er. She was "new" to the
islands. Her clothes were evidence enough for that. There was a
certain verve to them that spoke of a more sophisticated land. She
might have been twenty-five though she seemed younger. She was in
filmy white from slipper to throat, and over her slender shoulders
there drifted a gossamer banner of scarf, fluttering in the soft
trade-wind. Harber was very close to see this, and still she hadn't
observed him.

"Don't let me startle you, please!" he said, as he stepped from the
shadow of the trumpet-flower bush that had hitherto concealed him.

Her arms came down slowly, her chin lowered; her pose, if you will,
melted away. Her voice when she spoke was low and round and thrilled,
and it sent an answering thrill through Harber.

"I'm mad!" she said. "Moon-mad--or tropic-mad. I didn't hear you. I
was worshipping the night!"

"As I have been," said Harber, feeling a sudden pagan kinship with
her mood.

She smiled, and her smile seemed the most precious thing in the world.
"You, too? But it isn't new to you ... and when the newness is gone
every one--here at least--seems dead to it!"

"Sometimes I think it's always new," replied Harber. "And yet I've
had years of it ... but how did you know?"

"You're Mr. Harber, aren't you?"

"Yes. But---"

"Only that I knew you were here, having heard of you from the
Tretheways, and I'd accounted for every one else. I couldn't stay
inside because it seemed to me that it was wicked when I had come so
far for just this, to be inside stuffily dancing. One can dance all
the rest of one's life in Michigan, you know! So----"

"It's the better place to be--out here," said Harber abruptly.
"Need we go in?"

"I don't know," she said doubtfully. "Maybe you can tell me. You see,
I've promised some dances. What's the usage here? Dare I run away
from them?"

"Oh, it might prove a three-day scandal if you did," said Harber.
"But I know a bench off to the right, where it isn't likely you'll
be found by any questing partner, and you needn't confess to having
had a companion. Will you come and talk to me?"

"I'm a bird of passage," she answered, smiling, "and I've only to
unfold my wings and fly away from the smoke of scandal. Yes, I'll
come--if you won't talk--too much. You see, after all, I won't
flatter you. It's the night I want, not talk ... the wonderful night!"

But, of course, they did talk. She was an American girl, she told him,
and had studied art a li