He walked over, through the earliest light, to the hotel, where
he made a meal of musty eggs, chemical-looking biscuits, and coffee of a
rank hue and flavor, in an atmosphere of stale odors and flies,
sickeningly different from the dainty ceremonials of Io's preparation.
Rebuking himself for squeamishness, the station-agent returned to his
office, caught an O.S. from the wire, took some general instructions,
and went out to look at the weather. His glance never reached the
horizon.
In the foreground where he had swung the hammock under the alamo it
checked and was held, absorbed. A blanketed figure lay motionless in the
curve of the meshwork. One arm was thrown across the eyes, warding a
strong beam which had forced its way through the lower foliage. He
tiptoed forward.
Io's breast was rising and falling gently in the hardly perceptible
rhythm of her breathing. From the pale yellow surface of her dress,
below the neck, protruded a strange, edged something, dun-colored,
sharply defined and alien, which the man's surprised eyes failed to
identify. Slowly the edge parted and flattened out, broadwise,
displaying the marbled brilliance of the butterfly's inner wings,
illumining the pale chastity of the sleeping figure as if with a
quivering and evanescent jewel.
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