The Dryad's skirts were short enough as it was, but she hastily picked them up. She had a right to. "Does it bite?" she whispered, looking carefully around in the grass. But all she could see was a strangely beautiful butterfly settled on a blue wild blossom which swayed gently in the wind on the edge of the jungle. So she dropped her skirts. She had a right to.
Now, within a few moments of the hour when Jones had first laid eyes on her, and she on Jones, he had confided to her his family history, his ambitions, his ethical convictions, and his theories concerning the four known forms of the exquisite Ajax butterfly of Florida. She had been young enough to listen without yawning—which places her age somewhere close to eighteen. Besides, she had remembered almost everything that Jones had said, which confirms a diagnosis of her disease. There could be no doubt about it; the Dryad was afflicted with extreme Youth, for she now recognized the butterfly from the eulogy of Jones, and her innocent heart began a steady tattoo upon her ribs as Jones, on tiptoe, crept nearer and nearer, net outstretched.
The moment was solemn; breathless, hatless, bare-armed, the Dryad advanced, skirts spread as though to shoo chickens.
"Don't," whispered Jones.
But the damage had been accomplished; Ajax jerked his pearl and ashen banded wings, shot with the fiery crimson bar, flashed into the air, and was gone like the last glimmer of a fading sun-spot.
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" cried the Dryad, clasping her highly ornamental hands; "what on earth will you think of my stupidity?"
"Nothing," said Jones, resolutely, swallowing hard and gazing at the tangled jungle.
"It was too stupid," insisted the Dryad; and, as the silence of Jones assented, she added, "but it is not very nice of you to say so."
"Why, I didn't," cried Jones.
"You did," said the Dryad, tears of vexation in her blue eyes. "And to pay for your discourtesy you shall make me a silk net and I shall give up golf and spend my entire time in hunting for White Devils, to make amends."