Page:The house without a key, by Earl Derr Biggins (1925).djvu/32

 "Ye — es." Her dark eyes were serious. "See — there are the docks — that's where the East begins. The real East. And Telegraph Hill —" she pointed; no one in Boston ever points, but she was so lovely John Quincy overlooked it — "and Russian Hill, and the Fairmont on Nob Hill."

"Life must be full of ups and downs," he ventured lightly. "Tell me about Honolulu. Sort of a wild place, I imagine?"

She laughed. "I'll let you discover for yourself how wild it is," she told him. "Practically all the leading families came originally from your beloved New England. 'Puritans with a touch of sun,' my father calls them. He's clever, my father," she added, in an odd childish tone that was wistful and at the same time challenging.

"I'm sure of it," said John Quincy heartily. They were approaching the Ferry Building and other passengers crowded about them. "I'd help you with that suitcase of yours, but I've got all this truck. If we could find a porter —"

"Don't bother," she answered. "I can manage very well." She was staring down at John Quincy's hat box. "I — I suppose there's a silk hat in there?" she inquired.

"Naturally," replied John Quincy.

She laughed — a rich, deep-throated laugh. John Quincy stiffened slightly. "Oh, forgive me," she cried. "But— a silk hat in Hawaii !"

John Quincy stood erect. The girl had laughed at a Winterslip. He filled his lungs with the air sweeping in from the open spaces, the broad open spaces where men are men. A weird reckless feeling came over him. He stooped, picked up the hat box, and tossed it calmly over the rail. It bobbed indignantly away. The crowd