When she returned home, as the guinea fowl were at their raucous matins,
she was able to tell her mother that the Scot had not attended the ball,
and Mary Fawcett knew that Dr. Hamilton had managed to detain him.

But a fortnight later they met again at the house of Dr. George Irwin,
an intimate friend of the Hamiltons.

The Irwin's house in Basseterre was on the north side of the Park, which
was surrounded by other fine dwellings and several public buildings. The
broad verandahs almost overhung the enclosure, with its great banyan
tree, the royal palms about the fountain, the close avenues, the flaming
hedges of croton and hybiscus, and the traveller's palm and tree ferns
brought from the mountains. When a ball was given at one of the houses
about this Park on a moonlight night, there was much scheming to avoid
the watchful eyes of lawful guardians.

It was inevitable that Hamilton should attend this ball, for the Irwins
and his relatives were in and out of each other's houses all day and
half the night. By this time, however, he had met nearly every girl on
St. Kitts, and his cousin had ridden out that afternoon to assure
Mistress Fawcett that the danger weakened daily.

But for an hour, he did not leave Rachael's side that night. The
beauties of St. Christopher--and they were many, with their
porcelain-like complexions and distinguished features--went through all
their graceful creole paces in vain. That he was recklessly in love with
Rachael Levine was manifest to all who chose to look, and as undaunted
by her intellect and history as any man of his cousin's mature coterie.
As for Rachael, although she distributed her favours impartially for a
while, her mobile face betrayed to Dr. Hamilton that mind and body were
steeped in that tremulous content which possesses a woman when close to
an undeclared lover in a public place; the man, and Life and her own
emotions unmortalized, the very future bounded by the gala walls, the
music, the lights, and the perfume of flowers. These walls were hung
with branches of orange trees loaded with fruit, and with ferns and
orchids brought fresh from the mountains. A band of blacks played on
their native instruments the fashionable dances of the day with a weird
and barbaric effect, and occasionally sang a wailing accompaniment in
voices of indescribable softness. There was light from fifty candles,
and the eternal breeze lifted and dispersed the heavy perfume of the
flowers. Hami