Ruth leading him to the top of the
mountain. For a moment he believed this merely a new phase of the
dream. He smiled.

"The Dawn Pearl!" he said, making to recline again.

But she was relentless. "Hoddy, wake up!" She jerked his head to
and fro until the hair stung.

"What?... Oh!... Well, good Lord!" He wrenched loose his head and
stood up, sending the chair clattering to the floor. Rollo barked.

"Go and take your plunge while I attend to breakfast."

He started to pick up a sheet of manuscript, but she pushed him
from the table toward the doorway; and he staggered out of the
bungalow, suddenly stretched his arms, and broke into a trot.

Ruth returned to the table. The tropical dawn is swift. She could
now see to read; so she stirred the manuscript about until she came
upon the first page. "The Beachcombers."

Romance! The Seven Seas are hers. She roves the blue fields of the
North, with the clean North Wind on her lips and her blonde head
jewelled with frost--mocking valour and hardihood! Out of the West
she comes, riding the great ships and the endless steel ways that
encompass the earth, and smoke comes with her and the glare of
furnace fires--commerce! From the East she brings strange words
upon her tongue and strange raiment upon her shoulders and the
perfume of myrrh--antiquity! But oh! when she springs from the
South, her rosy feet trailing the lotus, ripe lequats wreathing her
head, in one hand the bright torch of danger and in the other the
golden apples of love, with her eyes full of sapphires and her
mouth full of pearls!

"With her eyes full of sapphires and her mouth full of pearls." All
day long the phrase interpolated her thoughts.

A week later the manuscript was polished and typewritten, ready for
the test. Spurlock felt very well pleased with himself. To have
written a short story in a week was rather a remarkable feat.

It was at breakfast on this day that he told Ruth he had sent to
Batavia for some dresses. They would arrive sometime in June.

"That gown is getting shabby."

Ruth spread out the ruffled skirt, sundrily torn and soiled. "I
haven't worn anything else in weeks. I haven't touched the other."

"Anything like that?"

"Yes; but the colour is lavender."

"Wear that to-night, then. It fits your style. You are very lovely,
Ruth."

She wanted to dance. The joy that filled her veins with throbbing
fire urged her to rise and go swinging and whirling and dipping.
She sat p