"I loved the moonlight most. I do now." The petulance went out of
Clara's eyes; dreams came into its place. "The cool softness of the air,
the brilliant sparkle of the stars! And then the magic of the moonlight!
Young child-moon, half-grown girl-moon, voluptuous woman-moon, sallow,
old-hag-moon, it was alike to me. Pete says I'm 'fey' in the moonlight.
He, says I'm Irish then."
"I loved the sunrise," said Julia. "I used to steal out, when you girls
were still sleeping, to fly by dawn. I'd go up, up, up. At first, it was
like a huge dewdrop - that morning world - then, colder and colder - it
was like a melted iceberg. But I never minded that cold and I loved the
clearness. It exhilarated me. I used to run races with the birds. I was
not happy until I had beaten the highest-flying of them all. Oh, it was
so fresh and clean then. The world seemed new-made every morning. I used
to feel that I'd caught the moment when yesterday became to-day. Then
I'd sink back through layer on layer of sunlight and warm,
perfume-laden, dew-damp breeze, down, down until I fell into my bed
again. And all the time the world grew warmer and warmer. And I loved
almost as well that instant of twilight when the world begins to fade. I
used to feel that I'd caught the moment when to-day had become
to-morrow. I'd fly as high as I could go then, too. Then I'd sink back
through layer on layer of deepening dusk, while one by one the stars
would flash out at me - down, down, down until my feet touched the
water. And all the time the air grew cooler and cooler."
"My wings! My wings!" Peachy did not shriek these words with maniacal
despair. She did not whisper them with dreary resignation. She breathed
them with the rapture of one who looks through a narrow, dark tunnel to
measureless reaches of sun-tinted cloud and sea.
"Do you remember the first time we ever saw them?" Lulu asked after a
long time. This was obviously a deliberate harking back to lighter
things. A gleam of reminiscence, both mischievous and tender, fired her
slanting eyes.
The others smiled, too. Even Peachy's face relaxed from the look of
tension that had come into it. "I often think that was the happiest
time," she sighed, "those weeks before they knew we were here. At least,
they knew and they didn't know. Ralph said that they all suspected that
something curious was going on - but that they were so afraid that the
others would joke about it, that no one of them would mention what was
happening to him. Do you remember what fun it was coming to the camp
when they were asleep? Do you remember how we used to study their faces
to find out what kind of people they were?"