Laurence's expression softened. He turned his head so that she could not see his eyes. "I react slowly, Julia. I can't arrive at a set of difficult conclusions and then upset them in a moment." He sat stiffly, looking straight before him. Julia got up and began to walk about, pressing the fingers of one hand about the knuckles of the other. "It's killing me!" she said. "It's killing me!" Laurence suffered. He stood up like an old man. "In a few weeks the children are going off to school. Don't you think it would be better for their sakes if we waited until then to untangle our affairs?" Julia came to him again. She saw that his eyes swam in a dull moist light. Self-reproach made her giddy. In condemning herself she was almost happy. She observed how, involuntarily, he drew away from her. "I won't touch you, Laurence." She was aware of the injustice and cruelty of what she said. No suffering but her own seemed of any consequence to her. "You have no right to say that, Julia." "I know it. Kiss me, Laurence. Say that you forgive me." "How can I? What is there to forgive?" He kissed her. His lips were hard with repugnance. She welcomed the bitterness that was in his kiss. He said, "I have to think of myself, Julia." She did not know how to reply. He went out of the room, not looking at her again. She felt naked and outrageous. She wanted to fling away what she thought he did not treasure. When the pulse pounded in her wrists and temples she fancied that her horror could not burst free from itself. Her sick mind found pleasure in destroying its own illusions. It seemed absurd that, having rejected so many gods, she had made a god of herself. When her reflections became most bitter she grew calm and exalted. Her blood ran light. Having destroyed her world, her disbelief somehow survived as if on an eminence. However, her emotions rejected their own finality. She felt that she had to go on somewhere outside herself. * * * * * May waited in vain for Paul to come back. She convinced herself that she was not good. When she believed in her own humility she was not afraid to admit that she wanted to see him. She was unhappy now with her own body. As soon as she saw her little breasts uncovered she felt frightened and ashamed and wanted to hide herself. When she was alone in her room she cried miserably, but as soon as her tears ceased to flow she lay on her bed in an empty waiting happiness, thinking of Paul. She recalled all that related to him since she had first known him. It gave her a beautiful happy sense of want to remember him so distinctly. However, when her thoughts arrived at the memory of the last thing that had occurred between them she imagined that she wished him to kill her so that she need no longer be ashamed.