In the strange house she had got into bed to sleep, glad to escape the annoying question. When she awoke they would have forgotten the whole matter. Her friend had come into the room with her and she wanted to dismiss her quickly, to be alone for a time. “I’ll not unpack my bag now. I think I’ll just undress and crawl in between the sheets. It’s going to be warm anyway,” she explained. It was absurd. Well she had looked forward to something quite different on her arrival, laughter, young men standing about and looking a little self-conscious. Now she only felt uncomfortable. Why did people keep asking why she had got up at midnight and taken a slow train instead of waiting until morning? One wanted sometimes just to be a fool about little things, and not to have to give explanations. When her friend went out of the room she threw off all her clothes and got quickly into bed and closed her eyes. It was another foolish notion she had, her wanting to be naked. Had she not taken the slow uncomfortable train she would not have had the fancy about the young man walking beside the train in the fields, through the streets of towns, through forests. It was good to be naked sometimes. There was the feel of things against one’s skin. If one could only have the joyful feeling of that more often. One could sink into a clean bed, sometimes, when one was tired and sleepy and it was like getting into the firm warm arms of some one who could love and understand one’s foolish impulses. The young woman in the bed slept and in her sleep was again being carried swiftly along through the darkness. The woman with the cat and the old man who muttered words did not appear again, but many other people came and went through her dream-world. There was a swift tangled march of strange events. She went forward, always forward toward something she wanted. Now it approached. A great eagerness took possession of her. It was strange that she wore no clothes. The young man who walked so swiftly through fields had reappeared, but she had not noticed before that he also did not wear clothes. The world had grown dark. There was a dusky darkness. And now the young man had stopped going swiftly forward and like herself was silent. They both hung suspended in a sea of silence. He was standing and looking directly into her eyes. He could go within her and come out again. The thought was infinitely sweet. She lay in a soft warm darkness and her flesh was hot, too hot. “Some one has foolishly built a fire and has forgotten to open the doors and windows,” she thought vaguely. The young man, who was now so close to her, who was standing silently so close to her and looking directly into her eyes, could make everything all right. His hands were within a few inches of her body. In a moment they would touch, bring cool peace into her body, into herself too.