By Reef and Palm | Page 4

be rapid and
direct. A novelist of that modern school that fills its volumes, often
fascinatingly enough, by refining upon the shadowy refinements of
civilised thought and feeling, would find it hard to ply his trade in
South Sea Island society. His models would always be cutting short in
five minutes the hesitations and subtleties that ought to have lasted
them through a quarter of a life-time. But I think it is possible that the
English reader might gather from this little book an unduly strong
impression of the uniformity of Island life. The loves of white men and
brown women, often cynical and brutal, sometimes exquisitely tender
and pathetic, necessarily fill a large space in any true picture of the
South Sea Islands, and Mr Becke, no doubt of set artistic purpose, has
confined himself in the collection of tales now offered almost entirely
to this facet of the life. I do not question that he is right in deciding to
detract nothing from the striking effect of these powerful stories, taken

as a whole, by interspersing amongst them others of a different
character. But I hope it may be remembered that the present selection is
only an instalment, and that, if it finds favour with the British public,
we may expect from him some of those tales of adventure, and of
purely native life and custom, which no one could tell so well as he.
PEMBROKE.

CHALLIS THE DOUBTER

The White Lady And The Brown Woman
Four years had come and gone since the day that Challis, with a dull
and savage misery in his heart, had, cursing the love-madness which
once possessed him, walked out from his house in an Australian city
with an undefined and vague purpose of going "somewhere" to drown
his sense of wrong and erase from his memory the face of the woman
who, his wife of not yet a year, had played with her honour and his. So
he thought, anyhow.
* * * * *
You see, Challis was "a fool"--at least so his pretty, violet-eyed wife
had told him that afternoon with a bitter and contemptuous ring in her
voice when he had brought another man's letter--written to her--and
with impulsive and jealous haste had asked her to explain. He was a
fool, she had said, with an angry gleam in the violet eyes, to think she
could not "take care" of herself. Admit receiving that letter? Of course!
Did he think she could help other men writing silly letters to her? Did
he not think she could keep out of a mess? And she smiled the
self-satisfied smile of a woman conscious of many admirers and of her
own powers of intrigue.
Then Challis, with a big effort, gulping down the rage that stirred him,
made his great mistake. He spoke of his love for her. Fatuity! She

laughed at him, said that as she detested women, his love was too
exacting for her, if it meant that she should never be commonly
friendly with any other man.
* * * * *
Challis looked at her steadily for a few moments, trying to smother the
wild flood of black suspicion aroused in him by the discovery of the
letter, and confirmed by her sneering words, and then said quietly, but
with a dangerous inflection in his voice--
"Remember--you are my wife. If you have no regard for your own
reputation, you shall have some for mine. I don't want to entertain my
friends by thrashing R----, but I'm not such a fool as you think. And if
you go further in this direction you'll find me a bit of a brute."
Again the sneering laugh--"Indeed! Something very tragic will occur, I
suppose?"
"No," said Challis grimly, "something damned prosaic--common
enough among men with pretty wives--I'll clear out."
"I wish you would do that now," said his wife, "I hate you quite
enough."
Of course she didn't quite mean it. She really liked Challis in her own
small-souled way--principally because his money had given her the
social pleasures denied her during her girlhood. With an unmoved face
and without farewell he left her and went to his lawyer's.
A quarter of an hour later he arose to go, and the lawyer asked him
when he intended returning.
"That all depends upon her. If she wants me back again, she can write,
through you, and I'll come--if she has conducted herself with a
reasonable amount of propriety for such a pretty woman."
Then, with an ugly look on his face, Challis went out; next day he

embarked in the LADY ALICIA for a six months' cruise among the
islands of the North-west Pacific.
* * * * *
That was four years ago, and to-day Challis, who stands working at a