The House of Pride | Page 6

to linger, now
that the crucial point was past.
"Thank you, John. Good night," was the response.
"Yes, sir, thank you, sir. I think it's going to rain. Good night, sir."
Out of the clear sky, filled only with stars and moonlight, fell a rain so
fine and attenuated as to resemble a vapour spray. Nobody minded it;
the children played on, running bare-legged over the grass and leaping
into the sand; and in a few minutes it was gone. In the south-east,

Diamond Head, a black blot, sharply defined, silhouetted its
crater-form against the stars. At sleepy intervals the surf flung its foam
across the sands to the grass, and far out could be seen the black specks
of swimmers under the moon. The voices of the singers, singing a waltz,
died away; and in the silence, from somewhere under the trees, arose
the laugh of a woman that was a love-cry. It startled Percival Ford, and
it reminded him of Dr. Kennedy's phrase. Down by the outrigger
canoes, where they lay hauled out on the sand, he saw men and women,
Kanakas, reclining languorously, like lotus-eaters, the women in white
holokus; and against one such holoku he saw the dark head of the
steersman of the canoe resting upon the woman's shoulder. Farther
down, where the strip of sand widened at the entrance to the lagoon, he
saw a man and woman walking side by side. As they drew near the
light lanai, he saw the woman's hand go down to her waist and
disengage a girdling arm. And as they passed him, Percival Ford
nodded to a captain he knew, and to a major's daughter. Smoke of life,
that was it, an ample phrase. And again, from under the dark algaroba
tree arose the laugh of a woman that was a love-cry; and past his chair,
on the way to bed, a bare-legged youngster was led by a chiding
Japanese nurse-maid. The voices of the singers broke softly and
meltingly into an Hawaiian love-song, and officers and women, with
encircling arms, were gliding and whirling on the lanai; and once again
the woman laughed under the algaroba trees.
And Percival Ford knew only disapproval of it all. He was irritated by
the love-laugh of the woman, by the steersman with pillowed head on
the white holoku, by the couples that walked on the beach, by the
officers and women that danced, and by the voices of the singers
singing of love, and his brother singing there with them under the hau
tree. The woman that laughed especially irritated him. A curious train
of thought was aroused. He was Isaac Ford's son, and what had
happened with Isaac Ford might happen with him. He felt in his cheeks
the faint heat of a blush at the thought, and experienced a poignant
sense of shame. He was appalled by what was in his blood. It was like
learning suddenly that his father had been a leper and that his own
blood might bear the taint of that dread disease. Isaac Ford, the austere
soldier of the Lord--the old hypocrite! What difference between him

and any beach-comber? The house of pride that Percival Ford had
builded was tumbling about his ears.
The hours passed, the army people laughed and danced, the native
orchestra played on, and Percival Ford wrestled with the abrupt and
overwhelming problem that had been thrust upon him. He prayed
quietly, his elbow on the table, his head bowed upon his hand, with all
the appearance of any tired onlooker. Between the dances the army
men and women and the civilians fluttered up to him and buzzed
conventionally, and when they went back to the lanai he took up his
wrestling where he had left it off.
He began to patch together his shattered ideal of Isaac Ford, and for
cement he used a cunning and subtle logic. It was of the sort that is
compounded in the brain laboratories of egotists, and it worked. It was
incontrovertible that his father had been made of finer clay than those
about him; but still, old Isaac had been only in the process of becoming,
while he, Percival Ford, had become. As proof of it, he rehabilitated his
father and at the same time exalted himself. His lean little ego waxed to
colossal proportions. He was great enough to forgive. He glowed at the
thought of it. Isaac Ford had been great, but he was greater, for he
could forgive Isaac Ford and even restore him to the holy place in his
memory, though the place was not quite so holy as it had been. Also, he
applauded Isaac Ford for having ignored the outcome of his one step
aside. Very well, he, too, would ignore it.
The dance was breaking