They insisted that he take an enormous chair, pressed cigarettes upon him, showered him with hospitable attentions. As he sat down and the chatter was resumed, he reflected that here was as civilized a company as Boston itself could offer. And why not? Most of these families came originally from New England, and had kept in their exile the old ideals of culture and caste.
“It might interest Beacon Street to know,” Mrs. Maynard said, “that long before the days of ’forty-nine the people of California were sending their children over here to be educated in the missionary schools. And importing their wheat from here, too.”
“Go on, tell him the other one, Aunt Sally,” laughed a pretty girl in blue. “That about the first printing press in San Francisco being brought over from Honolulu.”
Madame Maynard shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, what’s the use? We’re so far away, New England will never get us straight.”
John Quincy looked up to see Carlota Egan in the doorway. A moment later Lieutenant Booth, of Richmond, appeared at her side. It occurred to the young man from Boston that the fleet was rather overdoing its stop at Honolulu.
Mrs. Maynard rose to greet the girl. “Come in, my dear. You know most of these people.” She turned to the others. “This is Miss Egan, a neighbor of mine on the beach.”
It was amusing to note that most of these people knew Carlota too. John Quincy smiled—the British Admiralty and the soap business. It must have been rather an ordeal for the girl, but she saw it through with a sweet graciousness that led John Quincy to reflect that she would be at home in England—if she went there.
Carlota sat down on a sofa, and while Lieutenant Booth was busily arranging a cushion at her back, John Quincy dropped down beside her. The sofa was, fortunately, too small for three.
“I rather expected to see you,” he said in a low voice. “I was brought here to meet the best people of Honolulu, and the way I see it, you’re the best of all.”
She smiled at him, and again the chatter of small talk filled the room. Presently the voice of a tall young man with glasses rose above the general hubbub.
“They got a cable from Joe Clark out at the Country Club this afternoon,” he announced.
The din ceased, and everyone listened with interest. “Clark’s our professional,” explained the young man to John Quincy. “He went over a month ago to play in the British Open.”
“Did he win?” asked the girl in blue.
“He was put out by Hagen in the semifinals,” the young man said. “But he had the distinction of driving the longest ball ever seen on the St. Andrews course.”
“Why shouldn’t he?” asked an older man. “He’s got the strongest wrists I ever saw on anybody?”
John Quincy sat up, suddenly interested. “How do you account for that?” he asked.
The older man smiled. “We’ve all got pretty big wrists out here,” he answered. “Surfboarding—that’s what does it. Joe Clark was a champion at one time—body-surfing and board-surfing too. He used to disappear for hours in the rollers out by the reef. The result was a marvelous wrist development. I’ve seen him drive a golf ball three hundred and eighty yards. Yes, sir, I’ll bet he made those Englishmen sit up and take notice.”
While John Quincy was thinking this over, someone suggested that it was time for the swim, and confusion reigned. A Chinese servant led the way to the dressing-rooms, which opened off the lanai, and the young people trouped joyously after him.
“I’ll be waiting for you on the beach,” John Quincy said to Carlota Egan.
“I came with Johnnie, you know,” she reminded him.
“I know all about it,” he answered. “But it was the weekend you promised to the navy. People who try to stretch their weekend through the following Wednesday night deserve all they get.”
She laughed. “I’ll look for you,” she agreed.
He donned his bathing suit hastily in a room filled with flying clothes and great waving brown arms. Lieutenant Booth, he noted with satisfaction, was proceeding at a leisurely pace. Hurrying through a door that opened directly on the beach, he waited under a nearby hau tree. Presently Carlota came, slender and fragile-looking in the moonlight.
“Ah, here you are,” John Quincy cried. “The farthest float.”
“The farthest float it is,” she answered.
They dashed into the warm silvery water and swam gaily off. Five minutes later they sat on the float together. The light on Diamond Head was winking; the lanterns of sampans twinkled out beyond the reef; the shore line of Honolulu was outlined by a procession of blinking stars controlled by dynamos. In the bright heavens hung a lunar rainbow, one colorful end in the Pacific and the other tumbling into the foliage ashore.
A gorgeous setting in which to be young and in love, and free to speak at last. John Quincy moved closer to the girl’s side.
“Great night, isn’t it?” he said.
“Wonderful,” she answered softly.
“Cary, I want to tell you something, and that’s why I brought you out here away from the others—”
“Somehow,” she interrupted, “it doesn’t seem quite fair to Johnnie.”
“Never mind him. Has it ever occurred to you that my name’s Johnnie, too.”
She laughed. “Oh, but it couldn’t be.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I simply couldn’t call you that. You’re too dignified and—and remote. John Quincy—I believe I could call you John Quincy—”
“Well, make up your mind. You’ll have to call me something, because I’m going to be hanging round pretty constantly in the future. Yes, my dear, I’ll probably turn out to be about the least remote person in the world. That is, if I can make you see the future the way I see it. Cary dearest—”
A gurgle sounded behind them, and they turned around. Lieutenant Booth was climbing on to the raft. “Swam the last fifty yards under water to surprise you,” he sputtered.
“Well, you succeeded,” said John Quincy without enthusiasm.
The lieutenant sat down with the manner of one
