“From your own people? E Kalokalo, you have never told me of them. Some day they will make you throw me aside, and you will take a marama of your own land to wife.”
“What is this foolishness, Raluve? Who has put foolish words into your mouth?”
“I thought they were foolish words, but now I know they are true. Alika——”
“Alika is a foolish old woman. What did she tell you?”
“She said, ‘Raluve, this white man loves you. You are fortunate, for the white men love better than our men; but for all that he will leave you, and return to his own people, taking one of them in marriage.’ And when I grew angry she said, ‘Did Kaiatia keep Lui, the German, though she bore him two children? And why does Alisi go about Lakeba like a hen with half her feathers plucked out?’ Then I knew that her words were true; for Lui has a white woman for wife now, and Alisi was beaten by her people because of Tomu, the trader, and he left her, saying he would return, and did not. And one day you will leave me, Kalokalo.”
Vere said nothing, feeling her eyes upon him in the dim light.
“But I will know whether it shall be so,” she went on. “Sit down: no, not there on the grass, but on the sand. Now see,” she said, taking up an empty cocoa-nut shell, “when I spin this cup it shall fall toward one of us. If it falls toward you, then you will leave me, and marry one of your people; and if it fall toward me—— See, it spins. Mana dina! Ah, faithless one, it topples like Kata, the kava-drinker!”
The shell reeled, lurched, and fell toward the girl, rolling away on its side from between them. Raluve’s hands fell to her side.