"I assure you, I can be just as solemn in a pareo and a wreath of roses, as in a high hat and a cut-away coat."
Then another thought struck Bateman.
"Edward, it's not for my sake you're doing this? I don't know, but perhaps this is going to make a tremendous difference to my future. You're not sacrificing yourself for me? I couldn't stand for that, you know."
"No, Bateman, I have learnt not to be silly and sentimental here. I should like you and Isabel to be happy, but I have not the least wish to be unhappy myself."
The answer somewhat chilled Bateman. It seemed to him a little cynical. He would not have been sorry to act a noble part.
"Do you mean to say you're content to waste your life here? It's nothing less than suicide. When I think of the great hopes you had when we left college it seems terrible that you should be content to be no more than a salesman in a cheap-John store."
"Oh, I'm only doing that for the present, and I'm gaining a great deal of valuable experience. I have another plan in my head. Arnold Jackson has a small island in the Paumotas, about a thousand miles from here, a ring of land round a lagoon. He's planted coconut there. He's offered to give it me."
"Why should he do that?" asked Bateman.
"Because if Isabel releases me I shall marry his daughter."
"You?" Bateman was thunderstruck. "You can't marry a half-caste. You wouldn't be so crazy as that."