"No, nothing wrong," he cried. His white teeth flashed agreeably below
the coppery horizontal bar of his long moustaches.

I don't know whether it was his delicacy or his obesity which prevented
Davidson from clambering upon the wharf. He stood up in the boat,
and, above him, Heyst stooped low with urbane smiles, thanking him and
apologizing for the liberty, exactly in his usual manner. Davidson had
expected some change in the man, but there was none. Nothing in him
betrayed the momentous fact that within that jungle there was a girl, a
performer in a ladies' orchestra, whom he had carried straight off the
concert platform into the wilderness. He was not ashamed or defiant
or abashed about it. He might have been a shade confidential when
addressing Davidson. And his words were enigmatical.

"I took this course of signalling to you," he said to Davidson, "because
to preserve appearances might be of the utmost importance. Not to me, of
course. I don't care what people may say, and of course no one can hurt
me. I suppose I have done a certain amount of harm, since I allowed
myself to be tempted into action. It seemed innocent enough, but all
action is bound to be harmful. It is devilish. That is why this world
is evil upon the whole. But I have done with it! I shall never lift a
little finger again. At one time I thought that intelligent observation
of facts was the best way of cheating the time which is allotted to us
whether we want it or not; but now I, have done with observation, too."

Imagine poor, simple Davidson being addressed in such terms alongside
an abandoned, decaying wharf jutting out of tropical bush. He had
never heard anybody speak like this before; certainly not Heyst, whose
conversation was concise, polite, with a faint ring of playfulness in
the cultivated tones of his voice.