Yet it was a woman's kiss, given for its own sake.

Sally could not comprehend; it was too sudden, too unheard-of, that Diane Sampson should kiss me, the man she did not love.
Sally's white, sad face changed, and in the flaming wave of scarlet that dyed neck and cheek and brow I read with mighty pound of heart that, despite the dark stain between us, she loved me still..