The pilot maneuvered the plane against a bone-gray dock where, all alone, Iris stood, her hair tangled from the propellers’ wind and her eyes hidden by dark glasses. Like explorers in a new country, Paul, Stokharin and I scrambled onto the dock, the heat closing in about us like blue canvas, stifling, palpable. I gasped and dropped my suitcase. Iris laughed and ran forward to greet us; she came first to me which, even in my dazzled, shocked state, I realized and valued. “Gene, you must get out of that suit this minute! and get some dark glasses or you’ll go blind. Paul, how are you? It’s good to see you, Doctor.” And, in the chatter of greetings, she escorted us off the dock and across a narrow white beach to a grove of palm trees where the cottage stood. To our delight, the interior was cooled by machinery. I sank into a wicker chair even while Cave was pumping my hand. Iris laughed, “Leave him alone, John. He’s smothered by the heat.” “No hat,” said Cave solemnly after the first greeting which, in my relief, I’d not heard. “You’ll get sunstroke.” Paul was now in charge. The heat which had enervated both Stokharin and me filled him with manic energy, like one of those reptiles which absorb vitality from the sun. “What a great little place, John! Had no idea there were all the comforts of home down here, none at all. Don’t suppose you go out much?” Cave, unlike Iris, was not tanned though he had, for him, a good color, a ruddiness of tone unlike his usual sallowness. “I don’t get too much sun,” he admitted. “We go fishing sometimes, early in the morning. Most of the time I just hang around the house and look at the letters, and read some.” I noticed on the table beside me an enormous pile of travel magazines, tourist folders and atlases: this had obviously been Cave’s reading. I anticipated trouble. Paul prowled restlessly about the modern living room with its shuttered sealed windows. Stokharin and I, like fish back in their own element after a brief excursion on land, gasped softly in our chairs while Iris told us of the keys, of their fishing trips. She was at her best here as she had been that other time in Spokane ... being out of doors, in Cave’s exclusive company, brought her to life in a way the exciting busyness of New York did not. In New York she seemed like an object through which an electric current passed; here on this island, in the sun’s glare, she had unfolded, petal after petal until the secret interior seemed almost exposed. I was conscious of her as a lovely woman and, without warning, I experienced desire: that sharp rare longing which, in me, can reach no climax. Always before she had been a friend, a companion whose company I had jealously valued: her attention alone had been enough to satisfy me, but on this day I saw her as a man entire might and I plummeted into despair while talking of Plato.