“Oh, so was I,” Lulu agreed. “I felt as I did when I heard thunder for the first time. It went through me. It made me shake. I was afraid, but I wanted to hear it again.”
“Do you remember the first time we saw them walk!” Clara said. Her face twisted with the expression of a past loathing. “How it disgusted us! It seemed to me the most hideous motion I had ever seen—so unnatural, so ungraceful, so repellent. It took me a long time to get used to that. And as for their running—”
“It’s curious how that feeling still lingers in us,” exclaimed Peachy. “That contempt for the thing that walks. Occasionally Angela starts to imitate the boys—it seems as if I would fly out of my skin with horror. I shall always feel superior to Ralph, I know.”
“Do you remember the first talks we ever had after we’d got our first glimpse of them?” asked Clara. “How astonished we were—and half frightened and yet—in a queer way—excited and curious?
“And after we got over our fright,” Lulu carried the memories along, “and had made up our minds we didn’t care whether they discovered us or not, what fun we had with them! How we played over the entire island and yet it took them such a long time to discover us.”
“Oh, they’re awfully stupid about seeing or guessing things,” Peachy said disdainfully. “My mind always leaps way ahead of Ralph’s.”
“Do you remember that at first we used to have regular councils,” Lulu asked, “before—before——”
“Before we agreed each to go her own way,” Peachy finished it for her.
“All of us pitted against you, Julia.” Chiquita sighed. “I often think now, Julia, how you used to talk to us. How you used to beg us not to go to the island. How you argued with us! The prophecies you made! They’ve all come true. I can hear you now: ‘Don’t go to the island.’ ‘Come away with me and we will fly back south before it is too late.’ ‘Come away while you can!’ ‘In a little while it will be too late.’ In a little while I shall not be able to help you!”
“And how we fought you, Julia!” Clara said. “How we denied everything you said, every one of us knowing in her heart that you were right!”