He bathed and drank, and as he was reclothing himself, Oceaxe strolled indolently up.
He could now perceive the colour of her skin - it was a vivid, yet delicate mixture of carmine, white, and jale. The effect was startlingly unearthly. With these new colors she looked like a genuine representative of a strange planet. Her frame also had something curious about it. The curves were womanly, the bones were characteristically female - yet all seemed somehow to express a daring, masculine underlying will. The commanding eye on her forehead set the same puzzle in plainer language. Its bold, domineering egotism was shot with undergleams of sex and softness.
She came to the river's edge and reviewed him from top to toe. "Now you are built more like a man," she said, in her lovely, lingering voice.
"You see, the experiment was successful," he answered, smiling gaily.
Oceaxe continued looking him over. "Did some woman give you that ridiculous robe?""A woman did give it to me" - dropping his smile - "but I saw nothing ridiculous in the gift at the time, and I don't now.""I think I'd look better in it."
As she drawled the words, she began stripping off the skin, which suited her form so well, and motioned to him to exchange garments.
He obeyed, rather shamefacedly, for he realised that the proposed exchange was in fact more appropriate to his sex. He found the skin a freer dress. Oceaxe in her drapery appeared more dangerously feminine to him.
"I don't want you to receive gifts at all from other women," she remarked slowly.
"Why not? What can I be to you?"
"I have been thinking about you during the night." Her voice was retarded, scornful, viola - like. She sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, and looked away.