h her, certainty of a little one. They have not our
selfishness of paternity, but find in the assumed relation of father
all the pride and joy we take only with surety of our relationship.

Afa was a handsome half-caste, his mustache and light complexion, his
insouciance and frivolity, his perfect physique, skill with canoe and
fish-net and spear, his flirtations with many women, and his ability
to provide amusement for the guests, making him a superior type of
the white-brown blood. There was a black tragedy in this life which,
with all his heedlessness, often and again imprisoned him in deep
melancholy.

His father was a wealthy Italian who lived near the home of a
Tahitian princess, and who won the girl's love against her father's
commands. Afa was born, the princess was sent away, and the child
brought up in a good family. When he was fourteen years old he was
taken to the United States. His father became engaged in a quarrel
with certain natives whom he forbade to cross his land to gather feis
in the mountains. As they had always had this right, they resented
his imposition, and plotted to kill him. He disappeared, and a
long time afterward his body was found loosely covered with earth,
the feet above the surface. In court the surgeons swore that he had
been alive when buried. A number of men were tried for the crime and
sentenced to life imprisonment in New Caledonia.

Afa returned from America to find that much of his father's
property had been stolen or claimed by others, and he became a
cook and servant. He had been many years with Lovaina, and though
he owned valuable land, he preferred the hotel life, half domestic,
half manager and confidant, to the quietude of the country. In Afa's
single room were two brass bedsteads, many gaudy tidies, an engraving
of the execution of Nathan Hale, and a toilet-table full of fancy
notions. Evoa was always barefooted, but Afa, on steamer days and
when going to the cinematograph, appeared in immaculate white and with
canvas shoes. Otherwise he wore only a fold of cloth about the loins,
the real garment of the Tahitian, and the right one for that climate.

Again on my balcony, I saw the sun had passed the crown of the
Diadem and was slanting hotly toward Papeete. Moorea was emerging
from darkness, its valleys a deep brown, and the tops of the serried
mountains becoming green.

Along the reef, outside, a schooner, two-masted, was making for
the harbor. She was very grace