Next morning it was still and sunny. Silence drifted softly in from all
sides through the aching beauty of this tiny empire.
Breakfast finished, King prepared to depart for the day, turning at the
door and nodding easily: “Don’t you worry, little girl. As for such
details as balls and theatres, it’s true they’re not very plentiful.
For your sake I wish we could import some—it would be jolly. But don’t
let your dear little head forget,” he went on a trifle pompously, “that
Hagen’s Island is only a beginning. If I happened to be flush we’d be
taking a smashing honeymoon trip all over the globe—hitting nothing but
the high spots...!” His eyes flashed magnetically. “But whatever your
dreams are,” he continued, slightly magisterial by virtue of his virile
earnestness, “they’re going to come true, later on. However high they
sail—I don’t care. You leave everything to me, little lady. _I’ve got a
hunch!_”
His regard strayed a little, although his words rang with real fervour;
and following his gaze Stella saw a young Ainu woman passing swiftly by
along a path which soon lost itself in the steaming tropical maze. King
watched her out of sight with a look of glancing interest.
“That’s the great chief Cha-cha-kamui’s Small Wife,” he muttered, a smile
breaking. “Tsuda explained it the other day. It seems there’s an official
Great Wife; but she’s old and ugly, and—well, after all,” he laughed,
“the world’s one piece when it comes to that.”
He was hurrying away, and had mounted a pony when Stella called to him,
her voice faltering with a little shrill of unhappy emotion.
“Oh Ferd—_don’t_ go without a kiss!”
“There you are,” he smiled, bending down chivalrously from the saddle to
reach her lips.
At the crest of the tiny hillock he turned to wave again.