Verplank, with a gesture that was familiar to him, closed and opened a hand.
“I do not know. But while I think you cannot love me more wholly than I love you, I do know that to me you are the unique.”
Leilah moved to where he stood.
“Gulian, and you to me. You are the only one.” She moved closer. Raising her hands, she put them on his shoulders. “Tell me, shall you be long away?”
“An hour or two. Apropos, would you care to leave before dinner?”
“Yes.”
“We will dine on board, then. Is there anything in particular you would like?”
“Yes, lilies, plenty of lilies; and pineapples; and the sound of your voice.”
Lifting her hands from his shoulders to his face, she drew it to her own. Their lips met longly. With the savour of her about him, Verplank passed out.
Idly Leilah turned. Before her the sea lay, a desert of blue. Below, on the beach, it broke with a boom in high white waves which, in retreating, became faintly mauve. The spectacle charmed her. But other scenes effaced it; sudden pictures of the Marquesas; the long flight southward; the brief, bright days; the nights that would be briefer still. Pleasurably for a while these things detained her. Idly again she turned.