She stood on the island, ethereal, splendid, like some tall, dark, and
gorgeous flower of the storied East. The green and white of the cotton
billowed and foamed about her breasts; the red scarf burned upon her
neck; the dark brown velvet of her skin pulsed warm and tremulous with
the uprushing blood, and in the midnight depths of her great eyes flamed
the mighty fires of long-concealed and new-born love.

He darted through the trees and paused, a tall man strongly but slimly
made. He threw up his hands in the old way and hallooed; happily she
crooned back a low mother-melody, and waited. He came down to her
slowly, with fixed, hungry eyes, threading his way amid the Fleece. She
did not move, but lifted both her dark hands, white with cotton; and
then, as he came, casting it suddenly to the winds, in tears and
laughter she swayed and dropped quivering in his arms. And all the world
was sunshine and peace.




_Fifteen_

REVELATION


Harry Cresswell was scowling over his breakfast. It was not because his
apartment in the New York hotel was not satisfactory, or his breakfast
unpalatable; possibly a rather bewildering night in Broadway was
expressing its influence; but he was satisfied that his ill-temper was
due to a paragraph in the morning paper: