Chapter 5 - Page 2

filthy
niggers is the least bit romantic."

"No, of course not," she admitted. "But to be among them,
controlling them, directing them, two hundred of them, and to
escape being eaten by them--that, at least, if it isn't romantic,
is certainly the quintessence of adventure. And adventure and
romance are allied, you know."

"By the same token, to go into a nigger's stomach should be the
quintessence of adventure," he retorted.

"I don't think you have any romance in you," she exclaimed.
"You're just dull and sombre and sordid like the business men at
home. I don't know why you're here at all. You should be at home
placidly vegetating as a banker's clerk or--or--"

"A shopkeeper's assistant, thank you."

"Yes, that--anything. What under the sun are you doing here on the
edge of things?"

"Earning my bread and butter, trying to get on in the world."

"'By the bitter road the younger son must tread, Ere he win to
hearth and saddle of his own,'" she quoted. "Why, if that isn't
romantic, then nothing is romantic. Think of all the younger sons
out over the world, on a myriad of adventures winning to those same
hearths and saddles. And here you are in the thick of it, doing
it, and here am I in the thick of it, doing it."

"I--I beg pardon," he drawled.

"Well, I'm a younger daughter, then," she amended; "and I have no
hearth nor saddle--I haven't anybody or anything--and I'm just as
far on the edge of things as you are."

"In your case, then, I'll admit there is a bit of romance," he
confessed.

He could not help but think of the preceding nights, and of her
sleeping in the hammock on the veranda, under mosquito curtains,
her bodyguard of Tahitian sailors stretched out at the far corner
of the veranda within call. He had been too helpless to resist,
but now he resolved she should have his couch inside while he would
take the hammock.

"You see, I had read and dreamed about romance all my life," she
was saying, "but I never, in my wildest fancies, thought that I
should live it. It was all so unexpected. Two years ago I thought
there was nothing left to me but. . . ." She faltered, and made a
moue of distaste. "Well, the only thing that remained, it seemed
to me, was marriage."

"And you preferred a cannibal isle and a cartridge-belt?" he
suggested.

"I didn't think of the cannibal isle, but the cartridge-belt was
blissful."

"You wouldn't dare use the revolver if you were compelled to. Or,"
noting the glint in her eyes, "if you did use it, to--well, to hit
anything."

She started up suddenly to enter the house. He knew she was going
for her revolver.

"Never mind," he said, "here's mine. What can