H.E. Bates Companion

A university student and a younger girl share a romantic moment at her birthday party, but the boy leaves abruptly and in confusion. The girl
"slept little, and when not sleeping thought as to why he had gone without a word, of the future, his looks, the dark kitchen, his two kisses, and the candle which had fallen off the cake." In Nation and Athenaeum (October 30, 1926), Day's End and Other Stories (1928), Thirty Tales (1934).