“Does a girl ride with you, if she doesn’t like you?”
“Depends upon the girl.”
“Would I trouble to meet you, if I didn’t?”
“Then it’s you? Upon my word! This is overwhelming.”
“But I have a right to tell you—I saved your life. I know you as other girls don’t.”
“Oh, I say, this is a bit rough on a fellow. I couldn’t help getting shipwrecked, you know.”
“But I saved you. I have the right to you first. If you don’t like me, then you can marry some other girl.”
“I don’t think you understand, Amiria. Of course I’m awfully indebted to you. As you say, I owe you my life. But if I marry you, I can’t marry anybody else afterwards.”
The Maori girl had jumped from her horse, and Scarlett was standing beside her. The horses grazed on the grassy bank of the stream.
“I know all the ways of your people,” said Amiria: “I was sent to school to learn them. Some I think good; some I think bad. Your marriage is like the yoke you put on bullocks. It locks you tight together. Before you know really whether you like each other you have this yoke put on you: you are tied up for ever. The Maori way is better. We have our marriage too—it is like the bridle on my horse, light, easy, but good. We only put it on when we know that we like each other. That’s the way I wish to be married, and afterwards I would get your priest to give us his marriage, so that I might be tika in the eyes of the Pakeha people.”