Just over Billy’s shoulder, Pete appeared, a Pete as thin and nervous as ever, the incipient black beard still prickling in tiny ink-spots through a skin stained a deep mahogany. There was some subtle change in Pete that was not of the flesh but of the spirit. Perhaps the look in his face—doubly wild of a Celt and of a genius—had tamed a little. But in its place had come a question: undoubtedly he had gained in spiritual dignity and in humorous quality.
Ralph Addington followed Pete. And Ralph also had changed. True, he retained his inalienable air of elegance, an elegance a little too sartorial. And even after six years of the jungle, he maintained his picturesqueness. Long-haired, liquid-eyed, still with a beard symmetrically pointed and a mustache carefully cropped, he was more than ever like a young girl’s idea of an artist. And yet something different had come into his face, The slight touch of gray in his wavy hair did not account for it; nor the lines, netting delicately his long-lashed eyes. The eyes themselves bore a baffled expression, half of revolt, half of resignation; as one who has at last found the immovable obstacle, who accepts the situation even while he rebels against it.
At the end of the line came Merrill, a doubly transformed man, looking at the same time younger and handsomer. Bigger and even more muscular than formerly, his eyes were wide open and sparkling, his mouth had lost its rigidity of contour. His look of severity, of asceticism had vanished. Nothing but his classic regularity remained and that had been beautifully colored by the weather.
The five couples wound through the trail which led from the Playground to the Camp, the men half-carrying their wives with one arm about their waists and the other supporting them.
The Camp had changed. The original cabins had spread by an addition of one or two or three to sprawling bungalow size. Not an atom of their wooden structure showed. Blocks of green, cubes of color, only open doorways and windows betrayed that they were dwelling-places. A tide of tropical jungle beat in waves of green with crests of rainbow up to the very walls. There it was met by a backwash of the vines which embowered the cabins, by a stream of blossoms which flooded and cascaded down their sides.
The married ones stopped at the Camp. But Billy and Julia continued up the beach.
“How did the work go to-day, Honey?” Lulu asked in a perfunctory tone as they moved away from the Playground.
“Fine!” Honey answered enthusiastically.
“You wait until you see Recreation Hall.” He stopped to light his pipe. “Lord, how I wish I had some real tobacco! It’s going to be a corker. We’ve decided to enlarge the plan by another three feet.”
“Have you really?” commented Lulu. “Dear me, you’ve torn your shirt again.”