"Yes, it is true. My big and handsome husband is dead. But what difference does that make? I put up my big and handsome husband because at our first meeting in the yacht, which seems now so long ago, your admiration was so very outspoken. You wanted, if I remember rightly, to marry me yourself."
"I did not then know that you were a widow. Men do not marry widows in the Torres Straits."
"So that is the trouble. I am a widow, and therefore disreputable. Willie, dear, when I think how much you have to learn about the ways of white men and women, my heart fails because of you. You will have a very, very, rotten time in England. Clifford is your white slave, and Marie is, or was, your white mistress. You have made a very bad beginning, and a beginning most unfortunate for you. You think, no doubt, that all white men will be your slaves and all white women will be at your pleasure. That is what Clifford tells you. He stuffs you up with this dreadful rubbish and stifles your sense—you have plenty of good sense about things that you understand—he stifles your sense with filthy liquors brought over from Thursday Island. You are a fly in the spider's web, Willie, and I, who have done my best to save you from him, am spurned as a mere widow. If you were a little older, my dear, you would remember that a Widow sat on the throne of England for more years than you or I are likely to live."
"Queens are different. My mother is a widow, but she also is different. Her husband was a white god. You, Madame, are not different. You tried to rob me of my rank and place, and you have torn away Marie whom I loved. I will never forgive you, Madame. You thought that I was a helpless brown boy who could be played with and deceived. If you had been a queen with a big handsome king for husband I would have obeyed your wishes. I would have stayed here in Tops Island and forgotten Marie whom I should not love if she were not white. But I am not going to be ruled by a widow, even by one so beautiful as you. I am not Willatopy any more; I am William, Lord Topsham."
"I do not think," responded Madame coldly, "that I am greatly interested in William, Lord Topsham, or that I desire his further acquaintance. You have my permission to depart."
He stared, puzzled by the formula of dismissal. Then when Madame turned her broad back, his skin flushed into deep purple. He a great English Lord had been curtly sent away by a mere widow! Something must be wrong with the world which in ignorant imagination he had constructed. William, Lord Topsham, went to consult John Clifford, who advised that Madame, with her paraphernalia of tents and escort, should be summarily expelled from the Toppys property on the Island. But Willie in becoming an English Lord had not shed his native courtesy. So long as Madame wished to remain on Tops Island, she was free to stay. But for his part he would visit her no more.
Madame Gilbert summoned her friends into council, and described in detail the stormy interview with Willie.
"We were both very angry, very haughty, and very ridiculous," said Madame. "I think that the late supper upon excessive quantities of rich turtle had something to do with our loss of temper. The high mightinesses of his brown lordship ought to have made me laugh. But there will emerge, I fancy, certain solid advantages. It is clear that Master Willie à la tête montée has flung away the precepts of his late father, and means to claim his English peerage. He will very soon find that the Madame Gilbert whom he is pleased to scorn holds the key to that project. We will begin at once to make ostentatious preparations for departure. You might, if you will, Captain, hire sundry brown boys to scrape weed off the Humming Top's teak fenders. Our preparations will instantly come to Willie's ears, and he will rapidly pass from curiosity to worry. Prompted by John Clifford it will dawn upon his infant mind that the Humming Top holds not only Marie, but the command of his passage to England."
"The boys will be delighted to scrape off the worst of our weed," said Ching, "and their labours will help us up to Singapore. But I don't quite grasp the rest of your scheme, Madame."
"It is quite simple," said she. "In these days of overcrowded shipping how is Willie to get away beyond Thursday Island unless as our guest in the Humming Top? He might hang about for months waiting for a ship to take him to Singapore, and might spend months more before he could get any farther. Grant, if I mistake not, will not unloose the money bags, and John Clifford, whatever may be his resources, will not spend a penny more than he can help. It will be the interest of both to come hat in hand to me, and make peace. Then I shall command the situation and lay down my own terms."