th the faintest brown in the world. I must, in the
interests of truth, mention one more fact. Mam'selle Eva was the sort of
woman who has a direct effect on the opposite sex. Charm hardly
expresses it; magnetism, rather, though that is a poor word. A man
simply wanted to be near her. She intrigued you, she drew you on, she
assailed your consciousness in indefinable ways--all without the sweep
of an eyelash or the pout of a lip. French Eva was a good girl, and went
her devious ways with reticent feet. But she was not in "society," for
she lived alone in a thatched hut, and attended native festivals, and
swore--when necessary--at the crews of trading barques. I am not sure
that she did not, of all tongues possible to her, prefer beche-de-mer;
which is not, at its most innocent, an elegant language. She had no
enemies except Ching Po--for reasons unknown; and she paid her
occasional respects to any and all religions that Naapu boasted. When
there was a row, she was always, of course, on the European side; though
she would stretch a point now and then in favor of the native
constabulary.

So much for French Eva--who was by no means so important in the Naapu
scheme of things as my long description may imply. She had her eminently
respectable, her perfectly recognized niche, and we all bought eggs and
fish of her when we could. She was a curious figure, to be sure; but you
must remember that on Naapu every one, nearly, was unaverage, if not
abnormal. Even the agents and officials were apt to be the least
promising of their kind--or they would have been somewhere else. It was
a beautiful refuge for utter bounders and men who, though not bounders,
had a very low limit of achievement. The jetsam of officialdom was
washed up on that lonely, lovely shore. The magnates of Naapu were not
to be trusted. Naapu was a rich island, the richest of its group; and,
being off the main lines of traffic, was an excellent field for the
unscrupulous. Tourists did not bother us, for tourists do not like
eighty-ton schooners; maps did not particularly insist upon us; we were
well known in places where it was profitable to know us, and not much
talked about anywhere. Our copra was of the best; there were pearls to
be had in certain waters if you could bribe or fight your way to them;
and large groups of natives occasionally disappeared over night from one
of the surrounding islands. Naapu was, you might say, the clasp of a
necklace. How could we be