d for a thing as big as that to lay eggs like a hen,"
observed Cuyp, not intending to be funny.

Wayward and Miss Palliser had wandered off together to inspect the
pumps. Vetchen, always inquisitive, had discovered a coy manatee in one
tank, and was all for poking it with his walking-stick until he saw its
preposterous countenance emerge from the water.

"Great heavens," he faltered, "it looks like a Dutch ancestor of
Cuyp's!"

Cuyp, intensely annoyed, glanced at his watch.

"Where the mischief did Miss Suydam and Malcourt go?" he asked Wayward.
"I say, Miss Palliser, you don't want to wait here any longer, do you?"

"They're somewhere in the labyrinth," said Wayward. "Their chair went
that way, didn't it, boy?"

"Yeth, thir," said the small and freckled attendant.

So the party descended the wooden incline to where their sleepy black
chairmen lay on the grass, waiting; and presently the two double chairs
wheeled away toward that amusing maze of jungle pathways cut through the
impenetrable hammock, and popularly known as the labyrinth.

But Miss Suydam and Mr. Malcourt were not in the labyrinth. At that very
moment they were slowly strolling along the eastern dunes where the vast
solitude of sky and sea seemed to depress even the single white-headed
eagle standing on the wet beach, head and tail adroop, motionless,
fish-gorged. No other living thing was in sight except the slim, blue
dragon-flies, ceaselessly darting among the beach-grapes; nothing else
stirred except those two figures on the dunes, moving slowly, heads bent
as though considering the advisability of every step in the breaking
sands. There was a fixed smile on the girl's lips, but her eyes were
mirthless, almost vacant.

"So you've decided to go?" she said.

"Portlaw decides that sort of thing for me."

"It's a case of necessity?"

Malcourt answered lightly: "He intends to go. Who can stop a fat and
determined man? Besides, the season is over; in two weeks there will be
nobody left except the indigenous nigger, the buzzards, and a few
cast-off summer garments--"

"And a few cast-off winter memories," she said. "You will not take any
away with you, will you?"

"Do you mean clothes?"

"Memories."

"I'll take some."

"Which?"

"All those concerning you."

"Thank you, Louis." They had got that far. And a trifle farther, for her
hand, swinging next his, encountered it and their fingers remained
interlocked. But there was no change of