Never are there such departures as from the dock at Honolulu.  The great transport lay with steam up, ready to pull out.  A thousand persons were on her decks; five thousand stood on the wharf¹.  Up and down the long gangway passed native princes and princesses, sugar kings and the high officials of the Territory.  Beyond, in long lines, kept in order by the native police, were the carriages and motor-cars of the Honolulu aristocracy.  On the wharf the Royal Hawaiian Band played “Aloha Oe,” and when it finished, a stringed orchestra of native musicians on board the transport took up the same sobbing² strains, the native woman singer’s voice rising birdlike above the instruments and the hubbub³ of departure.  It was a silver reed, sounding its clear, unmistakable note in the great diapason of farewell.  
Forward, on the lower deck, the rail was lined six deep with khaki-clad young boys, whose bronzed faces told of three years’ campaigning under the sun.  But the farewell was not for them.  Nor was it for the white-clad captain on the lofty bridge, remote as the stars, gazing down upon the tumult⁴ beneath him.  Nor was the farewell for the young officers farther aft, returning from the Philippines, nor for the white-faced, climate-ravaged women by their sides.  Just aft the gangway, on the promenade⁵ deck, stood a score of United States Senators with their wives and daughters—the Senatorial junketing party that for a month had been dined and wined, surfeited⁶ with statistics and dragged up volcanic⁷ hill and down lava⁸ dale to behold⁹ the glories and resources of Hawaii.  It was for the junketing party that the transport had called in at Honolulu, and it was to the junketing party that Honolulu was saying good-bye.
 
The Senators were garlanded and bedecked with flowers.  Senator Jeremy Sambrooke’s stout¹⁰ neck and portly bosom¹¹ were burdened with a dozen wreaths.  Out of this mass of bloom and blossom projected his head and the greater portion of his freshly sunburned and perspiring¹² face.  He thought the flowers an abomination, and as he looked out over the multitude on the wharf it was with a statistical¹³ eye that saw none of the beauty, but that peered into the labour power, the factories, the railroads, and the plantations¹⁴ that lay back of the multitude and which the multitude expressed.  He saw resources and thought development, and he was too busy with dreams of material achievement and empire to notice his daughter at his side, talking with a young fellow in a natty¹⁶ summer suit and straw hat, whose eager eyes seemed only for her and never left her face.  Had Senator Jeremy had eyes for his daughter, he would have seen that, in place of the young girl of fifteen he had brought to Hawaii a short month before, he was now taking away with him a woman.
 
Hawaii has a ripening¹⁷ climate, and Dorothy Sambrooke had been exposed to it under exceptionally ripening circumstances.  Slender, pale, with blue eyes a trifle tired from poring over the pages of books and trying to muddle¹⁸ into an understanding of life—such she had been the month before.  But now the eyes were warm instead of tired, the cheeks were touched with the sun, and the body gave the first hint and promise of swelling¹⁹ lines.  During that month she had left books alone, for she had found greater joy in reading from the book of life.  She had ridden horses, climbed volcanoes, and learned surf swimming.  The tropics had entered into her blood, and she was aglow²⁰ with the warmth and colour and sunshine.  And for a month she had been in the company of a man—Stephen Knight²¹, athlete, surf-board rider, a bronzed god of the sea who bitted the crashing breakers, leaped upon their backs, and rode them in to shore.
 
Dorothy Sambrooke was unaware²² of the change.  Her consciousness was still that of a young girl, and she was surprised and troubled by Steve’s conduct in this hour of saying good-bye.  She had looked upon him as her playfellow, and for the month he had been her playfellow; but now he was not parting like a playfellow.  He talked excitedly and disconnectedly, or was silent, by fits and starts.  Sometimes he did not hear what she was saying, or if he did, failed to respond in his wonted manner.  She was perturbed²³ by the way he looked at her.  She had not known before that he had such blazing eyes.  There was something in his eyes that was terrifying.  She could not face it, and her own eyes continually drooped²⁴ before it.  Yet there was something alluring²⁵ about it, as well, and she continually returned to catch a glimpse of that blazing, imperious, yearning²⁶ something that she had never seen in human eyes before.  And she was herself strangely bewildered and excited.
 
The transport’s huge whistle blew a deafening²⁷ blast, and the flower-crowned multitude surged closer to the side of the dock.  Dorothy Sambrooke’s fingers were pressed to her ears; and as she made a moue of distaste at the outrage²⁸ of sound, she noticed again the imperious, yearning blaze in Steve’s eyes.  He was not looking at her, but at her ears, delicately pink and transparent²⁹ in the slanting³⁰ rays of the afternoon sun.  Curious and fascinated, she gazed at that strange something in his eyes until he saw that he had been caught.  She saw his cheeks flush darkly and heard him utter inarticulately.  He was embarrassed, and she was aware of embarrassment³¹ herself.  Stewards³² were going about nervously³³ begging shore-going persons to be gone.  Steve put out his hand.  When she felt the grip of the fingers that had gripped hers a thousand times on surf-boards and lava slopes, she heard the words of the song with a new understanding as they sobbed³⁴ in the Hawaiian woman’s silver throat:
 
“Ka halia ko aloha kai hiki mai,
Ke hone ae nei i ku’u manawa,
O oe no kan aloha
A loko e hana nei.”
 
Steve had taught her air and words and meaning—so she had thought, till this instant; and in this instant of the last finger clasp and warm contact of palms she divined for the first time the real meaning of the song.  She scarcely saw him go, nor could she note him on the crowded gangway, for she was deep in a memory maze³⁵, living over the four weeks just past, rereading events in the light of revelation.
 
When the Senatorial party had landed, Steve had been one of the committee of entertainment.  It was he who had given them their first exhibition of surf riding, out at Waikiki Beach, paddling his narrow board seaward until he became a disappearing speck³⁶, and then, suddenly reappearing, rising like a sea-god from out of the welter of spume and churning white—rising swiftly higher and higher, shoulders and chest and loins and limbs, until he stood poised³⁷ on the smoking crest³⁸ of a mighty³⁹, mile-long billow, his feet buried in the flying foam⁴⁰, hurling⁴¹ beach-ward with the speed of an express train and stepping cal............