, he would enjoy her. How he would enjoy
her, when she was caught.

At last, when the dance was over, she would not sit down, she
walked away. He came with his arm round her, keeping her upon
the movement of his walking. And she seemed to agree. She was
bright as a piece of moonlight, as bright as a steel blade, he
seemed to be clasping a blade that hurt him. Yet he would clasp
her, if it killed him.

They went towards the stackyard. There he saw, with something
like terror, the great new stacks of corn glistening and
gleaming transfigured, silvery and present under the night-blue
sky, throwing dark, substantial shadows, but themselves majestic
and dimly present. She, like glimmering gossamer, seemed to burn
among them, as they rose like cold fires to the silvery-bluish
air. All was intangible, a burning of cold, glimmering,
whitish-steely fires. He was afraid of the great
moon-conflagration of the cornstacks rising above him. His heart
grew smaller, it began to fuse like a bead. He knew he would
die.

She stood for some moments out in the overwhelming luminosity
of the moon. She seemed a beam of gleaming power. She was afraid
of what she was. Looking at him, at his shadowy, unreal,
wavering presence a sudden lust seized her, to lay hold of him
and tear him and make him into nothing. Her hands and wrists
felt immeasurably hard and strong, like blades. He waited there
beside her like a shadow which she wanted to dissipate, destroy
as the moonlight destroys a darkness, annihilate, have done
with. She looked at him and her face gleamed bright and
inspired. She tempted him.

And an obstinacy in him made him put his arm round her and
draw her to the shadow. She submitted: let him try what he could
do. Let him try what he could do. He leaned against the side of
the stack, holding her. The stack stung him keenly with a
thousand cold, sharp flames. Still obstinately he held her.

And timorously, his hands went over her, over the salt,
compact brilliance of her body. If he could but have her, how he
would enjoy her! If he could but net her brilliant, cold,
salt-burning body in the soft iron of his own hands, net her,
capture her, hold her down, how madly he would enjoy her. He
strove subtly, but with all his energy, to enclose her, to have
her. And always she was burning and brilliant and hard as salt,
and deadly. Yet obstinately, all his flesh burning and
corroding, as if he were invaded by some consuming, scathing
p