the hue of the sun's red beam; her hair, loose and fanned out behind
her head, was of the colour of natural silk, but diaphanous as well as
burnished, so that while the surfaces glittered like spun glass the
deeps of it were translucent and showed the fire behind. Her garment
was thin and grey, and it clung to her like a bark, seemed to grow
upon her as a creeping stone-weed grows. Harkness would have admired
the audacity of her shape, as I did; but I found nothing provocative
in it. As well might a boy have enamoured himself of a slim tree as of
that unearthly shaft of beauty.

I said that she preened herself; the word is inexact. She rather stood
bathing in the light, motionless but for the lifting of her face into
it that she might dip, or for the bending of her head that the warmth
behind her might strike upon the nape of her neck. Those were all her
movements, slowly rehearsed, and again and again rehearsed. With each
of them she thrilled anew; she thrilled and glowed responsive to the
play of the light. I don't know whether she saw me, though it seemed
to me that our looks had encountered. If her eyes had taken me in I
should have known it, I think; and if I had known it I should have
quailed and looked at her no more. So shamefaced was I, so
self-conscious, that I can be positive about that; for far from
avoiding her I watched her intently, studied her in all her parts, and
found out some curious things.

Looking at her beside the oaks, for instance, whence she must have
emanated, I could judge why it was that I had not seen her come out.
Her colouring was precisely that of her background. Her garment, smock
or frock or vest as you will, was grey-green like the oak stems, her
whites were those of the sky-gleams, her roses those of the sun's
rays. The maze of her hair could hardly be told from the photosphere.