Youth was of their essence,
and youth shakes off like the dust on the moth's wing. Youth is gone
at a touch.
In her sorrow she turned to look up at Jim. She was shocked to
see how attentively he regarded Kedzie. He startled her by the
fascination in his mien. She looked again at Kedzie.
Somehow the girl immediately grew ugly--or what beauty she had was
that of a poisonous snake. And she looked common, too. Who else but
a common creature would come out on a lawn thus unclothed for a few
dollars?
She looked again at Jim Dyckman, and he was not what he had been. He
was as changed as the visions in Lewis Carroll's poem. She saw that
he had his common streak, too: he was mere man, animal, temptable.
But she forgave him. Curiously, he grew more valuable since she felt
that she was losing him.
There was an impatient shaking at her breast. In anybody else she
would have called it jealousy. This astounded her, made her afraid
of herself and of him. What right had she to be jealous of anybody
but Peter Cheever? She felt that she was more indecent than Kedzie.
She bowed her head and blushed. Scales fell from her eyes also. She
was like Eve after the apple had taught her what she was. She wanted
to hide. But she could not break through the crowd. She must stand
and watch the dance through.
All this brief while Kedzie had stood wavering. There had been
a hitch somewhere. The other nymphs were delayed in their entrance.
One of them had stepped on a thorny rose and another had ripped her
tunic--she came in at last with a safety-pin to protect her from
the law; but then, safety-pins are among the primeval inventions.
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