ly. They had no ideas,
nothing to exchange. So he smoked on, lazily, in silence, feeling the
slight stir in his blood caused by the Quinquina. He filled his glass
again, and looked forward to the next wave of relaxation. Overhead,
the punkah swung slowly, stirring the scented air. These were the
scents he had dreamed of, the rich, heavy perfumes of the Tropics.
Only it was all so dull!

The door opened and a little girl entered the verandah, a child of
perhaps fourteen. A doomed child. He looked at her languidly, and
continued to look at her, thinking vague thoughts. She was beautiful.
Her cotton frock, belted in by some strange arrangement of seashells
woven into a girdle, pressed tightly over her young form, revealing
clearly the outline of a childish figure soon ready to bloom into full
maturity under these hot rays of vertical sunshine. She would develop
soon, even as the native women developed into maturity very early. His
tired glance rested upon her face. That, too, bore promise of great
beauty. The features were fine and regular, singularly well formed,
and the eyes those of a gentle cow, unspeculative, unintelligent. She
was very white, with the deathlike whiteness of the Tropics, and under
the childish eyes were deep, black rings, coming early. He noticed her
hands--slender, long, with beautiful fingernails--such hands in Paris!
And again his roving glance fell lower, and rested upon her bare legs,
well formed, well developed, the legs of a young woman. He stirred
lightly in his chair. The feet matched the hands--slender, long feet,
with long, slender toes. She was wearing native sandals, clumsy wooden
sandals, with knobs between the first two toes. Only the knobs were of
silver, instead of the usual buttons of bone, or wood. Some one had
brought them to her from the mainland, evidently. Well, here she was,
a doomed creature, uneducated, growing older, growing into womanhood,
with no outlook ahead. Her only companions her dull, stupid mother,
and the worn-out wives of the officials--all years older than herself.
Or perhaps she depended for companionship upon the children--there
were a dozen such, about the place, between the ages of two and six.
And she stood between these two groups, just blooming into womanhood,
with her beautiful young body, and her atrophied young brain. Her eyes
fell shyly under his penetrating, speculative glances, and a wave of
colour rose into her white cheeks. She felt, then, hey? Fel