“No. She would have nothing but a life interest.”
“She have only life interest? By gar! I t'ink I pay somebody twenty dollar to kill her!”
But lacking both twenty dollars and determination, he lived peaceably with Thérèse until she died a natural death, on that occasion proudly doing his whole duty as a man and a mourner.
Remembering these affairs, which had not been kept secret from anybody on the island, Clethera spoke out under conviction.
“Honoré, it a scandal' t'ing, to get marry.”
“Me, I t'ink so too,” assented Honoré.
“Jules McCarty have disgrace' his son!”
“Melinda Crée,” retorted Honoré, obliged to defend his own, “she take a little 'usban' honly nineteen.”
“She 'ave no chance like Jules; she is oblige' to wait and take what invite her.”
The voices of children from other quarter-breed cottages, playing along the beach, added cheer to the sweet darkness. Clethera and Honoré sat silently enjoying each other's company, unconscious that their aboriginal forefathers had courted in that manner, sitting under arbors of branches.