"He says so, big captain," answered the little half-caste, her mouth queerly twisted.
"Because if you are not happy, Reggie won't be happy; and if you are neither of you happy, you will be sorry that you married."!
"But we are not married yet," said the girl, "we are only engaged."
"But you will be married sometime, I suppose?"
"This year, next year, sometime, never!" laughed Yaé. "It is nice to be engaged, and it is such a protection. When I am not engaged, all the old cats, Lady Cynthia and the rest, say that I flirt. Now when I am engaged, my fiancé is here to shield me. Then they dare not say things, or it comes round to him, and he is angry. So I can do anything I like when I am engaged."
This was a new morality for Geoffrey. It knocked the text from under the sermon which he had been preparing. She was as preposterous as Reggie; but she was not, like him, conscious of her preposterousness.
"Then, when you are married, will you flirt?" asked her companion.
"I think so," said Yaé gravely. "Besides, Reggie only wants me to dress me up and write music about me. If I am always the same like an English doll wife, he won't get many tunes to play. Reggie is like a girl."
"Reggie is too good for you," said the Englishman, roughly.
"I don't think so," said Yaé, "I don't want Reggie, but Reggie wants me."