of a chief
a greeting was called out to him. Then he came to the store. Behind the
counter sat the trader's daughter, a swarthy broad-featured girl in a
pink blouse and a white drill skirt. Jervis hoped he would marry her. He
had money, and he had told Mackintosh that his daughter's husband would
be well-to-do. She flushed a little when she saw Mackintosh.

"Father's just unpacking some cases that have come in this morning. I'll
tell him you're here."

He sat down and the girl went out behind the shop. In a moment her
mother waddled in, a huge old woman, a chiefess, who owned much land in
her own right; and gave him her hand. Her monstrous obesity was an
offence, but she managed to convey an impression of dignity. She was
cordial without obsequiousness; affable, but conscious of her station.

"You're quite a stranger, Mr Mackintosh. Teresa was saying only this
morning: 'Why, we never see Mr Mackintosh now.'"

He shuddered a little as he thought of himself as that old native's
son-in-law. It was notorious that she ruled her husband, notwithstanding
his white blood, with a firm hand. Hers was the authority and hers the
business head. She might be no more than Mrs Jervis to the white people,
but her father had been a chief of the blood royal, and his father and
his father's father had ruled as kings. The trader came in, small beside
his imposing wife, a dark man with a black beard going grey, in ducks,
with handsome eyes and flashing teeth. He was very British, and his
conversation was slangy, but you felt he spoke English as a foreign
tongue; with his family he used the language of his native mother. He
was a servile man, cringing and obsequious.

"Ah, Mr Mackintosh, this is a joyful surprise. Get the whisky, Teresa;
Mr Mackintosh will have a gargle with us."

He gave all the latest news of Apia, watching his guest's eyes the
while, so that he might know the welcome thing to say.

"And how is Walker? We've not seen him just lately. Mrs Jervis is going
to send him a sucking-pig one day this week."

"I saw him riding home this morning," said Teresa.

"Here's how," said Jervis, holding up his whisky.

Mackintosh drank. The two women sat and looked at him, Mrs Jervis in her
black Mother Hubbard, placid and haughty, and Teresa, anxious to smile
whenever she caught his eye, while the trader gossiped insufferably.

"They were saying in Apia it was about time Walker retired. He ain't so
young as he was. Things have ch