"there's no sense in carrying on like this.
I want you stop here, I want my little wifie, I tell you true."

"No tell me true," she sobbed.

"All right," says I, "I'll wait till you're through with this." And I
sat right down beside her on the floor, and set to smooth her hair with
my hand. At first she wriggled away when I touched her; then she seemed
to notice me no more; then her sobs grew gradually less, and presently
stopped; and the next thing I knew, she raised her face to mine.

"You tell me true? You like me stop?" she asked.

"Uma," I said, "I would rather have you than all the copra in the South
Seas," which was a very big expression, and the strangest thing was that
I meant it.

She threw her arms about me, sprang close up, and pressed her face to
mine in the island way of kissing, so that I was all wetted with her
tears, and my heart went out to her wholly. I never had anything so near
me as this little brown bit of a girl. Many things went together, and
all helped to turn my head. She was pretty enough to eat; it seemed she
was my only friend in that queer place; I was ashamed that I had spoken
rough to her: and she was a woman, and my wife, and a kind of a baby
besides that I was sorry for; and the salt of her tears was in my mouth.
And I forgot Case and the natives; and I forgot that I knew nothing of
the story, or only remembered it to banish the remembrance; and I
forgot that I was to get no copra, and so could make no livelihood; and
I forgot my employers, and the strange kind of service I was doing them,
when I preferred my fancy to their business; and I forgot even that Uma
was no true wife of mine, but just a maid beguiled, and that in a pretty
shabby style. But that is to look too far on. I will come to that part
of it next.

It was late before we thought of getting dinner. The stove was out, and
gone stone-cold; but we fired up after a while, and cooked each a dish,
helping and hindering each other, and making a play of it like children.
I was so greedy of her nearness that I sat down to dinner with my lass
upon my knee, made sure of her with one hand, and ate with the other.
Ay, and more than that. She was the worst cook, I suppose, God made; the
things she set her hand to, it would have sickened an honest horse to
eat of; yet I made my meal that day on Uma's cookery, and can never call
to mind to have been better pleased.

I didn't pretend to myself, and I didn't pretend to her. I saw th