Julia was ashamed before May. That spineless little girl! Julia wanted to leave them both. May and the boy hurt her. Her body was so alive that her awareness of herself was very small. She was sure of her existence only through this humiliating certainty of other being. Their youth seemed disgusting to her and she wanted to leave them with it. She smiled at them constrainedly. The two figures swam before her. "Good-by, Paul. I must leave you children and attend to some humdrum duties below stairs." "Good-by," Paul said. He could not look at her. She went out. The stir of her dress died away. He feared to hear it go and to be alone with something in himself. "I'm sick of chess, May. I must be going too." He rose. "Must you?" May got up. Paul went to the table and took his cap. He wondered why she was so still, why he could not bring himself to see her. When he turned around she was watching him with her silly timid air. It repelled him that she smiled so much for nothing at all. His eyes were blank with distrust of her. Why does she smile like that! She made him cruel. He hated her for making him cruel. He wanted to be cruel. "You seem pretty glad to get rid of me!" "Why, Paul!" May flashed a glance at him. She stared at the floor, and she was dying in the obscure impression of moonlight on trees near a park gate. Paul came up to her and, with the surreptitious movement of a sulky child, pressed a hard kiss against her mouth. Before she could respond to him he ran out, through the hall and down the stairs and into the street. He was terrified lest he should see Julia before he could leave the house. Anything but May! He didn't want May. Aunt Julia always coming close to him, touching him, laying her hand on his. He felt trapped in his loathing of her. Why was it he could never forget her! It was growing dusk. On either side of the infinite street the houses were vague. The trees were like plumes of shadow waving above him. The stars in the sky, that yet glowed with the passing of the sun, were burning dust. He tried to think that he was mad. Beyond him under a street lamp he saw a dimly illumined figure--big buttocks wagging before him under a thin calico skirt. And the Negress passed out of sight.