A strange chapter began for Don Hedger. Day after day, at that hour in
the afternoon, the hour before his neighbour dressed for dinner, he
crouched down in his closet to watch her go through her mysterious
exercises. It did not occur to him that his conduct was detestable; there
was nothing shy or retreating about this unclad girl,--a bold body,
studying itself quite coolly and evidently well pleased with itself,
doing all this for a purpose. Hedger scarcely regarded his action as
conduct at all; it was something that had happened to him. More than once
he went out and tried to stay away for the whole afternoon, but at about
five o'clock he was sure to find himself among his old shoes in the dark.
The pull of that aperture was stronger than his will,--and he had always
considered his will the strongest thing about him. When she threw herself
upon the divan and lay resting, he still stared, holding his breath. His
nerves were so on edge that a sudden noise made him start and brought out
the sweat on his forehead. The dog would come and tug at his sleeve,
knowing that something was wrong with his master. If he attempted a
mournful whine, those strong hands closed about his throat.

When Hedger came slinking out of his closet, he sat down on the edge of
the couch, sat for hours without moving. He was not painting at all now.
This thing, whatever it was, drank him up as ideas had sometimes done,
and he sank into a stupor of idleness as deep and dark as the stupor of
work. He could not understand it; he was no boy, he had worked from
models for years, and a woman's body was no mystery to him. Yet now he
did nothing but sit and think about one. He slept very little, and with
the first light of morning he awoke as completely possessed by this woman
as if he had been with her all the night before. The unconscious
operations of life went on in him only to perpetuate this excitement. His
brain held but one image now--vibrated, burned with it. It was a
heathenish feeling; without friendliness, almost without tenderness.