“Loisé, Baldwin is my friend. He looks upon me as his son, and he trusts me—and trusts you.... I could never look him in the face again.... If he were any other man I wouldn't care, or if, if——”
She lifted her face from his shoulder. “Then you only lied to me. You don't love me!”
That made him reckless. “Love you! By God. I love you so that if you were any other man's wife but his———-” He looked steadily at her and then, with gentle force, tried to take her arm from his neck.
She knew now that he was the stronger of the two, and yet wished to hear more.
“Brice, dear Brice,” she bent his head down to her lips, “if Baldwin died would you marry me?”
The faintly murmured words struck him like a shot; she still holding her arms around him, watched his face.
He kissed her on the lips. “I would marry you and never go back to the world again,” he answered, in the blind passion of the moment.
A hot, passionate kiss on his lips and she was gone, and Brice, with throbbing pulses and shame in his heart, took up his hat and went out upon the beach. He couldn't meet Baldwin just then. Other men's wives had never made him feel such a miserable scoundrel as did this reckless half-blood with the scarlet lips and starry eyes.
That night old Baldwin and the captain of the Malolo got thoroughly drunk in the orthodox and time-honoured Island business fashion. Brice, afraid of “making an ass of himself,” was glad to get away, and took the captain on board at midnight in Baldwin's boat, and at the mate's invitation remained for breakfast.