"Good grief!" Marc said. "You don't have to tell everybody, do you?"
Now that the alarm was out, the landscape came madly to life. Nudes of all sizes and descriptions, clutching bits of greenery to themselves where it was most needed, began leaping about through the brush like fish in a net.
Swiftly it developed into a full-blown stampede. Marc goggled with disbelief as tanned figures rushed across the clearing and flashed out of sight along the banks of the stream.
"Well, I'll be darned!" Marc breathed and glanced down at the leavings of the picnic. He shrugged and started on, hoping fervently that he wouldn't overtake them again. With his eyes behaving so strangely everything became so fraught with complexities. When, for instance, was a nude not a nude?
Meanwhile, in another clearing just a bit farther along, Julie, her blonde hair glinting golden in the sunshine, sat in a leafy bower with her wide yellow skirts spread artfully about her long, aristocratic legs. The hypnotic whisper of the stream was in her ears and the spell of the first day of spring was in her blue eyes. From beneath drowsily lowered lids, she watched Mario as he arranged his canvas and paints and then, looking up, came toward her.
"The neck of the blouse, Madonna mia," he said, "it needs to be just a trifle lower so as to display more of the—uh—shoulder." He reached out a slender hand. "May I?"
Julie looked up, and for a moment her eyes met his. She glanced quickly away, wondering what in the world was coming over her; she had never felt this odd melting sensation before. Inwardly, she gave herself a little shake, as a reminder that she was not a predatory creature of impulse, no matter how much she felt like one. Then Mario's hand touched her shoulder and she shivered. For just that one instant it was as though Marc had never existed; the spell of the spring was too strong.
"Mario!" she breathed.