Time Is Noon by Pearl S. Buck

bare room, she sat down at the very back and watched. The room was crowded with shuffling curious people. They were dark and sullen. They were yellow and livid. They were filled with black blood and white, with blood ill-fused and cross-currented. But when they were old, their faces grew placid, aged beyond good or evil, as tranquil after evil years as Mr. Parker or Mrs. Parsons in their goodness. All the faces were upturned to her father who towered over them.
    She turned her face upward to him, too, with a rushing sense of safety in his goodness. He was to be trusted because he was so good, so simply good. She lifted her face to him again.
    But inside her body something beat and ached strongly. Her defrauded body, denied, drew back upon itself its own ardor. To what should touch and kiss proceed, then? her body inquired most passionately. To which her good brain answered coldly and relentlessly, “He would never have married me.”
    So she turned to her father and received from him hungrily another sort of food. Among all the others she sat and received certain words for food. “And Jesus Said, ‘Come unto me all ye—’” Surely this was a sort of food her father gave her, too, while he gave to the others. She listened anxiously when he told of the prodigal son. She listened, groping for something from her father.
    But then it seemed to her she could not, after all, bear his unearthly physical presence. While he was standing in benediction over the restless half-subdued crowd she slipped away and swung solitary down the country road toward home. She was glad for the dusk. No need to turn her head now toward that dale, no need, for he was long gone. She was clear of him now. No more—no more of his kisses! Her mother and her father had her back again. She would go back into them. Tomorrow she would humble herself and say to her mother, “I have been a fool.” The prodigal son two thousand years ago in the old story had said, “I have sinned.” Perhaps it was the same thing. She turned at the gate of the manse to enter.
    But as she turned she saw someone standing there, waiting for her. It was not a man—not Martin. It was a woman. A trembling hand came out to her and she seized it and knew it.
    “Why, Netta Weeks!” she cried. She forced heartiness into her voice. Poor Netta, for whom she was always too busy! They had never had their talk.
    “I had to come, Joan—I had to see you—”
    “Yes, Netta?”
    “Everybody’s saying—they’re all saying—” The voice choked, the twitching hand tried to free itself.
    But Joan held it hard. “What are you saying?” she demanded.
    “You and Martin—and I saw you once—when I got off the train—I saw him—Oh, Joan, I’ve never told anybody, but we used to go together—and I thought—I was sure if ever he married anybody, he’d marry me!”
    Now strength came pouring into her, good scornful prideful strength. Oh, how could she ever be clean of his kisses?
    “Did he?” She heard her own voice very cold and clear. “I’m sure he meant it. There’s nothing between Martin Bradley and me.”
    “Oh, Joan!” Out of the darkness she felt Netta’s head lean upon her shoulder, and she heard her weep and she felt her hand clutched again. “Oh, Joan, I’m so relieved!”
    She shrank away from the leaning head, from the weak hot hand. She did not want to be touched. No one must touch her. “Nothing—nothing at all,” she repeated cheerfully. “Good night.” She moved away quickly toward the house.
    But she never went to her mother with any confession of herself. She was saved it. For she could not speak that same night, not with the dry sterile pain she bore in her defrauded body. It was so dry a pain that she felt fevered with it. Her mouth was dry, her palms were dry, when she thought, I will never see him again—I will not. If he comes back I must remember the moment this afternoon when I hated him. I must hold fast to that hate, because he’s