“But how do you obtain ice?” said the Commissioner.
“We have a small machine which freezes one hundred pounds daily,” replied Charlotte, “just enough for each cottage and the mess kitchen.”
“I remember when Collingwood proposed having that machine made by special order, how I pooh-poohed the idea,” remarked Kingsnorth. “I was not sufficiently Americanized to feel the need of it. But I am as bad as the rest of them now. Frozen desserts are the only ones fit for the tropics; and I’ve even learned to drink iced-tea.”
A general chorus of assent went up. “You certainly make yourselves comfortable,” the Commissioner declared, “and, really, failing a fresh beef supply, you seem to have all that we get in Manila, in addition to a more charming situation. I suppose your only real difficulty is the matter of medical aid.”
“That is our only real fear,” Collingwood replied. “We keep a supply of coal on hand for emergencies, and we never let it get below a certain point. We keep a reserve sufficient to take the launch over to Cuyo or to Romblon. But if there came a sudden need in bad weather, we should be in the deuce of a fix. It is the only thought that ever keeps me awake at night.”
The Commissioner nodded and murmured something appreciative of a possible crisis. Certainly this very entertaining lady who sat beside him—a lady who had seen something of the world if he was any judge of personality—must feel herself strangely situated in that out of the way spot, chancing the dangers of tidal waves, of storms, and of illness without medical assistance. He fancied the situation was explicable. The compromises which women make for matrimony had offered him food for reflection long before he ever saw Mrs. Collingwood; but what he could not understand was why she should have been among those who have to make compromises. A woman of her grace and finish ought to have a pretty wide field of selection, he thought; but then one can never tell how circumstances force persons into unfortunate positions. The Englishman was a dose; not that he had altogether lost his breeding, but that the atmosphere of degeneration hung so palpably about him. “How he must hate himself,” thought the Commissioner, “to make us all so conscious of his fall!” He removed his eyes from Kingsnorth’s face after arriving at this conclusion, just in time to meet the clear gaze of his hostess, and to know, by her sudden blush and momentary shrinking, that she had read him like an open book, and to realize that she was self-conscious of her own situation.
She was enough mistress of herself, however, to hold the conversation at its level. She asked with intelligent interest about those political events in the islands, concerning which it is tactful to question Commissioners. She drew the statesman out on the subject of his own hopes and plans for the islands. He in turn asked information from the fishers, and they, warming to the theme as men will when they talk of things in which they are experienced, gave him their practical, hard-headed views of men and conditions, spoke of native labor and its capacities and incapacities, of resources and possibilities, and of the disadvantages of political unrest to a people more primitive than any that ever before held the reins of government.
Even an illiterate man is interesting when he talks of his craft, and Martin Collingwood, however little natural development he had in social subtilties, was anything but illiterate or even ill informed. To his wife he seemed to gather new dignity as he took a leader’s natural position. It was plain that his business associates deferred to him; and in ten minutes it was plain that the Commissioner knew he was dealing with a man who would, in the financial world at least, make himself felt. Commissioners never ignore financiers. There came into the Commissioner’s manner as the dinner progressed, something more deferential than the mere civility of a guest to a host, something which implied his acceptance of Mr. Collingwood as a man to be considered.
It was, on the whole, a most successful dinner. The newcomers had brought with them a current of the outer atmosphere, breathing interest and exhilaration into the little colony of self-exiles; and the exiles shared themselves so wholly with the outsiders that the outsiders grew to feel much at home. When, at eleven o’clock, they all walked down to the beach with the Commissioner and the Captain, regrets and good-byes were as hearty as they would have been if the acquaintance had been of long duration.
As he was pulled out to the steamer, the Commissioner remembered that, on the way down, Barton had given him a hint of an odd situation, to which he had paid but a cursory attention. Well it was for the old gossip that he was safe ashore under the tent. “But I’ll have it out of him going back,” reflected the Commissioner. “Fine woman! Fine manly fellow, her husband; sort of man we need out here! He isn’t her equal socially, but I suppose women forget social differences just as we do when they come under the attraction of good looks and manly traits. Besides, if he makes money, she can float him with no difficulty. A remarkably fine woman.”