When he said, "I love you," she was, without explaining it to herself, ashamed for him. She did not answer. She was conscious of his stealthiness. It oppressed her. She would not let him see her face. When the floor shook again she knew he was going out. She waited to hear his footsteps on the stairs and the slam of the front door. Then she pushed herself to her elbow and glanced about. In her new body she was strange with herself. She stood up and smoothed her rumpled dress quickly and guiltily. Then she ran out of the room and upstairs to her own garret. When the door was locked she threw herself on the bed on her face. The darkness of the pillow was cool to her eyes and to her whole soul. She wanted her throbbing body to lie still in the cool dark. She felt that she was ugly and terrible in her disgrace. She wanted to ask Paul to forgive her because she had behaved as she had. Sobbing into the bedclothes, she kept murmuring to herself, "I love him! I love him! Oh, I love him!" * * * * * To defend his vanity, Paul thought of himself as outcast and desperate. He wanted to invite the sense of tragedy in himself. He felt numb and despoiled. In the intensity of his misery earlier in the day there had been, after all, a kind of promise. Now May had gone away from him as if she were dead. The thought of Aunt Julia gave him only dull repugnance. He hoped doggedly that no one had known about it when he was with May. Beyond that he could not care. When he reached home he went up to his room and, though it was yet afternoon, he fell asleep soddenly without a dream. Before, his fatigue had been sharp and hungry. Now he was only tired of his own emptiness and stupidity. At the dinner hour he was called downstairs. Blaming his aunt and uncle for his own fears, he entered the dining room with a hang-dog air. His food was tasteless. There seemed nothing to think about until his uncle glanced at him. Guilt permeated Paul. He was hot and angry. After the meal he went upstairs and hid himself in the dark. He wondered if any of the beautiful things he had dreamed about existed. Everywhere was inflated dullness. He dwelt on this until he astonished himself by finding a faint pleasure in his reflections. He decided that the stars he saw through the window were burning nettles, and that they pricked his glance when he looked at them. Suddenly there was something substantial and satisfying in his very self-contempt. He decided that he was no better than Julia, and that he detested her and himself for the same reason. It was peculiarly soothing to perceive his own courage in self-condemnation. In despising himself he unclothed himself and he was with her in spiritual nakedness, which somehow took on a fleshly image so that he dared not think of it too clearly. * * * * *