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Updated: May 18, 2025
From a little grove of palms close to the low sea wall came the soft tinkle of guitar, and now and then a burst of joyous song, while under the spreading roof of the broad portico or lanai, the murmur of voices, the occasional ripple of musical laughter, the floating haze of cigarette smoke, told where a party of worshipers were gathered, rejoicing in the loveliness of nature and the night.
One lovely, summer-like evening, some five weeks later, in long, heaving surges the deep blue waves of the Pacific came lazily rolling toward the palm-bordered beach at Waikiki, bursting into snowy foam on the pebbly strand, and, softly hissing, swept like fleecy mantle up the slope of wet, hard-beaten sand, then broke, lapping and whirling, about the stone supports of the broad lanai of one of the many luxurious homes that dot the curving line of the bay to the east of Honolulu.
Far above towered the huge bulks of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, seeming to blot out half the starry sky. Two miles and a half above our heads they reared their own heads, white with snow that the tropic sun had failed to melt. "Thirty miles away, right now, I'll wager, it is blowing forty miles an hour." I smiled incredulously. Cudworth stepped to the lanai telephone.
There followed a few minutes of brisk conference upon the lanai, the Marsdens pleading against, the father and daughter for, immediate return to the hotel, there to claim the vacated rooms aboard the steamer. In the eager discussion, pro and con, both young soldiers joined, both saying "go," and promising to follow by the Sedgwick.
Miss Lawrence turned and looked inquiringly into the eyes she well knew were fixed upon her. Mrs. Marsden hesitated one moment, then stepped across the lanai, peered into the parlor and entered. It was a minute before she returned, and in that minute the decisive vote was cast, the carriage ordered.
Percival Ford wondered why he had come. He did not dance. He did not care much for army people. Yet he knew them all gliding and revolving there on the broad lanai of the Seaside, the officers in their fresh- starched uniforms of white, the civilians in white and black, and the women bare of shoulders and arms.
He had credit cards and a few bucks in the market, but he might have been thirty again, driving a cab, hoping for a load to the Kahala and a big tip. He rode the city bus into Waikiki, the Filson bag on his lap, and rented a room for a week on Kuhio Avenue a concrete block room with a four foot lanai, a tiny refrigerator, and a hot plate.
Beyond the wave they had gone through, they finally showed, side by side, still six feet apart, swimming shoreward with a steady stroke until the next wave should make them body-surf it or face and pierce it. The captain of Number Nine waved his hand to his crew in dismissal, and sat down on the lanai railing, feeling vaguely tired and still watching the swimmers through his glasses.
"The lanai is the favorite reception room, and here at any social function the musical program is given and cakes and ices are served; here morning callers are received, or gay riding parties, the ladies in pretty divided skirts, worn for convenience in riding astride, the universal mode adopted by Europeans and Americans, as well as by the natives.
She was in love with him and linking fast. He didn't want to hurt her. "Complications," he told Batman, on duty at his post on the lanai. "Nothing we can't handle." But he wasn't so sure. The following Saturday, Joe was on Alison's couch again. Her need to be coupled was stronger than his need to be alone. She must have known that a future together was unlikely, but she didn't care.
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