He shook his head. “I asked her—once,” he explained. “She assured me she did not.”
“She assured you of that which is not true, Dan Pritchard. Now why should she do this? The women of your country are strange women, love of my heart. They deny that which they feel. They pretend to be interested in that which bores them. They desire a husband, yet they shrink from taking him, even after he has looked upon them with the look that no true woman should mistake.
“I do not understand this. I wanted you, dear one, and when you looked upon me with favor I came to you. And I am very happy—so happy, perhaps, that when we are married and I have borne children for you, I may forget that I am not exactly that which you would wish me to be.
“But I shall learn, dear one. And I shall obey my lord because he is my master and I love him.”
He stood up and held her tightly to his heart that was pounding so madly, so rapturously. He rained kisses on her upturned flower face, and the perfume of her glorious hair was as myrrh and incense to him. “You’ve bewitched me, Tamea,” he muttered hoarsely. “Come, let us go back to the hotel. Come!”
They went. Tamea knew better than to oppose a man. She knew that men love best the women who give them their own way, who do not seek to restrain or discipline or mold them to their own desires. Daughter of a race that would disappear before emerging from the condition of family life where there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage for the avoidance of sin and the preservation of property rights, Tamea was following woman’s truest and most primitive instinct. She was ruling by love and not by the sad and silly principle that possession is nine points of the law.
Young as she was, Tamea was a fully developed woman, watchful, observant, philosophical, courageous, resourceful; she had the gift, rare in a woman, of initiative and instantaneous power of decision. Gaston of the Beard had richly endowed her with the treasures of his massive mind. She realized that she had swept Dan Pritchard off his feet, that he was her slave, but that his servitude was not as yet wholly voluntary. And she knew why. He was mentally hobbled by the knowledge of her island blood and a vision of Maisie Morrison.
But Tamea was not dismayed. She had faith in her power—in the power of love—to make him forget both. In the belief that he had been pledged to Maisie she had decided gallantly to surrender him to Maisie that day. She had told herself that if Maisie desired him, then, that day, she would make certain of him, and if she did not, then was she a fool. Well, she had not closed her deal, wherefore here was a fair field and no favor. Tamea told herself that she had acted with a degree of sportsmanship pleasing to Dan; and now, when from Dan’s own lips she learned that Maisie had denied her love for him, Tamea had promptly renewed the campaign; like a good soldier she had taken the offensive and, as usually occurs in offensive campaigns, she had won. She had felt Dan Pritchard’s wild kisses on her lips, her cheek, her hair, and she was content.
Had Tamea been more conversant with Nordic custom, had she even a remote conception of the holding power of the marriage vow even in a land where thinking people speak learnedly of a divorce problem, she would have urged upon Dan the desirability of motoring into Monterey that night and getting married. It is probable that she would have urged this anyhow had she the slightest fear of Maisie as a rival. All anxiety on that point had now disappeared, however; on the morrow she would set herself to the task of making friends with Maisie. . . . Meanwhile, if her heart’s desire persisted in striding back to the hotel without speaking to her, who was she to obtrude upon his mood? Instinctively she realized that men resent intrusions upon their moods of depression or deep thoughtfulness. Her father had been like that.
A white bench, gleaming through the cypress and fir trees down a path that led off at right angles, caught her eye. She steered him toward it, but he balked and shook his head in negation.