White moon blown across his face. It was there when he glanced up. It floated down through the park trees. Why was it when he thought of May he saw beautiful full breasts like moons in flower! They floated before him like lilies. They were in him like the vision of the ship.
A brown barefooted girl walked toward a hilltop, a water jar poised on her head. The sky into which she went was like a dove's wing. Sunset already. And the girl with the water jar kept mounting and going down, down, down into him, into darkness. He could hear the quiet grass parting against her feet. He could hear her going into the moon, into darkness, into the vacant sky beyond the trees.
He took his hands away from his face and gathered up his books.
I must instinctively feel something rotten about that step-mother of May's or I wouldn't have this unreasoning antagonism. The brown girl passed out of sight on the imaginary meadow. He stared at an overturned park bench, and at the lake water that made a stabbing spot of emptiness in the glowing twilight among the trees.
Julia's depression continued during the evening meal and Laurence noticed her silence. In the hallway, as they went up to her sitting room after dinner, he surprised her by slipping his arm about her shoulders.
Julia glanced toward him swiftly. Her mouth was strained. She smiled and lowered her lids.
"Being married to me isn't a thrilling experience, Julia."
Julia tried to answer him, bit her lips, and said, "Dear!" in a choked voice.
He held her against him uneasily as they walked. Julia wished he would not touch her as if he were afraid.