the
singers broke softly and meltingly into an Hawaiian love-song, and
officers and women, with encircling arms, were gliding and whirling on
the _lanai_; and once again the woman laughed under the algaroba trees.

And Percival Ford knew only disapproval of it all. He was irritated by
the love-laugh of the woman, by the steersman with pillowed head on the
white _holoku_, by the couples that walked on the beach, by the officers
and women that danced, and by the voices of the singers singing of love,
and his brother singing there with them under the _hau_ tree. The woman
that laughed especially irritated him. A curious train of thought was
aroused. He was Isaac Ford's son, and what had happened with Isaac Ford
might happen with him. He felt in his cheeks the faint heat of a blush
at the thought, and experienced a poignant sense of shame. He was
appalled by what was in his blood. It was like learning suddenly that
his father had been a leper and that his own blood might bear the taint
of that dread disease. Isaac Ford, the austere soldier of the Lord--the
old hypocrite! What difference between him and any beach-comber? The
house of pride that Percival Ford had builded was tumbling about his
ears.

The hours passed, the army people laughed and danced, the native
orchestra played on, and Percival Ford wrestled with the abrupt and
overwhelming problem that had been thrust upon him. He prayed quietly,
his elbow on the table, his head bowed upon his hand, with all the
appearance of any tired onlooker. Between the dances the army men and
women and the civilians fluttered up to him and buzzed conventionally,
and when they went back to the _lanai_ he took up his wrestling where he
had left it off.

He began to patch together his shattered ideal of Isaac Ford, and for
cement he used a cunning and subtle logic. It was of the sort that is
compounded in the brain laboratories of egotists, and it worked. It was
incontrovertible that his father had been made of finer clay than those
about him; but still, old Isaac had been only in the process of becoming,
while he, Percival Ford, had become. As proof of it, he rehabilitated
his father and at the same time exalted himself. His lean little ego
waxed to colossal proportions. He was great enough to forgive. He
glowed at the thought of it. Isaac Ford had been great, but he was
greater, for he could forgive Isaac Ford and even restore him to the holy
place in his memory