Angel Island

Another of their mute intervals fell upon them. Dozens of waves flashed

and crashed their way up the beach; but now they trailed an iridescent

network of foam over the lilac-gray sand. The sun raced high; but now it

poured a flood of light on the green-gray water. The air grew bright and

brighter. The earth grew warm and warmer. Blue came into the sky,

deepened - and the sea reflected it, Suddenly the world was one huge

glittering bubble, half of which was the brilliant azure sky and half

the burnished azure sea. None of the five men looked at the sea and sky

now. The other four were considering Frank Merrill's words and he was

considering the other four.

"Lord, God!" Ralph Addington exclaimed suddenly. "Think of being in a

place like this six months or a year without a woman round! Why, we'll

be savages at the end of three months." He snarled his words. It was as

if a new aspect of the situation - an aspect more crucially alarming

than any other - had just struck him.

"Yes," said Frank Merrill. And for a moment, so much had he recovered

himself, he reverted to his academic type. "Aside from the regret and

horror and shame that I feel to have survived when every woman drowned,

I confess to that feeling too. Women keep up the standards of life. It

would have made a great difference with us if there were only one or two

women here."

"If there'd been five, you mean," Ralph Addington amended. A feeble,

white-toothed smile gleamed out of his dark beard. He, too, had pulled

himself together; this smile was not muscular contraction. "One or two,

and the fat would be in the fire."

Nobody added anything to this. But now the other three considered Ralph

Addington's words with the same effort towards concentration that they

had brought to Frank Merrill's. Somehow his smile - that flashing smile

which showed so many teeth against a background of dark beard - pointed

his words uncomfortably.

Of them all, Ralph Addington was perhaps, the least popular. This was

strange; for he was a thorough sport, a man of a wide experience. He was

salesman for a business concern that manufactured a white shoe-polish,

and he made the rounds of the Oriental countries every year. He was a

careful and intelligent observer both of men and things. He was widely

if not deeply read. He was an interesting talker. He could, for or

instance, meet each of the other four on some point of mental contact. A

superficial knowledge of sociology and a practical experience with many

races brought him and Frank Merrill into frequent discussion. His

interest in all athletic sports and his firsthand information in regard

to them made common ground between him and Billy Fairfax. With Honey

Smith, he talked business, adventure, and romance; with Pete Murphy,

German opera, French literature, American muckraking, and Japanese art.

The flaw which made him alien was not of personality but of character.