102 MYSTIC ISLES 



manding European exquisite. The house was framed 

 in wide verandas, and was in a magnificent grove of 

 cocoanut-trees affording beauty and shade, with exten- 

 sive fields of sugar-cane on the other side of the road, 

 and a ghmpse of the beach and lagoon a little distance 

 away. A singing brook ran past the door. The bed- 

 rooms were large and open to every breeze, and the 

 tables for dining and amusement mostly set upon the 

 verandas. 



Polonsky's toilet-table was covered with gold boxes 

 and bottles and brushes ; scents and powders and pastes. 

 If he moved out. Gaby de Lys might have moved in and 

 lacked nothing. He was a houlevardier, his clothes 

 from Paris, conforming not at all to the sartorial cus- 

 toms of Tahiti, and his varnished boots and alpine hat, 

 with his saffron automobile, marked him as a person. In 

 that he resembled Higby, an Englishman in Papeete, 

 who wore the evening dress of London whenever a 

 steamship came in, though it might be noon, and on the 

 king's birthday and other British feasts put it on when 

 he awoke. He was the only man who went to dinner 

 at the Tiare in the funeral garb of society. He said he 

 was setting up a proper standard in Tahiti. It was sus- 

 pected really that he was short of clothes, with perhaps 

 only one or two cotton suits, and that when those were 

 soiled he had to resort to full dress during the launder- 

 ing. 



While David and I inspected the house and grounds, 

 McHenry and Llewellyn sat at the wine. Polon- 

 sky had a curious and wisely chosen household. His 

 butler was a Javanese, his chef a Quan-tung Chinese, 

 his valet a Japanese, his chambermaid a Martinique 



