on my head.

A rustling, a slight clearing of the throat, halted me.

I glanced through a vista of bushes.

There sat a girl in the full moonlight. She had a light easel before
her. She was trying to paint, evidently, the effects of the moon on the
landscape and the river. Painters have since told me that it is
impossible to do that. It is too dark to see the colours. Nevertheless
the girl was trying.

I stopped statue-still to find if I had been seen. When assured that I
had not, I slowly squatted down, and, naked as I was, crept closer,
hiding behind a screen of bushes. And I fastened my eyes on her, and
forgot who I was. For the moon made her appear almost as plain as day.
And she was very beautiful. And I was caught in a sudden trap of love
again.

Here, I held no doubt, was my Ideal. I could not distinguish the colour
of her hair. But she was maiden and slenderly wonderful.

I lay flat, hoping that she would not hear my breath as she calmly
painted. My heart beat so hard it seemed to shake the ground beneath me.

She, too, was original, what the world would call "eccentric" ... out
here, three miles from town, with the hours verging toward midnight ...
seated on the river bank, trying to capture the glory of the moon on
canvas.

But, unusual as her action was, there was nothing mad about her mode of
dressing ... her white middy blouse, edged with blue ... her flowing tie
... her dainty, blue serge skirt and dainty shoes.

I lay there, happy in being near her, the unknown.

After a long time she rose ... gave a sigh ... brushed her hand over her
hair.

Fascination held me close as she stooped over ... began leisurely to
untie her shoes ... set them, removed, aside, toe to toe and heel to
heel, equal, as if for mathematical exactness ... paused a moment ...
lifted her skirts, drew off her garters with a circular downward sweep
... drew down her stockings....

She sat with her stockings off, stuffed into her shoes,--her skirt up to
her hips, gazing meditatively at her naked legs held straight before
her.

I was close enough to hear her breathing--or so keen in my aroused
senses that I thought I heard it. She wiggled her toes to herself as she
meditated.

She paused as if hesitating to go on with her undressing. A twig
snapped. She came to her knees and looked about, startled, then
subsided again, tranquil and sure of her solitude.

* * * * *

She stood in the moonli