Also she had nourished an ambition for a postgraduate education, with
further aspirations to a Government appointment in the Smithsonian
Institute.

All very worthy, no doubt--in fact, particularly commendable because the
wages she saved as waitress in a Florida hotel during the winter were her
only means of support while studying for college examinations during the
summer in Boston, where she lived.

Yet, although she was an inmate of Massachusetts, her face and figure
would have ornamented any light-opera stage. I never looked at her but
I thought so; and her cuffs and apron merely accentuated the delusion.
Such ankles are seldom seen when the curtain rises after the overture.
Odd that frivolous thoughts could flit through an intellect dedicated
only to science!

The man, Grue, had not stirred from his survey of the Atlantic Ocean. He
had a somewhat disturbing capacity for remaining motionless--like a
stealthy and predatory bird which depends on immobility for aggressive
and defensive existence.

The sea-wind fluttered his cotton shirt and trousers and the tattered
brim of his straw hat. And always I felt as though he were watching me
out of the back of his ratty head, through the ravelled straw brim that
sagged over his neck.

The pretty waitress had now chewed the end of her pencil to a
satisfactory pulp, and she was writing again in her diary, very intently,
so that my cautious touch on her arm seemed to startle her.