, back
to the village, talking seriously most of the way upon that ardent
subject which lay warmly upon both of their young hearts.

CHAPTER XVII

There was a noticeable ripple when Eileen Lorimer walked into the
ballroom that evening in the winsome attire of a Quaker maid, with
Professor Hodgson, as Pierrot, on one side, and the tall, commanding
figure of Peter the Brazen, in a spick-and-span white-and-gold uniform
of the Pacific Mail Line, on the other.

For Peter the Brazen, in any garb, was that type of man at whom any
normal woman would have looked twice--or, if only once, just twice as
long.

Knotted about his lean waist was a flaunting blue sarong. The sarong
gave to his straight, white figure the deft touch of romance. It
verified the adventurous blue of his deep-set eyes, and the stubborn
outward thrust of his tanned, smooth-shaven jaw.

When the young women of Eileen's acquaintance, to whom had been
whispered some of the details of this man's thrilling past, crowded
about for introductions, Peter had little difficulty in filling the
remaining half of his program.

And when the music started for the second event Peter recovered his
flushed and glowing Quaker maiden from the reluctant arms of Professor
Hodgson, upon whom had fallen, like a dark shroud, a gloom heavy and
profound, and the man who had that morning said good-by forever to
China and the wireless game and to ships and the sea, found himself
floating in and out upon a sea of gold, with a sprite from elf-land
dazzling him with her rosebud smile.

He would have liked to shock their beholders then and there by kissing
her squarely upon that smile! And all the while, from the side line,
Professor Hodgson, the professor of Chinese, watched their every
movement with a face as long and as gray as an alley in the fog.

A little later in the evening, when Peter looked for his partner, a
Miss Somebody or Other, whose penciled name had been smudged on his
program so that it had become an unintelligible blue, he looked in vain.

He looked then among the dancers for the face of his Quaker maiden,
and, unable to see her in the syncopating throng, elected to hunt for
her, despite the known fact that she was in the company of his defeated
rival, the professor.

Peter searched the refreshment room futilely, and decided that the pair
had probably retired to the palm garden, where Eileen was possibly
engaged to the best of her ability in soothing t