Jack buried his head in the chest. This relationship between preserver and preserved was new to him: he hardly knew what to make of it. But the humour of the situation dawned on him, and he laughed.
“By George, I’m at your mercy,” he said, and, standing up, with his back still towards her, he laughed again. “You’ve appropriated me, just as your people appropriated the contents of this box and the rest of the wreckage. You’ll have to be put in charge of the police for a little thief.” And again his laugh rang through the ruined saloon.
Remarking that the girl made no reply to this sally, he glanced towards her, to find that she had turned her back upon him and was sobbing in a corner. Leaving his task of clearing out the sea-chest, he went towards her, and said, “I’m awfully sorry, Amiria, if I’ve said anything that hurt your feelings. I really didn’t mean to.” He had yet to learn that a Maori can bear anything more easily than laughter which seems to be derisive.
As the girl continued to cry, he placed his hand upon her shoulder. “Really, Amiria, I meant nothing. I would be the last person on earth to hurt your feelings. I don’t forget what I owe you. I can never repay you. If I have been clumsy, I ask your pardon.” He held up her head, and looked into her tear-stained face. “You’ll forgive me, won’t you?”
The girl, her still untutored nature half-hidden beneath a deceptive covering of Pakeha culture, broke into a torrent of Maori quite unintelligible to the white man, but as it ended in a bright smile bursting out from behind her tears, he knew that peace was made.
“Thank you,” he said; “we’re friends again.”
In a moment, she had thrown her arms about him and had burst into a rhapsody in her native tongue, and, though he understood not one word of it, he knew intuitively that it was an expression of passionate affection.
The situation was now more awkward than before. To rebuff her a second time would be to break his word and wound her more deeply than ever. So he let this new burst of feeling spend itself, and waited for her to return to her more civilised self.
When she did, she spoke in English. “You mustn’t judge me by the Pakeha girls you know. My people aren’t like yours—we have different ways. White girls are cold and silent when they feel most—I know them: I went to school with them—but we show our feelings. Besides, I have a claim on you which no white girl has. No white girl would have pulled you out of the surf, as I did. And if I showed I cared for you then, why shouldn’t I show it now? Perhaps the Pakeha would blame me, but I can’t always be thinking of your ritenga. In the town I do as the white woman does; out here I follow the Maori ritenga. But whichever ritenga it is, I love you; and if you love me in return, I am the happiest girl in the kainga.”
Scarlett gave a gasp. “Ah—really, I wasn’t thinking of marrying—yet.”