_one,
two! one, two!_ His head nodded a trifle and for one blissful second
his eyelids fell. The clock began to strike eleven. _One!_ he
struggled, but it was too sweet. _Two!_ He became dimly conscious of
a rustling and movement by him. _Three!_ there was a light touch on
his arm and Webb stood near the chair he had dropped into. The others
must have gone.

"You seem exhausted, Mr. Weldon," he said quietly.

"I--I have missed my sleep lately," Weldon stammered, trying to control
the motions of his mouth, his voice striking his own ear as mechanical,
far away, laboured.

"Exactly," said Webb suavely. "And now, Mr. Weldon, _how much do you
expect for those papers_?"

* * * * *

Weldon drew his chair across the broad verandah in an aimless,
leisurely way, anchored it in the shadow of a wicker table laden with
cool glass pitchers and iced fruits, and sank into it, sighing
restlessly. The pillars of coral that supported the verandah roof
framed, each pair of them, an oblong of sapphire bay; vivid masses of
pink oleanders hedged the foreground; the tremulous sapphire crawled
softly over a creamy crescent beach. In the pleasant noon stillness
the mild whine of a patient puppy, broken by the chuckles of some young
human thing, rose on the air. Jars of sweet flowers sent out their
almost tropical odours with each tiny, invisible wind current: they
seemed to puff it into his face.

A great green and flame-coloured parrot, hung head downward in his
yellow cage, began suddenly a mechanical, dry litany:

"_Manana! manana! manana!_" It was like a clock--passionless, regular,
meditative. Weldon shrugged his shoulders distastefully; he had never
been able to conquer his dislike of steady, measured sounds. It was an
unreasonable weakness, but incurable. He twisted uneasily in his white
flannels as the bird droned on,

"_Manana! manana! manana!_"

"Be still, Chico, be still, sir!"

A fair, finely grown boy took the coral steps two at a bound and
threatened the parrot.

"Daddy, keep him quiet, won't you? He frightens my white mice awfully.
Why do mice hate parrots? Do you know, daddy?"

Weldon's face cleared and he threw his arm over the slender shoulders.

"I don't know, Pippo, I can't guess," he said. "Where's your mother?"

"Just beyond you," and the boy slipped away to his pets, grudging the
time for her kiss in passing.

She stood softly behind the wicker chair and lai