“He quoted the Tongan with compassion for me,” said T’yonni.  “And now about a place where you can live.  Choti, a painter, whose pictures you see around here, lives with the school-teacher up the road, and he might find you a place.  He’s an American, as I am, and I suppose you, too.”

I raised my glass to our native land, and finding that the boy of Taravao had eaten his fill of fei and fish, I said ariana to T’yonni, and drove to Choti’s.  The painter was on the veranda of a cottage, finishing the late breakfast.  He received me with enthusiasm.  Tall, very spare, and his skin pale despite his wearing only a pareu and never a hat, Choti’s black eyes shone under long, black hair, and over a Montmartre whisker that covered his boyish face from his chiseled nose.

“Hello!” he said.  “Come and have dejeuner?”

The manner of both T’yonni and Choti, while hospitable, and their glances at my bags, showed a probable wonderment of my intentions.

Was I an average tourist or loafer come to put an unknown quantity in their smoothly working problem of a pleasant life in this Eden?  The artist must have looked me over for indications of familiarity with brush and palette.

I replied to Choti that I had breakfasted with T’yonni, and he smiled at my knowledge of his friend’s Tautira name.

“How about getting an apartment or a suite of rooms?” I inquired.

Choti sucked the last particle of poi from his forefinger, dipped it into a shell of water, shook hands, and against my pleadings, accompanied me to the house of Ori-a-Ori, the chief of the district.  The chief, an excessively tall man, quite six and a half feet and big all over, but not fat, like many natives, was very dark and slightly grizzled.  He had a singular solemnity of address, a benignity and detachment which were the externals of a thoughtful, simple, generous nature, no longer interested deeply in trifles.  His house was toward the farther end of the main street, and set upon a spacious lawn a hundred feet from the street, which, by the same token, was also a lawn, for there was no sign of the unadorned earth.  So little wheeled traffic was there that bare feet walked on a matting of grass and plants as soft as seaweed on the beach.  The street was bordered with cocoanuts and pandanus, and the chief’s dwelling had about it breadfruit, papayas, and cocoanuts.  The grounds were divided from neighbors’ parks by hedges of tiare Tahiti, gardenias, roses, and red and white oleanders.  I drew in their perfume as Ori-a-Ori said, “Ia ora na!” and took and held my hand a moment, while his grave eyes studied my face in all kindliness.