“Where next, sir?” asked the chauffeur, surprised at his quick return.

“Anywhere out of this damned wind!” said Percival between his teeth.

“Your friend might be at Waikiki Beach,” suggested the chauffeur, amiably.

“He’s not my friend.  He’s a purser, I tell you.  Wants to put—­”

But his words were lost in the whir of the engine.  All the way back to Honolulu and through the town Percival was seeing this strange, tropical land through the blue eyes of a certain little untraveled Western savage.  What a revelation it must be to one used to the barren alkali deserts of Wyoming, where, nothing grew but sage-bush and cacti!  It wouldn’t be half bad, he thought, to hear what she had to say about it all.  But where was one to look for her?

“We might try the pool-rooms,” suggested the chauffeur.

Percival looked at him blankly, then he remembered.

“Take me to a hat shop,” he said peremptorily.

When they arrived at Waikiki Beach he got out of the motor with more alacrity than was habitual to him, and entered the cocoanut-grove.  By Jove! he thought, it was not a bad sight to see the palms dangling over the beach like that, with the jolly breakers rolling in, and the bay full of changing colors.  Coral reefs!  That’s what caused the color; he had read it in a book somewhere.  Air was good, too, fruity and salty and not too hot.  For the moment he forgot his cares; he even forgot that his new hat was one of those peculiar shapes which Englishmen often pore over in the advertising pages of American magazines for the sole purpose of enjoying a sense of superb and vast superiority.

As he scanned the beach his eye was caught by three ladies and three natives standing about a surf-boat in animated discussion.  The youngest of the ladies, who wore a bathing-suit of conspicuous hue and did most of the talking, suddenly detached herself from the others and came flying across the sand toward him.

“Mr. Hascombe!” she demanded breathlessly, “you’ll take me out in the surf-boat, won’t you?  The boys haven’t come, and Mrs. Weston is afraid for me to go alone.”

[Illustration:  “Mr. Hascombe!” she demanded breathlessly, “you’ll take me out in the surf boat, won’t you?”]

“But my dear young lady, it’s quite impossible.  I’m looking for the purser.  They say he’s going to put—­”

“Bother the purser!  We haven’t a minute to lose.  The steamer sails at five.”

“But really, I can’t.  And I quite agree with Mrs. Weston that it would be most awfully improper for you to go alone.”

“Well, if you don’t take me, I will go alone!” she said defiantly; then she suddenly changed her tactics, and added with childish insistence:  “But you are going to take me now, aren’t you?  Please?”

He could scarcely believe his senses when, a few minutes later, he found himself frantically struggling into a rented bathing-suit in a steaming little bath-house that gave evidence of recent use.  But a glance into the mirror that hung on the door not only convinced him of his identity, but added the comforting assurance that he was not by any means looking his worst in his present garb.  He paused long enough to flex a presentable bicep with pardonable pride.