Harber might be rated at, perhaps, some
forty thousand pounds, not counting his interest in the schooner.
One of Janet Spencer's argosies, then, its cargo laden, is ready to
set sail for the hills of home. In short, Harber is now in one of
the island ports of call, waiting for the steamer from Fiji. In six
weeks he will be in Tawnleytown if all goes well.
It isn't, and yet it is, the same Harber. He's thirty now, lean and
bronzed and very fit. He can turn a hundred tricks now where then he
could turn one. The tropics have agreed with him. There seems to
have been some subtle affinity between them, and he almost wishes
that he weren't leaving them. He certainly wouldn't be, if it were
not for Janet.
Yes, that slender thread has held him. Through ten years it has kept
him faithful. He has eyed askance, ignored, even rebuffed, women.
The letters, that still come, have turned the trick, perhaps, or
some clinging to a faith that is inherent in him. Or sheer obstinacy?
Forgive the cynicism. A little of each, no doubt. And then he hadn't
often seen the right sort of women. I say that deliberately, because:
The night before the steamer was due there was a ball--yes, poor
island exiles, they called it that!--and Harber, one of some thirty
"Europeans" there, went to it, and on the very eve of safety .
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