nt Spanish piece, if he could judge by the arms and arabesques
covering the breech, dimly visible in the rays of a Chinese lantern.

Beyond was a private dock where two rakish power-boats lay, receiving
their cargo of young men and girls--all very animated and gay under the
gaudy electric lanterns strung fore and aft rainbow fashion.

He seated himself on the cannon, lingering until both boats cleared for
the carnival, rushing out into the darkness like streaks of
multi-coloured flame; then his lassitude increasing, he rose and
sauntered toward the hotel which loomed like a white mountain afire
above the dark masses of tropic trees. And again the press of the throng
hemmed him in among the palms and fountains and hedges of crimson
hibiscus; again the dusk grew gay with voices and the singing overtone
of violins; again the suffocating scent of blossoms, too sweet and
penetrating for the unacclimated, filtered through and through him, till
his breath came unevenly, and the thick odours stirred in him strange
senses of expectation, quickening with his pulses to a sudden prophecy.

And at the same instant he saw the girl of whom he had been thinking.

She was on the edge of a group of half a dozen or more men in evening
dress, and women in filmy white--already close to him--so near that the
frail stuff of her skirt brushed him, and the subtle, fresh aroma of her
seemed to touch his cheek like a breath as she passed.

"Calypso," he whispered, scarcely conscious that he spoke aloud.

A swift turn of her head, eyes that looked blankly into his, and she had
passed.

A sudden realisation of his bad manners left his ears tingling. What on
earth had prompted him to speak? What momentary relaxation had permitted
him an affront to a young girl whose attitude toward him that morning
had been so admirable?

Chagrined, he turned back to seek some circling path through the dense
crowd ahead; and was aware, in the darkness, of a shadowy figure
entering the jasmine arbour. And though his eyes were still confused by
the lantern light he knew her again in the dusk.

As they passed she said under her breath: "That was ill-bred. I am
disappointed."

He wheeled in his tracks; she turned to confront him for an instant.

"I'm just a plain beast," he said. "You won't forgive me of course."

"You had no right to say what you did. You said 'Calypso'--and I ought
not to have heard you.... But I did.... Tell me; if I am too generous to
s