thought that that was why you had it in for him."

Photographs and miniatures of Isaac Ford were trooping through his son's
brain, and ghosts of Isaac Ford seemed in the air about hint "I wish you
good night, sir," he could hear the clerk saying, and he saw him
beginning to limp away.

"John," he called abruptly.

John came back and stood near him, blinking and nervously moistening his
lips.

"You haven't told me yet, you know."

"Oh, about Joe Garland?"

"Yes, about Joe Garland. Who is he?"

"He's your brother, sir, if I say it who shouldn't."

"Thank you, John. Good night."

"And you didn't know?" the old man queried, content to linger, now that
the crucial point was past.

"Thank you, John. Good night," was the response.

"Yes, sir, thank you, sir. I think it's going to rain. Good night,
sir."

Out of the clear sky, filled only with stars and moonlight, fell a rain
so fine and attenuated as to resemble a vapour spray. Nobody minded it;
the children played on, running bare-legged over the grass and leaping
into the sand; and in a few minutes it was gone. In the south-east,
Diamond Head, a black blot, sharply defined, silhouetted its crater-form
against the stars. At sleepy intervals the surf flung its foam across
the sands to the grass, and far out could be seen the black specks of
swimmers under the moon. The voices of the singers, singing a waltz,
died away; and in the silence, from somewhere under the trees, arose the
laugh of a woman that was a love-cry. It startled Percival Ford, and it
reminded him of Dr. Kennedy's phrase. Down by the outrigger canoes,
where they lay hauled out on the sand, he saw men and women, Kanakas,
reclining languorously, like lotus-eaters, the women in white _holokus_;
and against one such _holoku_ he saw the dark head of the steersman of
the canoe resting upon the woman's shoulder. Farther down, where the
strip of sand widened at the entrance to the lagoon, he saw a man and
woman walking side by side. As they drew near the light _lanai_, he saw
the woman's hand go down to her waist and disengage a girdling arm. And
as they passed him, Percival Ford nodded to a captain he knew, and to a
major's daughter. Smoke of life, that was it, an ample phrase. And
again, from under the dark algaroba tree arose the laugh of a woman that
was a love-cry; and past his chair, on the way to bed, a bare-legged
youngster was led by a chiding Japanese nurse-maid. The voices of