But he made another determined effort under the romantic influence of
Flora Utterbourne’s garden tea-party. The tea was strong and dreamy. He
made Lili stroll off with him onto the beach, though she wanted to stay
and enjoy every moment of what seemed to her a function of the highest
social prestige. And he kissed her, behind a friendly palm tree, and
begged her once more to marry him, but she _wouldn’t_ be serious, and
kept singing and making eyes in the most tempting yet at the same time
exasperating way, and sometimes she said, “Boo-o-o!”
Try as he might, Jerome couldn’t seem to arrive anywhere with Lili, even
though she did admit she was desperately in love with him: she always
proclaimed the heartening fact loudly and brazenly—didn’t care at all who
knew it—was candidness itself. Well, the combination was beyond Jerome,
and it humiliated him; it made his ego squirm. There seemed to be a
hoo-doo at work somewhere.
He brooded over his troubles of the heart. The same thing seemed
happening that had happened before, though with the notable exception
that whereas Stella had simply ceased to love him and had married another
man, Lili went right on loving him—she admitted it! She was pretty deep.
And she seemed—yes, he glimpsed the fact indistinctly—she seemed to
be having certain flirtations on the side, which darkened the issue
considerably. There was a soldier he had seen her with one day—a mere
little shrimp in khaki, on duty here in Honolulu. It troubled him
greatly, and he reproached her with it afterward; and she beamed on him
and evaded the point, even cried a little, and made him end by feeling
abject and penitent. Upon the whole, Jerome appeared doomed.
However, all this made no particular stir in the great world. The
tea-party went right ahead. The songbirds were all having a beautiful
time, and the coloratura, Miss Valentine, thrilling still over her
Honolulu notices, walked about haughtily, not seeing any one at all, and
holding her teacup with a poise which would have thrown Galesburg (whence
she had been rescued from a career of choir-singing nonentity) into a
spasm of amazement and envy. She talked with a mysteriously acquired
“eastern” accent, almost never forgetting that the letter _r_ did not
legitimately belong in the alphabet.
Small tables were set out under an awning: you could sit with your tea
or stroll with your tea, just as you chose. The hostess poured the tea
and smiled in her unflagging way, conversing steadily; the river flowed
cordially on, its rhythm unflecked by churning millwheel or breaking
rapids: a deep and gracious river, quiet and gliding, yet sunny, too, and
always singularly fresh and aglow with enthusiasm.
There was one distinguished guest who hadn’t been invited, and whose
calm, sauntering arrival upon the scene created a genuine little
sensation. This was Captain Utterbourne, whose _Star of Troy_ had slipped
into the harbour like a clever grey mouse. He was on his way back from
somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Attired in cool flannels, he sat taking
in the mixed picture which kept constantly breaking into new composition
against the plush of the lawn and the blue of the sea. His eyes were
amused, yet otherwise inexpressive.
Flora was enthroned like a very queen behind a comfortable big yellow
teapot, with her enigmatic brother on one side and the impresario on the
other. Mr. Curry looked about him dreamily, while a sense of peace seemed
creeping into his heart. It was amazing that a place like this should
have so utterly settled an appearance. It had been a mere empty house,
and she had come and waved a wand or something, and lo! you would say
she had always lived here. In a little while she would be gone—vanished;
there would be strangers. So it went with her.
“My dear _man_,” she said richly, “your tea must be _stone_ cold! Let me
give you a fresh cup, and you must try this cake, _really_, for I made it
myself, to see whether I’d forgotten _how_—I don’t have _time_ any more
for such luxuries as ‘baking.’”
“Time,” murmured the Captain with a sleepy nod. “Time—and eternity....”
“Oh, _now_,” his sister countered, “you can’t eliminate my
‘responsibilities’ just by talking like a _Buddhist_!”
“Of course,” he admitted, “one may call things by whatever names one
chooses—h’m? You choose to call them responsibilities.”
“You’ve always laughed at my _apartments_, Chris: but I can’t see that
they’re any more uncertain than _ships_!” And there, in truth, she really
had him.