Edna rarely discusses her feelings and private matters with others. Since childhood, she has been aware of a “dual life—the outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions.” Throughout the summer at Grand Isle, her reserve gradually erodes because of her increasingly close friendship with the candid Adèle. Walking toward the beach arm in arm, the women form a tall, stately pair. Edna, lean and mysteriously charming, wears a simple muslin and a straw hat, while Adèle, typically beautiful in the fashion of the time, protects her skin from the sun with more elaborate dress. The two women sit down on the porch of Edna’s bathhouse, and Edna removes her collar and unbuttons her dress at the throat. The lady in black reads religious literature on an adjacent porch, while two lovers cuddle beneath the vacant children’s tent.