aid he
liked to be in the Gulf of Siam. That the name had a picturesque sound,
the Pirate Islands. He would live all by himself on one of the Pirate
Islands, in the Gulf of Siam. Isolated and remote, but over one way was
the coast of Hindu-China, and over the other way was the coast of Malay.
Neighborly, but not too near. He would always feel that he could get
away when he was ready, what with so much traffic through the gulf, and
the native boats now and then. He was mistaken about the traffic, but I
did not tell him so. I knew where he was and could watch him. I placed a
cross on the chart, on his island, so that I might know where I had left
him; and I promised myself to call upon him from time to time, to see
when he would be ready to face the world again."

The captain spread a chart upon the table.

"Six degrees north latitude," he remarked, "ten thousand miles from--"

"Greenwich," supplied the passenger, anxious to show that he knew.

"From her," corrected the captain.

"He told me about her a little. I added the rest from what he omitted.
It all happened a long time ago, which was the bother of it. And because
it had taken place so long ago, and had endured for so long a time, it
made it more difficult for him to recover himself again. Do you think
people ever recover themselves? When the precious thing in them, the
spirit of them, has been overlaid and overlaid, covered deep with
artificial layers?

"The marvel was that he wanted to regain it, wanted to break through.
Most don't. The other thing is so easy. Money, of course. She had it,
and he loved her. He had none, and she loved him. She had had money
always, had lived with it, lived on it; it got into her very bones. And
he had not two shillings to rub together; but he possessed the
gift--genius. But they met somewhere, and fell in love with each other,
and that ended him. She took him, you see, and gave him all she had. It
was marvelous to do it, for she loved him so. Took him from his
four-shilling attic into luxury; out of his shabby, poor worn clothes
into the best there were; from a penny bus into superb motors, with all
the rest of it to match. And he accepted it all because he loved her,
and it was the easiest way. Besides, just before she had come into his
life he had written--well, whatever it was, they all praised him, the
critics and reviewers, and called him the coming man, and he was very
happy about it, and she seemed to come into his li