“Don't care if she does; don't care if she sees me kissing you, like this, and this, and this; don't care if Atkins sees us.”
Her low, happy laugh sounded like the trill of a bird. “Harvey dear, do you remember the day when we went to Róan Kiti in Ponapé—when you were sailing the Belle Brandon for father?”
Harvey didn't remember, but, like a sensible lover, said he did, and emphasised his remembrance in a proper manner.
“Well, now, listen... Oh, you horrid fellow, why do you look at me as if I were a baby! Now, I shan't tell you anything at all.... There, don't pretend to be sorry, for you know... oh, Harvey dear, I must tell you.”
“Tell me, dearest.”
“That's a good boy, a good would-be-climbing-a-coconut-tree youth, who wanted to show off before poor Atkins who told me just now that you were 'the whitest man in the South Seas.' He did really.”
“Atkins is 'an excellent good man,' and you are the sweetest and most beautiful girl in all the wide, wide Pacific. Come, tell me what it is that you must tell me.”
“I'll tell you if you don't kiss me any more. Maoni's eyes can see round her shoulders, I believe. I do wish she wasn't here.... Well, that day when you and I were climbing up the mountain-path you let a branch swing back—you careless thing—and it hit me in the face and hurt me terribly, and you took me up in your arms and kissed me. Oh, Harvey, don't you remember? Kissed me, just because I was crying like a baby. Harvey dear, I was only fourteen then, but I loved you then—that was the real, very beginning of it all, I think. And then I went away to school to San Francisco, and you went away—and I suppose you never thought one little bit about me again.”
“Indeed I did, Tess” (here was a silent but well-employed interlude); “I often thought of you, dear, but not as a lover thinks. For in those days you were to me only a sweet child (if Maoni wasn't here I'd pick you up and nurse you), a sweet, sweet little comrade whose dear, soft eyes used to smile into mine whenever I stepped into your father's house, and——”
“Oh, Harvey, Harvey! I have never, never forgotten you. There! and there! and there! I don't care if Maoni, or any one, or all the world sees me,” and she flung her soft arms round his neck and kissed him again and again in the sheer abandonment of her innocent happiness. “But you really love me now, Harvey, don't you? And oh, Harvey dear, where shall we live? And your sisters... if they don't like me?”