"The people about call me 'Misi Risi'—I am not going to have my wife a
Fijian to me."
The lights on Eleanor's face were very pretty. With the same contained smile he went on.
"I gave you my name yesterday. It is yours to do what you like with; but the greatest dishonour you can shew to a gift, is not to use it at all."
"That is the most comical putting of the case that ever I heard," said
Eleanor, quite unable to retain her own gravity.
"Very good sense," said Mr. Rhys, with a dry preservation of his.
"But after all," said Eleanor, "you gave me your second name, if you please—I do not know what I have to do with the first."
"You do not? Is it possible you think your name is Henry or James, or something else? You are Rowland Rhys as truly as I am—only you are the mistress, and I am the master."
Eleanor's look went over the table with something besides laughter in the brown eyes, which made them a gentle thing to see.
"Mr. Rhys, I am thinking, what you will do to this part of you to make it like the other?"
He gave her a glance, at which her eyes went down instantly.