So the boat went back for the tent, the cots, and the luggage of the prospective guests, while the visitors sat on Charlotte’s veranda, enjoying the evening breeze and the sunset, as they drank tea and consumed delicious little triangles of buttered toast, and slices of sweet cake. The Commissioner wanted to know all about the island: who owned it? what crops did it produce? was there an intelligent teniente? “He obeys the orders that we give him,” replied Martin dryly, and the Commissioner smiled: Was there easy communication with the mainland? What did Mr. Collingwood think of coprax in the Visayas? Then, in an aside, to Charlotte, What a pity that he had not brought Mrs. Commissioner! she would have enjoyed this. Such a charming situation and such a delightful home! Mrs. Commissioner would never cease to regret having missed it. “We hope that you will have occasion to pass again, and will bring her with you,” Charlotte murmured politely, and the great man assured her that he should make a point of it. “She loves atmosphere,” he said. “We have more of that than anything else,” Kingsnorth interjected, and to the Commissioner’s hearty laugh, Martin added, “Specially when it is moving N.N.E. eighty miles an hour.”
Meanwhile Judge Barton was trying out his Grand Army manner with Mrs. Maclaughlin, and privately taking stock of place and people.
“Chickens!” he said regretfully in response to her remark that she guessed those chickens would live a day longer in view of that quarter of beef. “Have I contributed, by my own unselfishness, to my own undoing? The chickens of Manila are not chickens, they are merely delusions in the form of blood, bones, and feathers, bought, killed, and served, by a succession of inhuman Chinese cooks, for the sole purpose of tantalizing the American stomach. Do I understand that you feed your chickens, and that they are actually fat?”
“Fat as butter,” said Mrs. Maclaughlin proudly.
The Judge sighed with anticipation. “I’m glad I’m going to stay a week,” he declared. “I’m fond of chicken—when it is chicken. But tell me, are you never lonely here, Mrs. Maclaughlin?”
“I am. Charlotte ain’t.”
The Judge took note of the familiarity, but the laughing eye he turned upon Mrs. Collingwood did not betray that fact. “Yes, we are talking about you,” he said in response to the glance she gave, hearing her name used. “Mrs. Maclaughlin says that you are never lonely.”
“Of course I am not. I have too many occupations. I am busy from morning till night. There is no excuse for ennui.”
“I thirst to know what you do. I know a score of ladies who are suffering from nostalgia with far less excuse for loneliness than you have.”
“Well, there is the housekeeping, though our servants are quite satisfactory, and it isn’t onerous; and there is my mending and Martin’s, and my sewing, and I have an hour’s school each day for the children, and an hour’s medical inspection, which usually runs into two or three; and if you will look on our table, you will not find it wholly empty of books and magazines. Then when Martin comes home, there is tea and talk, and then dinner. Sometimes after dinner, I read aloud, or Martin and I play a game of chess. We go to bed early and get up early for we are working people.”