"You don't feel I'm neglecting you in my too-much poker?" he tried
again, by indirection.
"Mercy, no! You know I just love you to have your card orgies.
They're tonic for you. And you're so much nicer about them, so
much more middle-aged. Why, it's almost years since you sat up
later than one."
It did not shower up Nuuanu, and every overhead star was out in a
clear trade-wind sky. In time at the Inchkeeps' for the second
dance, Lee Barton observed that his wife danced it with Grandison--
which, of itself, was nothing unusual, but which became immediately
a registered item in Barton's mental books.
An hour later, depressed and restless, declining to make one of a
bridge foursome in the library and escaping from a few young
matrons, he strolled out into the generous grounds. Across the
lawn, at the far edge, he came upon the hedge of night-blooming
cereus. To each flower, opening after dark and fading, wilting,
perishing with the dawn, this was its one night of life. The
great, cream-white blooms, a foot in diameter and more, lily-like
and wax-like, white beacons of attraction in the dark, penetrating
and seducing the night with their perfume, were busy and beautiful
with their brief glory of living.
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