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.