Again his English deserted, and left
him stammering. But Miss Forrester chatted steadily, appeared to
understand murmurs which he himself found obscure, and so restored his
confidence that before tiffin was over he talked no less gayly, his
honest face alight and glowing. She taught him the names of the strange
fruits before them; but though listening and questioning eagerly, he
could not afterward have told loquat from pumelo, or custard-apple
from papaya.
Nor could this young man, of methodical habits, ever have told how long
their voyage lasted. It passed, unreal and timeless, in a glorious mist,
a delighted fever: the background a blur of glossy white bulkheads and
iron rails, awnings that fluttered in the warm, languorous winds, an
infinite tropic ocean poignantly blue; the foreground, Miss Forrester.
Her white figure, trim and dashing; her round blue eyes, filled with coy
wonder, the arch innocence of a spoiled child; her pale, smooth cheeks,
rather plump, but coming oddly and enticingly to a point at the mouth
and tilted chin; her lips, somewhat too full, too red, but quick and
whimsical: he saw these all, and these only, in a bright focus,
listening meanwhile to a voice by turns languid and lively, with now and
then a curious liquid softness, perhaps insincere, yet dangerously
pleasant.
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