16 MYSTIC ISLES 



was of a lemon-cream hue, with dark shadows under her 

 long-lashed eyes. Her form was singularly svelt, curv- 

 ing, suggestive of the rounded stalk of a young cocoa- 

 palm, her bosom molded in a voluptuous reserve. Her 

 father, a clergyman, had cornered the vanilla-bean 

 market in Tahiti, and she was bringing an automobile 

 and a phonograph to her home, a village in the middle 

 of Tahiti. 



One night when a Hawaiian hula was played on the 

 phonograph, she danced alone for us. It was a gi'ace- 

 ful, insinuating step, with movements of the arms and 

 hands, a rotating of the torso upon the hips, and with a 

 tinge of the savage in it that excited the Swiss, the raw- 

 food advocate. Hallman was also in the social hall, 

 and, after waltzing with her several times, had per- 

 suaded her to dance the hula. He clapped his hands 

 loudly and called out: 



''3Iaitair 



That is Tahitian for bravo, and I saw a look in Hall- 

 man's face that recalled the story by the Englishman of 

 the jungle trail. He was always intent on his pur- 

 suit. 



Was I hypercritical? There was Leung Kai Chu 

 with the sharks, and the nature man left behind! The 

 one had lost his dream of returning to Tahiti, in which 

 the Chinese might freely have lived, and the other had 

 thrown away life because he could not enter the America 

 that the other wanted so madly to leave. The lack of 

 a piece of paper had killed him. Was it that happiness 

 was a delusion never to be realized? If the pundit had 

 bribed the immigi'ation authorities, as I had known 

 many to do, he might now have been studying the 



