Just over Billy's shoulder, Pete appeared, a Pete as thin and nervous as
ever, the incipient black beard still prickling in tiny ink-spots
through a skin stained a deep mahogany. There was some subtle change in
Pete that was not of the flesh but of the spirit. Perhaps the look in
his face - doubly wild of a Celt and of a genius - had tamed a little.
But in its place had come a question: undoubtedly he had gained in
spiritual dignity and in humorous quality.
Ralph Addington followed Pete. And Ralph also had changed. True, he
retained his inalienable air of elegance, an elegance a little too
sartorial. And even after six years of the jungle, he maintained his
picturesqueness. Long-haired, liquid-eyed, still with a beard
symmetrically pointed and a mustache carefully cropped, he was more than
ever like a young girl's idea of an artist. And yet something different
had come into his face, The slight touch of gray in his wavy hair did
not account for it; nor the lines, netting delicately his long-lashed
eyes. The eyes themselves bore a baffled expression, half of revolt,
half of resignation; as one who has at last found the immovable
obstacle, who accepts the situation even while he rebels against it.
At the end of the line came Merrill, a doubly transformed man, looking
at the same time younger and handsomer. Bigger and even more muscular
than formerly, his eyes were wide open and sparkling, his mouth had lost
its rigidity of contour. His look of severity, of asceticism had
vanished. Nothing but his classic regularity remained and that had been
beautifully colored by the weather.
The five couples wound through the trail which led from the Playground
to the Camp, the men half-carrying their wives with one arm about their
waists and the other supporting them.
The Camp had changed. The original cabins had spread by an addition of
one or two or three to sprawling bungalow size. Not an atom of their
wooden structure showed. Blocks of green, cubes of color, only open
doorways and windows betrayed that they were dwelling-places. A tide of
tropical jungle beat in waves of green with crests of rainbow up to the
very walls. There it was met by a backwash of the vines which embowered
the cabins, by a stream of blossoms which flooded and cascaded down
their sides.
The married ones stopped at the Camp. But Billy and Julia continued up
the beach.
"How did the work go to-day, Honey?" Lulu asked in a perfunctory tone as
they moved away from the Playground.
"Fine!" Honey answered enthusiastically.