity? Once the bar was down did they lose all respect? It did not seem that I could ever find a man with whom I could retain my self-respect in such a surrender.

Mr. Hardy and I were at variance on my deeper and inner ideas, but in playing the most magic game known we were equally matched in this vein of sensitiveness. I was his quarry because of my inexperience, but he was equally mine in my thirst for knowledge.

I was so elated by the discovery that maidenly safety lay in my own hands that I planned some sorties on my own account. This arrangement of going to Mrs. Simms acted admirably for liberty. It was another inebriating thing to discover that in a great city one could have adventures and no one the wiser. In the bush the very crows and magpies reported every movement. Little wonder that city people were wickeder than those in the bush, with opportunities and temptations so available.

I decided to go secretly to the Bulletin office. The Bulletin was a mine of fascination, but not considered nice for young girls or clergymen. I had a friend in its office, Mr. A. G. Stephens. I was much more eager to know him than dozens of silly old Sir James Hobnobs and stuffy professors and ponderous parliamentarians, but Mr. Stephens was regarded as a devil with horns. I asked was he a liar or a thief or a rake, and the reply always was, “Oh, no, not that, but the man is wrong-headed.” By persistent cross-examination I elicited that he discussed sympathetically the works of men who promulgated abashing views on sex and sociology: someone named G. B. Shaw, in particular. I sounded Mr. Hardy about him, and it was laughable to hear his execration of a real hog who would subvert society. As for my meeting “that crowd”, well, that would be to throw pearls of innocence before the swine of dangerous propaganda.