he girl in the red handkerchief," added Malcourt. "I wish we had
time."

"I believe I've seen that girl somewhere," mused Portlaw.

"Perhaps you have; there are all kinds at Palm Beach, even yours, and,"
he added with his easy impudence, "I expect to preserve my notions
concerning every one of them. Ho! Look at that sheaf of sky-rockets,
Billy! Zip! Whir-r! Bang! Great is Diana of the Ephesians!--bless her
heart!"

"Going up like Garret Hamil's illusions," said Portlaw, sentimentally.
"I wonder if he sees 'em and considers the moral they are writing across
the stars. O slush! Life is like a stomach; if you fill it too full it
hurts you. What about _that_ epigram, Louis? What about it?"

The other's dark, graceful head was turned toward the fiery fete on
shore, and his busy thoughts were with that lithe, dripping figure he
had seen through the sea-glasses, climbing into a distant boat. For the
figure reminded him of a girl he had known very well when the world was
younger; and the memory was not wholly agreeable.

CHAPTER III

AN ADVANCE

Hamil stood under the cocoanut palms at the lake's edge and watched the
lagoon where thousands of coloured lanterns moved on crafts, invisible
except when revealed in the glare of the rushing rockets.

Lamps glittered everywhere; electric lights were doubly festooned along
the sea wall, drooping creeper-like from palm to palmetto, from
flowering hibiscus to sprawling banyan, from dainty china-berry to
grotesque screw-pine tree, shedding strange witch-lights over masses of
blossoms, tropical and semi-tropical. Through which the fine-spun spray
of fountains drifted, and the great mousy dusk-moths darted through the
bars of light with the glimmering bullet-flight of summer meteors.

And everywhere hung the scent of orange bloom and the more subtle
perfume of white and yellow jasmine floated through the trees from
gardens or distant hammocks, combining in one intoxicating aroma, spiced
always with the savour of the sea.

Hamil was aware of considerable noise, more or less musical, afloat and
ashore; a pretentious orchestra played third-rate music under the hotel
colonnade; melody arose from the lantern-lit lake, with clamourous
mandolins and young voices singing; and over all hung the confused
murmur of unseen throngs, harmonious, capricious; laughter, voice
answering voice, and the distant shouts as brilliantly festooned boats
hailed and were hailed across the water.