or Janet.

Yes, that slender thread has held him. Through ten years it has kept
him faithful. He has eyed askance, ignored, even rebuffed, women.
The letters, that still come, have turned the trick, perhaps, or
some clinging to a faith that is inherent in him. Or sheer obstinacy?
Forgive the cynicism. A little of each, no doubt. And then he hadn't
often seen the right sort of women. I say that deliberately, because:

The night before the steamer was due there was a ball--yes, poor
island exiles, they called it that!--and Harber, one of some thirty
"Europeans" there, went to it, and on the very eve of safety ...

The glare and the oily smell of the lanterns, the odour of jasmine,
frangipanni, vanilla, and human beings sickeningly mingled in the
heat, the jangling, out-of-tune music, the wearisome island gossip
and chatter, drove him at length out into the night, down a
black-shadowed pathway to the sea. The beach lay before him presently,
gleaming like silver in the soft blue radiance of the jewelled night.
As he stood there, lost in far memories, the mellow, lemon-coloured
lights from the commissioner's residence shone beautifully from the
fronded palms and the faint wave of the waltzes of yesteryear became
poignant and lovely, and the light trade-wind, clean here from the
reek of lamps and clothing and human beings, vaguely tanged with the
sea, blew upon him with a light, insistent pressure. Half dreaming,
he heard the sharp sputter of a launch--bearing belated comers to
the ball, no doubt--but he paid no attention to it. He may have been
on the beach an hour before he turned to ascend to the town.

And just at the top of the slope he came upon a girl.

She hadn't perceived him, and she stood there, slim and graceful,
the moonlight bright upon her rapt face, with her arms outstretched
and her head flung back, in an attitude of utter abandonment. Harber
felt his heart stir swiftly. He knew what she was feeling, as she
looked out over the shimmering half-moon of harbour, across the
moaning white feather of reef, out to the illimitable sea, and drank
in the essence of the beauty of the night. Just so, at first, had it
clutched him with the pain of ecstasy, and he had never forgotten it.
There would be no voicing that feeling; it must ever remain
inarticulate. Nor was the girl trying to voice it. Her exquisite
pantomime alone spelled her delight in it and her surrender to it.

He saw at a glance that he didn't know h