"What are these to me?—I want but thee! But to a brave they are more than father, mother, wife, or life itself." She did not speak in scorn, but from what she had seen and known, yet it hurt.
"Stop,—cease, be still!" he cried abruptly and very fiercely, for how shall a man fight himself if his wife takes sides with his lower nature against the higher? The woman did not understand; she thought him enraged, she knew not why; but, the jealousy which had poisoned their life for weeks past was cause enow. Plainly he must be humoured.
"That is right!—Be master!—What am I?—Thy slave and a Little Moon girl, no more. Thou hast never beaten me yet, beat me now!—take the things! Let us be as we were.... Yes," with a dead-lift of self-renunciation, "I will break my bow!" She reached for the weapon where it lay,—what it meant for her only an inventor, and a successful inventor, can tell. To allay the unreasoning jealousy, the rooted conservatism of her husband, this red girl would have put out of her life the New Thing that she had thought out, brought to the birth, perfected and tested at the risk of her very heart's blood.
As her hand closed upon the wood, a larger and stronger hand closed over both. Her lover silently drew her to himself.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] As you may read in The Voyage of the Beagle.
SHORT, SOMEWHAT DRY, BUT IMPORTANT