Her face in repose had a somewhat sad
expression, due to the pathetic droop of the corners of her little
mouth and a wistful look in her eyes that made most men instinctively
desire to caress and console her. But the sadness and the wistfulness
were unconscious and untrue, for the girl was of a sunny and happy
disposition. And the men that desired to pet her were kept at a distance
by her natural self-respect, which made them respect her, too.
She was, perhaps, somewhat unusual in her generation in that she did not
indulge in flirtations and would have strongly objected to being the object
of promiscuous caresses and light lovemaking. Her innate purity and
innocence kept such things at a distance from her. It never occurred to her
that a girl might indulge in a hundred flirtations without reproach.
Without being sentimental she had her own inward, unexpressed feelings of
romance and vague dreams of Love and a Lover--but not of loves and lovers
in the plural.
No one so far had shattered her belief in the chivalrous feeling of respect
of the other sex for her own. Men as a rule, especially British men--though
they are no more virtuous than those of alien nations--treat a woman as she
inwardly wants them to treat her. And, although this girl was over twenty,
she had never yet had reason to suspect that men could behave to her with
anything but respect.
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