?"

It was a warm night, and through the open door you saw countless stars
in a heaven that was still almost blue. Captain Butler wore a sleeveless
under-shirt, showing his fat white arms, and a pair of incredibly dirty
trousers. His feet were bare, but on his curly head he wore a very old,
a very shapeless felt hat.

"Let me introduce you to my girl. Ain't she a peach?"

We shook hands with a very pretty person. She was a good deal taller
than the captain, and even the Mother Hubbard, which the missionaries of
a past generation had, in the interests of decency, forced on the
unwilling natives, could not conceal the beauty of her form. One could
not but suspect that age would burden her with a certain corpulence, but
now she was graceful and alert. Her brown skin had an exquisite
translucency and her eyes were magnificent. Her black hair, very thick
and rich, was coiled round her head in a massive plait. When she smiled
in a greeting that was charmingly natural, she showed teeth that were
small, even, and white. She was certainly a most attractive creature. It
was easy to see that the captain was madly in love with her. He could
not take his eyes off her; he wanted to touch her all the time. That was
very easy to understand; but what seemed to me stranger was that the
girl was apparently in love with him. There was a light in her eyes that
was unmistakable, and her lips were slightly parted as though in a sigh
of desire. It was thrilling. It was even a little moving, and I could
not help feeling somewhat in the way. What had a stranger to do with
this love-sick pair? I wished that Winter had not brought me. And it
seemed to me that the dingy cabin was transfigured and now it seemed a
fit and proper scene for such an extremity of passion. I thought I
should never forget that schooner in the harbour of Honolulu, crowded
with shipping, and yet, under the immensity of the starry sky, remote
from all the world. I liked to think of those lovers sailing off
together in the night over the empty spaces of the Pacific from one
green, hilly island to another. A faint breeze of romance softly fanned
my cheek.

And yet Butler was the last man in the world with whom you would have
associated romance, and it was hard to see what there was in him to
arouse love. In the clothes he wore now he looked podgier than ever, and
his round spectacles gave his round face the look of a prim cherub. He
suggested rather a curate who had gone to