g tragedies sprung from the uncaring selfishness
of the whites, struggle desperately to lift themselves above the
mire in which the native is sinking. They throw themselves away on
worthless adventurers, who waste their little patrimony, break their
hearts, and either desert them after the first flush of passion
passes, or themselves sink into a life of lazy slovenliness worse
than that of the native.

All these things I pondered when Mlle. N---- spoke of her hope of
finding happiness in Tahiti. I was sure that, with her wealth, she
would have many suitors,--but what of a tender heart?

"It is love I want," she said. "Love and freedom. We women are used
to having our own way. I know the nuns would be horrified, but I
shall bind myself to no man."

The last colors of the sunset faded slowly on the sea, and the world
was a soft gray filled with the radiance of the rising moon. I rose
and when Mile. N---- had mounted I strolled ahead of her horse in
the moonlight. I was wearing a tuberose over my ear, and she remarked
it.

"You know what that signifies? If a man seeks a woman, he wears a
white flower over his ear, and if his love grows ardent, he wears a
red rose or hibiscus. But if he tires, he puts some green thing in
their place. _Bon dieu!_ That is the depth of ignominy for the woman
scorned. I remember one girl who was made light of that way in church.
She stayed a day hidden in the hills weeping, and then she threw
herself from a cliff."

There was in her manner a melancholy and a longing.

"Tahitians wear flowers all the day," I said. "They are gay, and
life is pleasant upon their island. There are automobiles by the
score, cinemas, singing, and dancing every evening, and many
Europeans and Americans. With money you could have everything."

"It is not singing and dancing I desire!" she exclaimed. "_Pas de
tout!_ I must know more people, and not people like priests and
these copra dealers. I have read in novels of men who are like gods,
who are bold and strong, but who make their women happy. Do you know
an officer of the _Zelee_, with hair like a ripe banana? He is tall
and plays the banjo. I saw him one time long ago when the warship
was here. He was on the governor's veranda. Oh, that was long ago,
but such a young man would be the man that I want."

Her Marquesan blood was speaking in that cry of the heart,
unrestrained and passionate. They are not the cold, chaste women of
other climes, these women of