"Now I'll tell you my story."
"Can't you do without that?"
"No, my good man, I can't. To make you understand what I want I must tell you all my story. Some of it you know, some of it you don't know. Be easy. It's short and not sweet. Listen."
And Mr. Dombrain did listen, not because he wanted to, but because this woman with the fierce eyes had an influence over him which he, bully, coarse-minded man as he was, could not resist. When he recollected what she knew and what she could tell, and would tell if she chose, a cold sweat broke out all over him, and he felt nerveless as a little child. Therefore, for these and divers other reasons, Mr. Dombrain listened--with manifest reluctance, it is true, but still he listened.
"We will commence the story in New Zealand twenty years--say twenty-two years ago. One Rupert Pethram, the younger son of a good family, come out there to make his fortune. He made it by the simple process of marrying a Maori half-caste, called Jezebel Manners. You see I don't scruple to tell everything about myself, dear friend. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Pethram got on very well together for a time, but she grew tired of being married to a fool. He was a fool, wasn't he?"
She waited for a reply, so Dombrain, against his will, was forced to give her one.
"Yes, he was a fool--to marry you."
"The wisest thing he ever did in his life, seeing what a lot of property I brought him. But I couldn't get on with him. My mother was a pure-blooded Maori. I am only half a white, and I hated his cold phlegmatic disposition, his supercilious manners. I was--I am hot-blooded, ardent, quick-tempered. Fancy a woman like me tied to a cold-blooded fish like Rupert Pethram. Bah! it was madness. I hated him before my child was born; afterwards I hated him more than ever. Then the other man came along."
"There always is another man!"
"Naturally! What would become of the Divorce Court if there wasn't? Yes, the other man did come along. A pink and white fool. My husband was a god compared to Silas Oates."