I asked Miss Foster if I looked all right, and was suitably dressed, and she said grudgingly:
"Yes, you'll do. You're quite pretty. You'd better look out."
Asked to explain, she merely shrugged her shoulders and said:
"There's only a handful of white women here, you know. We don't count the tourists. You'll have all you can do to hold the men here at arm's-length."
This last prospect by no means bothered me. I had the most decided and instinctive liking for the opposite sex.
The hotel was beautiful, built somewhat in the Spanish style, with a great inner court, and an arcade that ran under the building. Long verandas ran out like piers on each side of the court, which was part of the wonderful garden that extended to the shores of the Caribbean.
The first thing I saw as we came out from our room upon one of the long-pier verandas was an enormous bird. It was sitting on the branch of a fantastic and incredibly tall tree that was all trunk, and then burst into great fan-like foliage at the top. Subsequently I learned that this was a cocoanut tree.
The proprietor of the hotel, who was dark, smiling, and deferential, came up to be introduced to me, and I said, meaning to pay a compliment to his country:
"You have fine-looking birds here."
He looked at me sharply and then snickered, as if he thought I were joking about something.