A Hero for Leanda

processing of seaweed and she evidently shared his interest for she talked unceasingly about it. When Conway ventured to interpose a comment, her attention immediately wandered. In the end, he contented himself with nodding, and let his own attention wander. Leanda, he saw, was getting on extremely well with Colonel Baker on the other side of the table, but Mrs. Baker was wilting a little under Lord Rankin’s smooth flow. Rankin, according to the A.D.C., had been an eminence grise in the Cabinet Secretariat before World War II and was now collecting material for a book on colonial development. His immediate interest, however, seemed to be much nearer home, for he was talking about his stomach. With the ear that wasn’t taking in facts about the iodine content of seaweed, Conway could hear him totting up the calorie value of each dish as it was served and comparing it with that of the patent cereals that he and his wife had brought out from England in order to maintain a proper dietetic balance.
    Conway switched his free ear to the end of the table. Dietetics had got a grip there, too. Grant was saying that the local breadfruit was a very poor substitute for the potato, and that it had really been the ruin of the island, since a Negro had only to have a single breadfruit tree in his garden to decide that he need do no work at all. Lady Hollis raised her voice a little and asked Conway how they managed about meals aboard Thalia, and for a few minutes the conversation became general while he and Leanda talked of their ocean crossing. But sailing reminded someone of a bad storm the previous year, and storms of a tennis party that had been washed out at the club last week, and at that point Lady Hollis got up and the ladies withdrew and Conway was encouraged to talk on alone as the port circulated.
    The topic flagged at last, and there was a lull while the glasses were refilled. Then Grant suddenly said, “How’s the emperor, Colonel?”
    “Oh, fussy as ever,” Baker said.
    The governor smiled at Conway . “Our distinguished prisoner, Cornford—Alexander Kastella.”
    “Ah, yes, of course,” Conway said. “I was going to ask you about him... So that’s what you call him—the emperor?”
    “The title seemed to fit,” Hollis said. “An island prisoner —and the man does seem to suffer from a mild form of folie de grandeur .”
    “The poor man’s Bonaparte,” Grant said. “Sees himself as an eventual dictator, if you ask me. Nothing he likes better than ordering people about.... How many servants has he got now, Colonel?”
    “Eight,” the commissioner said.
    “Fantastic! Why, he only needs a few horses and he’ll be able to form his own Household Cavalry!”
    Baker smiled. “We try to humor him as far as possible, Cornford—it makes life easier. But he still complains. It’s deliberate, of course—he can’t do us any vital damage at the moment but he can still harry us.... Did I tell you, H. E.?—he sent in a written protest yesterday about one of
    Franklin ’s ‘boys’ singing in the garden—said it disturbed his thoughts!”
    “Extraordinary!” Hollis said.
    “Where do you keep him?” Conway asked. “Is he locked up?
    “Good heavens, no,” Baker said, “not in a place like this.... He has a bungalow over on the other side of the island —he’s practically a free man. He gave his parole that he wouldn’t go into the villages or talk to any of the black chaps except his own servants—we had to insist on that in case he tried to stir up agitation in the colony. But otherwise he does pretty much as he likes.”
    “How does he spend his time?”
    “Oh, he swims a lot, reads, writes a good deal...”
    “He’s working on a constitution for Spyros, ready for when it becomes independent,” H. E. said with his gentle smile.
    Grant snorted. “The Code Kastella!”
    “He’s a lawyer, you know,” Baker said. “An able chap, and quite charming when he wants to be, but a born troublemaker.”
    “Do you suppose he’ll be here very long?” Conway said. Baker shrugged. “Who knows? He can’t go soon enough for me, I can tell you that.”
    “Or me, Colonel,” the governor said. “Well, shall we join the ladies?”

    There was no further talk of Kastella. In the drawing room, chairs had been disposed in a casual-audience fashion, and a pale young man appeared and for half an hour played pieces from Chopin and Debussy on the pianoforte to polite applause. At nine-thirty, Hollis