Lying Bill sighed like a diver just up from the bottom of the lagoon.

"You know that big cocoanut tree in the garden of the Annexe? She
would sit under that with me an' smoke her Cairo cigarettes an'
talk about her bally kiddie. She wanted him to be strong an' to love
the sea, and she thought by talking with me about 'im an' ships an'
the ocean she could sort of train him that way, though he'd been
got in Paris an' might be a girl. Is there anything in that bleedin'
idea? She could quote books all right about it."

Ah, beautiful and brave baroness! I often thought of you during those
months in the Annexe. You will come again, you say, to Tahiti, bathe
again in its witching waters, and let the spell of its sweetness bind
you again to its soil. Maybe, but baroness, you will never again be
as you were, flinging all body and soul into the fire of passion,
and yearning for motherhood! Such times can never be the same. We
burn, even desire, and consume our dreams. Child of aristocracy, you
found in this South Sea eyot the freedom your atavism, or shall I say,
naturalness, craved, and you drank your cup to the lees and thought
it good. I shall not be the one to point a finger at you, nor even to
think too vivid the scarlet of my toilet set. That flamboyant outside
my window, once yours, is as garish, and yet lacks no consonance with
all about it.

The scene from my veranda was a changing picture of radiance and
shadow. Directly below was the Broom Road. Umbrageous flamboyants--the
royal poincianas, or flame-trees--sheltered the short stretch of
sward to the water, and their blossoms made a red-gold litter upon the
grass. A giant acacia whose flowers were reddish pink and looked like
thistle blooms, protected two canoes, one my own and one Afa's. The