baster that would have turned liquid, and would be pouring
down behind him in lustrous cascade.

Charles-Norton steps forward--and suddenly this background, this mantle,
this singular ornament, parts in two glistening sections which rise
horizontally to either side of him. By Jove, they are wings! The wings of
Charles-Norton. They have been growing, since that _coup-de-tete_ of his.

He raises them horizontally, and with a dry rustling sound they open out
like fans. He waves them gently, up and down; his chest fills, his head
goes back; and from his open mouth, as from a clarion, there goes out a
great clear cry which, striking the mountain, rebounds along from rock
to rock in golden echoes. He rises into the air.

He goes up slowly, in wide, negligent circles, with slow, strong flap of
wings, his body, with pointed feet close together, hanging lithe, a warm
ivory white between the colder and more radiant whiteness of the wings.
He turns and floats above the lake, then, folding his wings, like a white
arrow shoots down into the water. A fountain of foaming drops springs
toward the sky. Charles-Norton Sims is having his morning bath.

He swims with smooth breast-stroke, his feet and hands below the water,
but his wings raised above. Their roots, at his shoulders, cleave the
glazed surface like a prow, leaving, behind, a slender wake; they follow
above, swinging a bit from side to side, like glorious becalmed sails.

And thus, like a large Nautilus, he drifts to the shore. He emerges,
glistening, upon a little beach which curves there like a little moon
dropped by a careless Creator; he takes a hop, a skip, and a jump, and
lands headlong upon the yellow sand.

He stretches himself taut, his hands, straight above him, clutching the
sand, his toes digging into it, and spreads his wings in fans at his
sides. The earth is there beneath him, in his embrace; he feels her
strength flowing into his veins. The sun is up there, above him; he feels
pouring upon him, penetratingly, its hot life. Content croons in his
heart.

But after a while, an uneasiness stirs him. He moves vaguely several
times, he finally rises to his knees. Oh yes, of course, it is his
stomach--the old tyranny. He walks to the cabin, kicks into incandescence
the heap of coals in front of the door, and throws a handful of dry brush
upon them. He seizes a long pole which is leaning against the facade of
the cabin, goes back to the lake, climbs a large bowld