As for Joe, he had never seen anything like this girl across the counter.  While he was wiser in natural philosophy than she, and could have given immediately the reason for woman’s existence on the earth, nevertheless woman had no part in his cosmos.  His imagination was as untouched by woman as the girl’s was by man.  But his imagination was touched now, and the woman was Genevieve.  He had never dreamed a girl could be so beautiful, and he could not keep his eyes from her face.  Yet every time he looked at her, and her eyes met his, he felt painful embarrassment, and would have looked away had not her eyes dropped so quickly.

But when, at last, she slowly lifted her eyes and held their gaze steadily, it was his own eyes that dropped, his own cheek that mantled red.  She was much less embarrassed than he, while she betrayed her embarrassment not at all.  She was aware of a flutter within, such as she had never known before, but in no way did it disturb her outward serenity.  Joe, on the contrary, was obviously awkward and delightfully miserable.

Neither knew love, and all that either was aware was an overwhelming desire to look at the other.  Both had been troubled and roused, and they were drawing together with the sharpness and imperativeness of uniting elements.  He toyed with his spoon, and flushed his embarrassment over his soda, but lingered on; and she spoke softly, dropped her eyes, and wove her witchery about him.

But he could not linger forever over a glass of ice-cream soda, while he did not dare ask for a second glass.  So he left her to remain in the shop in a waking trance, and went away himself down the street like a somnambulist.  Genevieve dreamed through the afternoon and knew that she was in love.  Not so with Joe.  He knew only that he wanted to look at her again, to see her face.  His thoughts did not get beyond this, and besides, it was scarcely a thought, being more a dim and inarticulate desire.