GUINEVERE THE MYSTERIOUS 147 



compelled a vivid thought of the sphinx. Never 

 have I seen such a remarkable combination. It 

 fascinated us. We looked at Guinevere, and 

 then at the tadpoles swimming quietly in their 

 tank, and evolution in its wildest conceptions ap- 

 peared a tame truism. 



This was the acme of Guinevere's change, the 

 pinnacle of her development. Thereafter her 

 transformations were rhythmical, alternating 

 with the day and night. Through the nights of 

 activity she was garbed in rich, warm brown. 

 With the coming of dawn, as she climbed slowly 

 upward, her color shifted through chestnut to 

 maroon; this maroon then died out on the mid- 

 back to a delicate, dull violet-blue, which in turn 

 became obscured in the sunlight by turquoise, 

 which crept slowly along the sides. Carefully 

 and laboriously she clambered up, up to the top- 

 most frond, and there performed her little toilet, 

 scraping head and face with her hands, passing 

 the hinder limbs over her back to brush off every 

 grain of sand- The eyes had meanwhile lost their 

 black-flecked, golden, nocturnal iridescence, and 

 had gradually paled to a clear silvery blue, while 

 the great pupil of darkness narrowed to a slit. 



Little by little her limbs and digits were drawn 



