Angel Island

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.