When at last he glanced at her there was mist in his eyes. "Why not?" He saw that she was smiling as if across the fear that was in her look. He resented her fear and he loved her for it. Oh, little May! He loved her. "Because--because! You were angry with me when I didn't laugh." She accused him. Why did he watch her so intently yet unseeingly? She felt his look as something which drew her inward, into herself, too deep. "I'm not angry with you, May. Honestly, I'm not." In a dream he came near her: her thin small figure, her pointed face, her bright blank eyes, frightened and sweet. He came near her pale thick hair where it was caught away from her temples. As she turned to him he could see the end of her braid swinging below her waist. He was aware of her legs, with the straight calves that showed below her skirt, and of her breasts pointed separately through her sailor blouse. Everything that he saw was a part of something that was killing him. That was why he did not love her. She was too young. Because of this he hated her. She was like himself. He had to hate her. To save himself from the sense of dying and being utterly lost, he had to hate her. Though it was Aunt Julia's fault. He knew that. All those books! He had tormented himself trying to understand them. Two years ago he hid under the mattress the picture of the fat woman. Childish. He abhorred the picture of the naked woman as he abhorred his Aunt with her filthy priggishness. He remembered that long ago when he asked her something he wanted to know she called him a dirty little boy. Poor kid! He was sorry for himself. It was all a part of Julia and the world and something that was killing him because there was no truth or beauty in life. They went on smiling in their ugliness, torturing the beautiful things and making them ugly like themselves. He would kill himself. He did not belong in this ugly cruel world. White little May, white like a moon. Like snow and silence under the trees. Snow and silence and rest forever and ever. Forever and ever. Rest! Rest! May let him touch her. For a moment she was happy in a bright blank eternal happiness that was an instant only. Then she was cold and alone and afraid of him: of his face so hot and close, the queer look in his eyes, and of his hands that she could not stop. "Oh, Paul," she kept saying, half sobbing. "Please, Paul! Don't. Oh, don't, don't! Please, Paul, don't!"