eclared,
thrusting his hands into his pockets and looking boldly
into her eyes. "I don't know why but it is so. You've
got to take me for a man or let me alone. That's how it
is."

Up and down the quiet streets under the new moon went
the woman and the boy. When George had finished talking
they turned down a side street and went across a bridge
into a path that ran up the side of a hill. The hill
began at Waterworks Pond and climbed upward to the
Winesburg Fair Grounds. On the hillside grew dense
bushes and small trees and among the bushes were little
open spaces carpeted with long grass, now stiff and
frozen.

As he walked behind the woman up the hill George
Willard's heart began to beat rapidly and his shoulders
straightened. Suddenly he decided that Belle Carpenter
was about to surrender herself to him. The new force
that had manifested itself in him had, he felt, been at
work upon her and had led to her conquest. The thought
made him half drunk with the sense of masculine power.
Although he had been annoyed that as they walked about
she had not seemed to be listening to his words, the
fact that she had accompanied him to this place took
all his doubts away. "It is different. Everything has
become different," he thought and taking hold of her
shoulder turned her about and stood looking at her, his
eyes shining with pride.

Belle Carpenter did not resist. When he kissed her
upon the lips she leaned heavily against him and looked
over his shoulder into the darkness. In her whole
attitude there was a suggestion of waiting. Again, as
in the alleyway, George Willard's mind ran off into
words and, holding the woman tightly he whispered the
words into the still night. "Lust," he whispered, "lust
and night and women."

George Willard did not understand what happened to him
that night on the hillside. Later, when he got to his
own room, he wanted to weep and then grew half insane
with anger and hate. He hated Belle Carpenter and was
sure that all his life he would continue to hate her.
On the hillside he had led the woman to one of the
little open spaces among the bushes and had dropped to
his knees beside her. As in the vacant lot, by the
laborers' houses, he had put up his hands in gratitude
for the new power in himself and was waiting for the
woman to speak when Ed Handby appeared.

The bartender did not want to beat the boy, who he
thought had tried to take his woman away. He knew that
beating was unneces