hed what
remained in his glass.

"You ain't drinking nothin," he said, reaching for the whisky.

"I am of a sober habit," smiled the Swede. "I intoxicate myself in ways
which I fancy are more subtle. But perhaps that is only vanity. Anyhow,
the effects are more lasting and the results less deleterious."

"They say there's a deal of cocaine taken in the States now," said the
captain.

Neilson chuckled.

"But I do not see a white man often," he continued, "and for once I
don't think a drop of whisky can do me any harm."

He poured himself out a little, added some soda, and took a sip.

"And presently I found out why the spot had such an unearthly
loveliness. Here love had tarried for a moment like a migrant bird that
happens on a ship in mid-ocean and for a little while folds its tired
wings. The fragrance of a beautiful passion hovered over it like the
fragrance of hawthorn in May in the meadows of my home. It seems to me
that the places where men have loved or suffered keep about them always
some faint aroma of something that has not wholly died. It is as though
they had acquired a spiritual significance which mysteriously affects
those who pass. I wish I could make myself clear." He smiled a little.
"Though I cannot imagine that if I did you would understand."

He paused.

"I think this place was beautiful because here I had been loved
beautifully." And now he shrugged his shoulders. "But perhaps it is only
that my aesthetic sense is gratified by the happy conjunction of young
love and a suitable setting."

Even a man less thick-witted than the skipper might have been forgiven
if he were bewildered by Neilson's words. For he seemed faintly to laugh
at what he said. It was as though he spoke from emotion which his
intellect found ridiculous. He had said himself that he was a
sentimentalist, and when sentimentality is joined with scepticism there
is often the devil to pay.

He was silent for an instant and looked at the captain with eyes in
which there was a sudden perplexity.

"You know, I can't help thinking that I've seen you before somewhere or
other," he said.

"I couldn't say as I remember you," returned the skipper.

"I have a curious feeling as though your face were familiar to me. It's
been puzzling me for some time. But I can't situate my recollection in
any place or at any time."

The skipper massively shrugged his heavy shoulders.

"It's thirty years since I first come to the islands. A m