Pele at first kept Paoa at a distance and, with deep subtlety, said to him, "Here are beautiful women--women more beautiful than I--take one of them."
Paoa, well schooled in courtly etiquette and logomachy, was not tripped up by any such snare as Pele laid for him. He stood his ground and faced the god as an equal.
As Pele contemplated Paoa it dawned upon her that here stood a man, a being of gracious power, one who combined in himself qualities--attractions--she had never before seen materially embodied in the human form. The woman in Pele laid aside the god--the akua--and came to the front. All thought of bantering talk and word-play slunk away: her whole being was sobered and lifted up. The change in her outward, physical appearance kept pace with the inward: the rough armor that had beset her like the prongs of horned coral, both without and within, melted and dropped away; the haglike wrinkles ceased to furrow her profile. Her whole physical being took on the type of womanly perfection.
And what of Paoa, the man who had come with heart full of bitterness, determined on revenge? He was conquered, overwhelmed.
Their meeting was that of lovers, who stood abashed in each other's presence. Pele's beauty and charm were like that of a young bride coming to the nuptial couch....
The dalliance and love-making of Pele and Paoa was a honeymoon that continued for three days and three nights. By virtue of this mysterious union with the goddess, Paoa acquitted himself of a ceremonial duty, as it were, and thus gained Pele's dispensation from further obligations to her bed and the liberty of exercising free choice among all the beautiful women that thronged Pele's court. It was there he made his abode until the time for his return to his own Kaua'i.
Hiiaka's sense of outrage touched every fiber of her being and stirred such indignation against her sister that she could not again take her former place as a member of Pele's court. Hawaii was the largest island of the group, but it was not large enough to hold herself and Pele. Of all the islands Kaua'i was the one most remote from the scene of her troubles; it was also the land which Lohiau had claimed as his own--and his was a name that called up only the most tender emotions. To Kaua'i would she go.