Julia always seemed to shine; she wore garments of gleamy-petalled,
white flowers, silvery seaweeds, pellucid marsh-grasses, vines, golden
or purple, that covered her with a delicate lustre. Her wings were
different from the others; theirs flashed color, but hers gave light;
and that light seemed to have run down on her flesh.
"What the thunder is she trying to do up there?" Ralph asked one day,
stopping at Billy's side. Ralph's question was not in reality begotten
so much of curiosity as of irritation. From the beginning the "quiet
one" had interested him least of any of the flying-girls as, from the
beginning, Peachy had interested him most.
"I don't know, of course." Billy spoke with reluctance. It was evident
that he did not enjoy discussing the "quiet one" with Ralph. "At first
my theory was that flying was to her what dancing is to most girls. But,
somehow, it seems to go deeper than that - as if it were art, or even
creation. Anyway, there's a kind of bi-lateral symmetry about everything
she does."
Billy fell into the habit, each afternoon, of strolling away from the
rest, out of sound of their chaff. On the grassy top of one of the
reefs, he found a spot where he could lie comfortably and watch the
"quiet one." He used to spin long day-dreams there. She looked so remote
far up in the boiling blue, and so strange, that he had an inexplicable
sensation of reverence.
Now it was as though, in watching that aerial weaving and interweaving,
he were assisting at a religious rite. He liked it best when the white
day-moon was afloat. If he half-shut his eyes, it seemed to him that she
and the moon made twin crescents of foaming silver, twin bubbles of
white fire, twin films of fairy gossamer, twin vials that held the very
essence of poetry. Somehow he had always connected her with the moon.
Indeed, in her whiteness, her coldness, her aloofness, she seemed the
very sublimation of virginity. His first secret names for her were Diana
and Cynthia. But there was another quality in her that those names did
not include - intellectuality. His favorite heroes were Julius Caesar
and Edwin Booth - a quaint pair, taken in combination. In the long
imaginary conversations which he held with her he addressed her as Julia
or Edwina.
Days and days went by and he could discover no sign that she had noticed
him. It was typical of the "damned gentleman" side of Billy that he did
not try to attract her attention. Indeed, his efforts were ever to
efface himself.