“Peachy,” Julia asked in an aside, “have you ever asked Ralph what he intends to do about Angela’s wings? "

“What he intends to do?” Peachy echoed.  “What do you mean?  What can he intend to do?  What has he to say about them, anyway?”

“He may not intend anything,” Julia answered gravely.  “Still, if I were you, I’d have a talk with him.”

Time had brought its changes to the five men as to the five women; but they were not such devastating changes.

Honey led the march, a huge wreath of uprooted blossoming plants hanging about his neck.  He was at the prime of his strength, the zenith of his beauty and, in the semi-nudity that the climate permitted, more than ever like a young wood-god.  Health shone from his skin in a copper-bronze that seemed to overlay the flesh like armor.  Happiness shone from his eyes in a fire-play that seemed never to die down.  One year more and middle age might lay its dulling finger upon him.  But now he positively flared with youth.

Close behind Honey came Billy Fairfax, still shock-headed, his blond hair faded to tow, slimmer, more serious, more fine.  His eyes ran ahead of the others, found Julia’s face, lighted up.  His gaze lingered there in a tender smile.

Just over Billy’s shoulder, Pete appeared, a Pete as thin and nervous as ever, the incipient black beard still prickling in tiny ink-spots through a skin stained a deep mahogany.  There was some subtle change in Pete that was not of the flesh but of the spirit.  Perhaps the look in his face — doubly wild of a Celt and of a genius — had tamed a little.  But in its place had come a question:  undoubtedly he had gained in spiritual dignity and in humorous quality.

Ralph Addington followed Pete.  And Ralph also had changed.  True, he retained his inalienable air of elegance, an elegance a little too sartorial.  And even after six years of the jungle, he maintained his picturesqueness.  Long-haired, liquid-eyed, still with a beard symmetrically pointed and a mustache carefully cropped, he was more than ever like a young girl’s idea of an artist.  And yet something different had come into his face, The slight touch of gray in his wavy hair did not account for it; nor the lines, netting delicately his long-lashed eyes.  The eyes themselves bore a baffled expression, half of revolt, half of resignation; as one who has at last found the immovable obstacle, who accepts the situation even while he rebels against it.

At the end of the line came Merrill, a doubly transformed man, looking at the same time younger and handsomer.  Bigger and even more muscular than formerly, his eyes were wide open and sparkling, his mouth had lost its rigidity of contour.  His look of severity, of asceticism had vanished.  Nothing but his classic regularity remained and that had been beautifully colored by the weather.

The five couples wound through the trail which led from the Playground to the Camp, the men half-carrying their wives with one arm about their waists and the other supporting them.