“I have no relations,” said Jourdain, “no one but Kineia and you. Captain Morris of my schooner is a good man, but he is almost a stranger to me, though I have known him some years—some men are like that; one never gets to know them beyond a certain point. You have become to me almost as a relation. When I am dead, if we go on as we are going, perhaps you will have the whole business.”
“I hope that will never be,” said Lygon, and he meant it.
One day at the end of the second year the old man took Lygon by the arm and walked him off into the woods till they reached a charming spot, where a seat had been placed under a breadfruit tree, and with a view of a little leaping cascade and a glen wonderful with ferns.
“I want to speak to you about Kineia,” said the captain.
Lygon’s color rose.
“You have made her love you.”
“I love her,” said Lygon.
“That goes without saying,” replied the other. “What is on my mind is this—are you worthy of her? She is all to me, more than life, and I shall die soon. I have known you two years and I would trust you with my last sou. Can I trust you with Kineia? It is a father that is speaking, and I ask myself, are you worthy of her?”
“No,” said Lygon, “I am not. But she is worthy of the love I have for her. For her I would let myself be cut in pieces.”
Jourdain nodded as though to say, “I hear—and I believe.”