t the hotel would come over and spend the evening, and often on
a Sunday they would go for a day to some planter who had married a
native; now and then one or other of the half-caste traders who had a
store in Apia would give a party and they went to it. The half-castes
treated Lawson quite differently now. His marriage had made him one of
themselves and they called him Bertie. They put their arms through his
and smacked him on the back. He liked to see Ethel at these gatherings.
Her eyes shone and she laughed. It did him good to see her radiant
happiness. Sometimes Ethel's relations would come to the bungalow, old
Brevald of course, and her mother, but cousins too, vague native women
in Mother Hubbards and men and boys in _lava-lavas_, with their hair
dyed red and their bodies elaborately tattooed. He would find them
sitting there when he got back from the bank. He laughed indulgently.

"Don't let them eat us out of hearth and home," he said.

"They're my own family. I can't help doing something for them when they
ask me."

He knew that when a white man marries a native or a half-caste he must
expect her relations to look upon him as a gold mine. He took Ethel's
face in his hands and kissed her red lips. Perhaps he could not expect
her to understand that the salary which had amply sufficed for a
bachelor must be managed with some care when it had to support a wife
and a house. Then Ethel was delivered of a son.

It was when Lawson first held the child in his arms that a sudden pang
shot through his heart. He had not expected it to be so dark. After all
it had but a fourth part of native blood, and there was no reason really
why it should not look just like an English baby; but, huddled together
in his arms, sallow, its head covered already with black hair, with huge
black eyes, it might have been a native child. Since his marriage he had
been ignored by the white ladies of the colony. When he came across men
in whose houses he had been accustomed to dine as a bachelor, they were
a little self-conscious with him; and they sought to cover their
embarrassment by an exaggerated cordiality.

"Mrs Lawson well?" they would say. "You're a lucky fellow. Damned pretty
girl."

But if they were with their wives and met him and Ethel they would feel
it awkward when their wives gave Ethel a patronising nod. Lawson had
laughed.

"They're as dull as ditchwater, the whole gang of them," he said. "It's
not going to disturb my ni