In my fancy I totally discarded the
gray garb of the sisters of the House of Martha, and dressed my nun
sometimes in a light summer robe, with a broad hat shading her face, and
again in the richest costumes of silks and furs. Sometimes Walkirk
interrupted these pleasant reveries, but that, of course, was to be
expected.
In several directions we could see points of land, but it did not
interest me to know what these were, or how far away they were. Walkirk
and I had Racket Island to ourselves. My grandmother was happy with her
friends, and where the rest of the world happened to stow themselves I
did not care. Several times I said this to myself, but it was a mistake.
I cared very much where Sylvia stowed herself. Philosophize as I might,
I thought of her continually in that doleful House of Martha; and as I
thought of her there I cried out against the shortcomings of
civilization.
We had pitched a small tent in the shelter of a clump of trees on the
higher part of the island; and near this, on the morning of our third
day, I was sitting, smoking, and trying the effect of Sylvia's face
under a wide black hat heavy with ostrich plumes, when Walkirk
approached me, carrying a string of freshly caught fish.
"I am sorry to say," said he, "that in coming here to escape the society
of women we have made a failure, for one of them is sitting on the
beach, on the other side of the island.
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