"Wish it did, but Kate's told me all about you. You're so damned clever." He wanted her, yet, even if she offered herself to him now, he could not touch her. Her little feet. As a matter of fact they weren't small. Little feet just the same. Must be white. White feet. Lovely things walking over his heart. Beautiful things hurt him with their pride. He had felt this before about women. It was always wrong. Afterward only the pain and the longing remained. She's different. Mine. I can't have her. "You won't hate me when--" His eyes misted. He gave her a blurred look. His lips were humorous and self-contemptuous. "Won't hate you when?" Julia was still motherly. It hurt him to speak. His face was flushed. He stared at her fixedly an instant, as if something stood between them. She observed his unsteady mouth, that was weakly unconscious of itself like a desperate child's. "Am I going to have you, Julia? Are you disgusted with me, child?" She would not consider clearly what he meant, but she wanted him to shut Laurence out of her mind. "Yes. I think so." Her voice was unsteady. The car went on, they were out of town among suburban roads and vacant lots. Charles drew up again. "Let's get out and walk a bit." The dry pinkish grass moved before them like a cloud over the field. It rustled stiffly about their ankles. The low sun was in their eyes. Double lines of gnats rose into the light. They passed an empty house with glaring uncovered windows. White feet that hurt. Charles was afraid of her. He imagined her hands touching him. Oh, my dear! He said, "We must find a way to see each other." Julia said nothing. He took hold of her arms hesitatingly. "Look at me!" She was ashamed for him. When their eyes met, hers filled with tears. She seemed to herself dead, and wanted him to be sorry for her. I can't live. I'm dead already. No use. I'm dead! I'm dead! She wanted to be dead. Something kept alive, torturing her. "Take your hat off, won't you?" She took her hat off. Clouds. "Now I can look at you." She wondered if she looked ill. She was ashamed for him when he trembled. Her eyes were gentle, and at the same time there was something desperate in them. It seemed to him that she was asking him to hurt her, and he wanted to say, Don't, don't! Her face, that he could not bear to understand, was just a blur of sweetness. He believed that her tenderness for him was something which must be tried by the grossness of his pleasure in physical contact with her. He thought his pleasure in her body would make her suffer. Afterward he meant to show her how little that was, and that what he was giving her--what he was asking of her--was really something else. "I want to be your lover, child." It was done. He was conscious of desperation and relief. She's different! My God, she's different! Blanche. All of them. He pitied himself with them. Julia said, "I know it."