"I ventured to inform his honourable mother, who stood outside the hut, that the day was fine."
"And he misdoubted your intentions?" Madame let herself go for a moment and laughed, that rippling laugh which plays on the hearts of her victims like flame on wax. "A widow, I have heard, is in little respect in the South Seas, and the Heir of Toppys drew cold iron in defence of his mother, so scandalously accosted by a forward stranger. Come, come, Mr. Gatepath, this incident suggests no savagery. It may indicate that the heart of the boy is white after all."
"He prodded me in the back, he pursued me to my boat, and would doubtless have killed and eaten my body had I not fled with incredible speed. I have never run so fast since I won the hundred yards sprint for Cambridge at the Queen's Club."
"You and the Hon. Mrs. William Toppys must have been deeply absorbed in the beauties of the weather when the Cannibal with his spear broke in upon the pretty conversation."
"On my honour I did but speak with her for a minute. She is light of colour and of a countenance not disagreeable. Her English is not fluent, yet she speaks it with intelligence and has the language of social courtesy. Her accent too is not unpleasant, she softens the hard English consonants, and gives full tone value to the rich English vowels."
"It seems to have been a very fine day, and taken a lot of talking about," said Madame drily.
"I wanted to discover why the Hon. William Toppys had married the woman, and why he made so certain of the proofs of his marriage."
"Quite so. And while engaged upon your researches, discovered that the Hon. William Toppys was not so very mad after all?"
"No," declared the lawyer stoutly. "He was a mad and wicked criminal to marry her. But I could realise that some twenty years earlier, in the first bloom of her pale brown beauty, the Hon. Mrs. William Toppys was worth the sacrifice of any man's moral scruples. I could, as a youngster, have loved her myself. But then I should never have made the hideous, the ghastly blunder of marrying her—except in native fashion."
"We progress," said Madame, laughing again. "The mother of the Cannibal has found favour in your sight, and the Cannibal ran you down to the boat lest you should find favour in hers. And how long, pray, was this island idyll in the playing?"