From where she sat in the veranda she could see no single object to break the deadly sameness of it. There were the same sticks of unsuitable furniture in the same immutable order, the same rugs at the same angles; the same dishes, the same books, the same pictures on the walls--"The Prodigal's Return," chromolithograph, in a South Pacific isle! And all this not merely happening so, as it might very well happen elsewhere. Here it was laboriously achieved, a triumph of formulated rectitude, transplanted bodily for a reproof and an example to the heart of the riotous tropics....
"Why did you say there was need to explain to me, father?" she managed to ask at last.
But the pastor had had time to reform his lines.
"I spoke somewhat at large," he said, with a wave. "My specific purpose was to define an attitude which perhaps you may have mistaken--to warn you against undue intolerance, my dear. You see, as a matter of fact, I had a talk to-day on this same head--quite a helpful talk--with Captain Gregson."
For all her preoccupation with her own problems the name caught her with new astonishment.
"Captain," he repeated, significantly. "Captain Gregson."
"You talked with him?" she exclaimed. "But he--but you--I've heard you say--"
Thereupon Pastor Spener took the upper hand decisively, like one who has come off well in an anxious skirmish over difficult ground.
"Never mind what you have heard, my dear. Many things have been said of him--idle chatter of the beaches. He has been sadly misjudged. Captain Gregson is a very remarkable man, besides being the wealthiest in the islands--undeniably, quite the wealthiest.... He intends joining our church."
Miss Matilda rose from the table and moved away to the open side of the veranda, looking off to seaward. Tall, erect, with her hands resting on the high rail, she made a decorous and restful figure against the sunset sky. But those hands, so casual seeming, were driving their nails into the wood. For within the maiden breast of Miss Matilda, behind that obtrusive composure, there seethed a tumult of question, alarm, bewilderment....
This startling dissertation of her father's--she could not begin to think what it meant. Was it possible, in spite of all assurance, was it possible that he knew, had heard or guessed--about Motauri? And if he had, was it conceivable that he should speak so--to state, as it might be, the very terms of her guilt, an actual plea for that unnameable temptation to which she had been drifting? It was mad. She could no longer be sure of anything, of her safety, her purpose, her father, herself--truly, of herself. And Gregson! An evil presentiment had pierced her at his mention of the gross, dark, enigmatic trader, whose intent regard she had felt fixed upon her so often--whenever she met him on the village path or passed his broad-eaved house by the beach. What did it mean?