Instantly Tillie wrenched herself away from him and stood up.  Her face was flushed and her eyes sparkled.  And yet, she was not indignant with him in the sense that a less unsophisticated girl would have been.  Absalom, according to New Canaan standards, was not exceeding his rights under the circumstances.  But an instinct, subtle, undefined, incomprehensible to herself, contradicted, indeed, by every convention of the neighborhood in which she had been reared, made Tillie feel that in yielding her lips to this man for whom she did not care, and whom, if she could hold out against him, she did not intend to marry, she was desecrating her womanhood.  Vague and obscure as her feeling was, it was strong enough to control her.

“I meant what I said, Absalom.  If you won’t leave me be, I won’t stay here with you.  You’ll have to go home, for now I’m going right up-stairs.”

She spoke with a firmness that made the dull youth suddenly realize a thing of which he had never dreamed, that however slightly Tillie resembled her father in other respects, she did have a bit of his determination.

She took a step toward the stairs, but Absalom seized her skirts and pulled her back.  “You needn’t think I’m leavin’ you act like that to me, Tillie!” he muttered, his ardor whetted by the difficulties of his courting.  “Now I’ll learn you!” and holding her slight form in his burly grasp he kissed her again and again.

“Leave me go!” she cried.  “I’ll call out if you don’t!  Stop it, Absalom!”

Absalom laughed aloud, his eyes glittering as he felt her womanly helplessness in his strong clasp.

“What you goin’ to do about it, Tillie?  You can’t help yourself—­ you got to get kissed if you want to or no!” And again his articulate caresses sounded upon her shrinking lips, and he roared with laughter in his own satisfaction and in his enjoyment of her predicament.  “You can’t help yourself,” he said, crushing her against him in a bearish hug.

“Absalom!” the girl’s voice rang out sharply in pain and fear.

Then of a sudden Absalom’s wrists were seized in a strong grip, and the young giant found his arms pinned behind him.

“Now, then, Absalom, you let this little girl alone.  Do you understand?” said Fairchilds, coolly, as he let go his hold on the youth and stepped round to his side.

Absalom’s face turned white with fury as he realized who had dared to interfere.  He opened his lips, but speech would not come to him.  Clenching his fingers, he drew back his arm, but his heavy fist, coming swiftly forward, was caught easily in Fairchilds’s palm—­and held there.

“Come, come,” he said soothingly, “it isn’t worth while to row, you know.  And in the presence of the lady!”