The bath of the Annexe was a large cement tank, primarily for washing
clothes. Its floor was as slippery as ice. One held to the window-frame
at the side, and turned the tap.

A shower fell a dozen feet like rose-leaves upon one. Ah, the waters
of Tahiti! Never was such gentle, velvety rain, a benediction from
the tauupo o te moua, the slopes of the mountains.

I deferred my pleasure a few minutes as the place under the shower
was occupied by an entrancing pair, Evoa, the consort of Afa, and her
four-months-old infant, Poia. Evoa was sixteen years old, tall, like
most Tahitians, finely figured, slender, and with the superb carriage
that is the despair of the corseted women who visit Tahiti. Her
features were regular, but not soft. Her skin was ivory-white, with
a glint of red in cheek and lip, and the unconfined hair that reached
her hips was intensely black and fine, I could see no touch or tint of
the Polynesian except in the slight harshness of the contours of her
face, and that her legs were more like yellow satin than white. Her
foot would have given Du Maurier inspiration for a brown Trilby. It
was long, high-arched, perfect; the toes, never having known shoes,
natural and capable of grasp, and the ankle delicate, yet strong. Her
father she believed to have been a French official who had stayed only
a brief period in Bora-Bora, her mother's island, and whose very name
was forgotten by her. She had not seen her mother since her first year,
having, as is the custom here, been adopted by others.

Poia had a head like a cocoanut, her eyes shiny, black buttons, her
body roly-poly, and her pinkish-yellow feet and hands adorable. Evoa
was dressing her for the market in a red muslin slip, a knitted shawl
of white edged with blue, and, shades of Fahrenheit! a cap with pink
ribbons, and socks of orange. Evoa herself would wear a simple tunic,
which was most of the time pulled down over the shoulder to give Poia
ingress to her white breast. Poia was like a flower, and I had never
heard her cry, this good nature being accounted for perhaps by an
absence of pins, as she was usually naked. She had two teeth barely
peeping from below.

Evoa spoke only Tahitian, which is the same tongue as that spoken in
Bora-Bora, and she was totally without education. Afa had found her,
and brought her to his cabin in the garden. He did not claim to be the
father of Poia, but was delighted, as are all Polynesians, to find
a mate and, wit