One soldier had borne away her kisses, and she was not complaining that hundreds had borne away her money. The college boys who formerly bought her father’s text-books had all gone off to France, leaving the royalties to drop to almost nothing. She did not mind, but patched her father’s clothes neatly, patched her old white sweater, and patched out her bill of fare with whatever the woods and waters yielded.
And one day late in June, 1918, when a white and gold yacht came to anchor beside her island, and the steward came ashore for milk and cream, she gave him of Sempronia’s best without charge. Then, guessing from the name “Gratia” on the prow that there were ladies aboard, she added an armful of early lilacs.
After supper the courtesy was acknowledged by two ladies in person. The younger, who was about a year older than she, seemed to her the most exquisite creature she had beheld—so graceful, so self-possessed, with a skin like petals of eglantine and eyes like petals of gentian.
There sat her father wearing patches, and here sat the callers wearing furs. The mother’s peltries, though Jean did not know it, were Russian sables. But Jean had seen silver foxes before. A boy across the river had caught two on Horatio’s farm and sold them for a thousand dollars, which was twice as much money as her father was now receiving annually. So when Jean saw that the girl’s coat contained two pelts of silver fox, she fell quiet. She was as quiet as a mouse or despair or murder.
“It was very sweet of you,” said the older woman, “to send us the lilacs. Ours in Wetumpka were gone a month ago.”
“Ours,” said Jean, keeping unflickering eyes on the silver fox, “are earlier than usual.”
And now the beautiful creature within the silver fox said something.
“There seem to be lots of queer flies on the water. They light on everything, and they have threads for tails.”
“Yes.”
“What do you call them?”