Stires scratched his head. The trident trailed upon the ground. "It's serious or nothing with me, I guess. And she's got something against me. I don't know what. Thinks I don't blarney the Kanakas enough, perhaps. Then there's Follet." "Oh, is he in it?" I forgot to go. "He's more in it than I am, and I'm darned if I know what she's up to with the three of us. I'm playing 'possum, till I find out." "If you can stand Follet butting in, why can't you stand Schneider? Safety in numbers, you know." "Well, Mr. Follet belongs here. I can have it out with him any time. He'll have to play the game. But if I know Schneider, there's no wedding bells in his. And Mam'selle Eva hasn't, as you might say, got a chaperon." The spectacle of "Mam'selle Eva," as I had last seen her, perspiring, loosely girdled, buying a catch of fish at a fair price from three mercenary natives adorned with shark's-tooth necklaces, rose before me. "Man alive, you don't have to chaperon _her_," I cried. "She's on to everything." The sun-and-wind-whipt eyes flashed at me. The spanner trembled a little. "Don't misunderstand me," I insisted. "But it stands to reason that, here on Naapu, she's learned a good many things they don't teach in little red schoolhouses. I have a great respect for her, and, between you and me, I shouldn't wonder if she had sized Schneider up already." The eyes were appeased. "Maybe, maybe," he grunted. "But lies come easy to him, I guess. Miss Eva wouldn't be the first he'd fooled." "Do you know anything about him?" "Not a thing, except what sticks out all over him. For a man's eyes, that is. You never can tell what a woman will see." I left him poking in the dust with his spanner. I dined that night at Lockerbie's. There was no Mrs. Lockerbie, and it was a man's party. Follet was there, of course, and Schneider, too, his teeth and his clothes whiter than the rest of ours. I was surprised to see Schneider, for Lockerbie had suspected the Teuton of designs on his very privately and not too authentically owned lagoon. Lockerbie did a fair business in pearls; no great beauties or values among them, but a good marketable cheap product. But no one held out very long against any one on Naapu.