Angel Island

Chiquita floated down, closer than ever before.

She had undoubtedly just waked up. The dew of dreams still lay on her

luscious lips and in her great black eyes. Scarlet flowers,

flat-petaled, black-stamened, wreathed her dusky hair. Scarlet bands

outlined her dusky shoulders. Scarlet streamers trailed in her wake.

Never had she seemed more lazy and languid, more velvety and voluptuous,

more colorful and sumptuous.

Frank stared and stared. Then, following an inexplicable impulse, he

whistled as he had heard Honey whistle; and called as he had heard Honey

call, the plaintive, entreating note of the mating male bird.

The same look which had come into Lulu's face came into Chiquita's, a

look of wonder and alarm and -. She trembled, but she sank slowly, head

foremost like a diver.

Frank continued softly to call and whistle. After an interval, another

mysterious instinct impelled him to stop. Chiquita's lips moved; from

them came answering sound, faint, breathy, scarcely voiced but

exquisitely musical, exquisitely feminine, the call of the mating female

bird.

When she stopped, Frank took it up. He raised his hand to her gently. As

if that gave her confidence, she floated nearer, so close that he could

have touched her. But some new wisdom taught him not to do that. She

sank lower and lower until she was just above him. Frank did not move -

nor speak now. She fluttered and continued to sink. Now he could look

straight into her eyes. Frank had never really looked into a woman's

eyes before. The depth of Chiquita's was immeasurable. There were dreams

on the surface. But his gaze pierced through the dreams, through layer

on layer of purple black, to where stars lay. Some emotion that

constantly grew in her seemed to melt and fuse all these layers; but the

stars still held their shine.

Slowly still, but as though at the urge of a compelled abandon, Chiquita

sank lower and lower. Nearer she came and nearer. The pollen from the

flowers at her breast sifted on to his face. Now their eyes were level.

And now -.

She kissed him.

Billy, Ralph, and Pete sat on the sand bantering Honey, who had returned

in radiant spirits from his walk.

"Here comes old Frank," Billy said. "He's running. But he's staggering.

By George, I should think he was drunk."

Frank was drunk, but not with wine. When he came nearer, they saw that

his face was white.

"You're right boys," he said quietly, "and I'm wrong." For a moment, he

added nothing; but they knew what he meant. "A situation like this is

special; it requires special laws. It's the masculine right of eminent

domain. I give my consent - I - I - I - I agree to anything you want to

do."