ly to interest men.
They would become gradually more and more acquainted with her until it
became impossible to talk to them. Then she would have to ignore them,
turning quickly away when they addressed her and saying, "Good-bye, I
must go."

At times she grew ashamed of her sensitiveness. She would sit alone in
her room surrounded by a whimpering little silence. A melancholy would
darken her heart. It wasn't because she was afraid of people. It was
something else. She would try to think of it and would find herself
whispering suddenly, "Oh, I must go away. I must."

To men, Rachel's beauty seemed always a doubtful quality. Her appeal
itself was doubtful. The Indian symmetry of her face lay as behind a
luminous shadow--an ill-mannered, nervous face that was likely to lure
strangers and irritate familiars. In the streets and restaurants people
looked at her with interest. But people who spoke to her often lost
their interest. There was a silence about her like a night mist. She
seemed in this silence preoccupied with something that did not concern
them. Men found the recollection of her more pleasing than her presence.
Something they remembered of her seemed always to be missing when they
encountered her again. Lonely evening fields and weary peasants moving
toward the distant lights of their homes spoke from her eyes. An exotic
memory of simple things--of earth, sky, and sea--lay in her sudden
gestures. A sense of these things men carried away with them. But when
they came to talk to her they grew conscious only of the fact that she
irritated them. These who persisted in their friendship grew to regard
her solicitously and misunderstand their emotions toward her.

It was evening when Rachel came to her room after her walk with Erik
Dorn. The long stroll had given her an aversion toward work. She glanced
at several unfinished posters and moved to a chair near a window.

A glow of excitement brightened the dusk of her face. Her eyes, usually
asleep in distances, had become alive. They gave themselves to the
night.

Beyond the scratch of houses and the slant of home lights she watched
the darkness lift against the sky. The city had dwindled into a huddle
of streets. Noise had become silence. The great crowds were packed away
in little rooms. Sitting before the window, unconscious of herself, she
laughed softly. Her black hair felt tight and heavy. She shook her head
till its loose coils dropped across her cheeks. She