arture of those who had temporarily
required it.

Starlight made the leaded windows brilliant; he opened them wide and
leaned out on the sill, arms folded. The pale astral light illuminated a
fairy world of meadow and garden and spectral trees, and two figures
moving like ghosts down by the fountain among the roses--Rosalie and
Grandcourt pacing the gravel paths shoulder to shoulder under the stars.

Below him, on the terrace, he saw Kathleen and Scott--the latter
carrying a butterfly net--examining the borders of white pinks with a
lantern. In and out of the yellow rays swam multitudes of night moths,
glittering like flakes of tinsel as the lantern light flashed on their
wings; and Scott was evidently doing satisfactory execution, for every
moment or two Kathleen uncorked the cyanide jar and he dumped into it
from the folds of the net a fluttering victim.

"That last one is a Pandorus Sphinx!" he said in great excitement to
Kathleen, who had lifted the big glass jar into the lantern light and
was trying to get a glimpse of the exquisite moth, whose wings of olive
green, rose, and bronze velvet were already beating a hazy death tattoo
in the lethal fumes.

"A Pandorus! Scott, you've wanted one so much!" she exclaimed,
enchanted.

"You bet I have. Pholus pandorus is pretty rare around here. And I say,
Kathleen, that wasn't a bad net-stroke, was it? You see I had only a
second, and I took a desperate chance."

She praised his skill warmly; then, as he stood admiring his prize in
the jar which she held up, she suddenly caught him by the arm and
pointed:

"Oh, quick! There is a hawk-moth over the pinks which resembles nothing
we have seen yet!"

Scott very cautiously laid his net level, stole forward, shining the
lantern light full on the darting, hazy-winged creature, which was now
poised, hovering over a white blossom and probing the honeyed depths
with a long, slim proboscis.

"I thought it might be only a Lineata, but it isn't," he said
excitedly. "Did you ever see such a timid moth? The slightest step
scares the creature."

"Can't you try a quick net-stroke sideways?"

Her voice was as anxious and unsteady as his own.

"I'm afraid I'll miss. Lord but it's a lightning flier! Where is it
now?"

"Behind you. Do be careful! Turn very slowly."

He pivoted; the slim moth darted past, circled, and hung before a
blossom, wings vibrating so fast that the creature was merely a gray
blur in the lantern light.