me. But the beauty of her burned away uncomfortable memories.
She was the Rachel of his loneliness. Out of George Hazlitt vanished the
vigor and directness of a young man who knows his own soul. There came a
vision--a thing uncertain and awesome, and he sat humbled before it.

He reached her hand and closed his fingers over it. An awe squeezed at
his throat. Her hand lay without protest within his. He had never
touched her before. She had been a symbol and a dream. Now he felt the
marvel of the fact that she was a woman. Her hand, warm and alive,
astonished him with the news.

Rachel, during his speechlessness, looked at him unbelievingly. The grip
of his fingers was bringing an ache into her heart. It was sad. The
night and the room were sad. She could feel sadness opening little
wounds in her breasts. And before she had been happy. She heard him
whispering, "I can't talk to you. I can't. Oh, you are beautiful!"

His eyes made her think he was suffering. Then he was sad, too. She
stood up because his hand drew her. Why did he want her to stand up? His
body touched her and she heard him gasp. Her heart seemed adrift. She
was unreal. There was another Rachel somewhere else. He was saying, but
he was not talking to her, "Oh, Rachel, I love you. I love you, Rachel!"

Still she waited unbelievingly, the ache in her dragging at her senses.
She had fallen asleep and was dreaming something that was sad. But his
face was suddenly too close. His eyes were too near and bright. They
awakened her.

"Let me go, quick."

His hands clung. For an instant she failed to understand his resistance.
He was saying jerkily, "No ... no!"

She twisted out of his arms and stood breathless, as if she were
choking. Hazlitt looked at her, a bit pensively. His heart lost in a
dream and a rapture could only grimace a child's protest out of his
stare. He hadn't kissed her. But that would come soon. Not everything at
once. He must not be a brute. He smiled. His good-natured face glowed as
if in a light. Then he heard her talking,

"Go away. At once. I never want to see you again. I'll die if I see you
again."

Her hands were in her hair.

"Go away. Please.... Oh, God, I can't stand you. You--horrify me!"

The panic in Rachel's voice seemed to dull his ears to her words. He saw
her for a vivid moment against the opened window and then he found
himself alone, looking into a night that was haunted with an image of
her. He remembered her going