“If you’re ready we’ll go right up,” said Jackson.
“I’ll just put on my clothes,” said Bateman.
“Why, Teddie, didn’t you bring a pareo for your friend?”
“I guess he’d rather wear clothes,” smiled Edward.
“I certainly would,” answered Bateman, grimly, as he saw Edward gird himself in the loincloth and stand ready to start before he himself had got his shirt on.
“Won’t you find it rough walking without your shoes?” he asked Edward.
“It struck me the path was a trifle rocky.”
“Oh, I’m used to it.”
“It’s a comfort to get into a pareo when one gets back from town,” said Jackson.
“If you were going to stay here I should strongly recommend you to adopt it.
It’s one of the most sensible costumes I have ever come across.
It’s cool, convenient, and inexpensive.”
They walked up to the house, and Jackson took them into a large room with white-washed walls and an open ceiling in which a table was laid for dinner. Bateman noticed that it was set for five.
“Eva, come and show yourself to Teddie’s friend, and then shake us a cocktail,” called Jackson.
Then he led Bateman to a long low window.
“Look at that,” he said, with a dramatic gesture.
“Look well.”
Below them coconut trees tumbled down steeply to the lagoon, and the lagoon in the evening light had the colour, tender and varied, of a dove’s breast.
On a creek, at a little distance, were the clustered huts of a native village, and towards the reef was a canoe, sharply silhouetted, in which were a couple of natives fishing.
Then, beyond, you saw the vast calmness of the Pacific and twenty miles away, airy and unsubstantial like the fabric of a poet’s fancy, the unimaginable beauty of the island which is called Murea.
It was all so lovely that Bateman stood abashed.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said at last.
Arnold Jackson stood staring in front of him, and in his eyes was a dreamy softness.
His thin, thoughtful face was very grave. Bateman, glancing at it, was once more conscious of its intense spirituality.
“Beauty,” murmured Arnold Jackson.
“You seldom see beauty face to face.
Look at it well, Mr Hunter, for what you see now you will never see again, since the moment is transitory, but it will be an imperishable memory in your heart.
You touch eternity.”
His voice was deep and resonant.
He seemed to breathe forth the purest idealism, and Bateman had to urge himself to remember that the man who spoke was a criminal and a cruel cheat.
But Edward, as though he heard a sound, turned round quickly.
“Here is my daughter, Mr Hunter.”
Bateman shook hands with her.
She had dark, splendid eyes and a red mouth tremulous with laughter; but her skin was brown, and her curling hair, rippling down her-shoulders, was coal black.
She wore but one garment, a Mother Hubbard of pink cotton, her feet were bare, and she was crowned with a wreath of white scented flowers.
She was a lovely creature.
She was like a goddess of the Polynesian spring.
She was a little shy, but not more shy than Bateman, to whom the whole situation was highly embarrassing, and it did not put him at his ease to see this sylph-like thing take a shaker and with a practised hand mix three cocktails.
“Let us have a kick in them, child,” said Jackson.
She poured them out and smiling delightfully handed one to each of the men.
Bateman flattered himself on his skill in the subtle art of shaking cocktails and he was not a little astonished, on tasting this one, to find that it was excellent.
Jackson laughed proudly when he saw his guest’s involuntary look of appreciation.
“Not bad, is it?
I taught the child myself, and in the old days in Chicago I considered that there wasn’t a bar-tender in the city that could hold a candle to me.
When I had nothing better to do in the penitentiary I used to amuse myself by thinking out new cocktails, but when you come down to brass-tacks there’s nothing to beat a dry Martini.”
Bateman felt as though someone had given him a violent blow on the funny-bone and he was conscious that he turned red and then white.
But before he could think of anything to say a native boy brought in a great bowl of soup and the whole party sat down to dinner.
Arnold Jackson’s remark seemed to have aroused in him a train of recollections, for he began to talk of his prison days.
He talked quite naturally, without malice, as though he were relating his experiences at a foreign university.
He addressed himself to Bateman and Bateman was confused and then confounded.