“You have never asked me whether I love!”
The Malay half rose from his seat. The look of surprise and perplexity that had filled his face gave place to one of almost childish wonder.
“Of course you love me. Is it not so written in the Koran,—a wife shall reverence her husband?”
“Why?” she questioned angrily.
He paused a moment, trying dimly to comprehend the question, and then answered slowly,—
“Because it is written.”
She did not draw away when he took her hand; he had chosen his answer better than he knew.
“Because it is written,” that was all. Her own feeble revolt was but as a breath of air among the yellow fronds above their heads.
When Noa had gone, the girl drew herself wearily up the ladder, and dropped on a cool palm mat near the never ceasing loom. For almost the first time in her short, uneventful life she fell to thinking of herself. She wondered if the white ladies in Singapore married because all had been arranged by a father who forgot you the moment you disappeared within the door of your own house,—if they loved one man better than another,—if they could always marry the one they liked best. She wondered why every one must be married,—why could she not go on and live just as she had,—she could weave and sew?
A gray lizard darted from out its hiding-place in the attap at a great atlas moth which worked its brilliant wings; clumsily it tore their delicate network until the air was full of a golden dust.