Angel Island

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.