"I should like, Willie, to be the Lady of Tops Island."
"Well," said Willatopy, knitting his brows, "that is easy. When Madame and the yacht have sailed away, you shall stay here, and be my white Lady. My boys shall build you a fine hut thatched with sago palm."
"I don't think, Willie, that I care much for a hut. You are rich. You have the money of your father, and of your uncle, the late Lord. You can send for men, skilful men, and build a house on this island fit for a white woman and her—her—husband."
"I did not say anything about a husband," observed Willatopy drily.
"But Willie," urged Marie, "you are a grown man. Very soon you will want a home of your own and a wife who loves you. An English Lord must have a white wife, and here am I. You will never find a wife fonder or more beautiful than I would be."
"I do very well as I am," said Willie, philosophically.
Marie Lambert ground her teeth. She had thought to fascinate the brown Heir, and to twist him about her fingers. A marriage, at Murray or Thursday Island, would be as legal as a marriage at St. George's, Hanover Square. If she could prevail upon Willie to marry her now, before he learned the value of his peerage, she would become an English Lady, the Lady of Topsham. After that, there would be no more talk about a fine house on Tops Island. England, and English society, would be her new sphere of campaign.
She had not, I fancy, thought of this scheme at the beginning, or perhaps she would have been less complaisant. A discreet aloofness might have proved a more potent inducement to matrimony than the free love which she had offered. Marie, sitting there grinding her teeth, felt that she could hate Willatopy as savagely as a day or two ago she had loved him. If she had not also feared him, almost as much as she feared Madame Gilbert, she would have let loose her vixenish rage. It was perhaps a little late, but, as a new weapon, she affected a judicious propriety.