at I
was clean gone; and if she was to make a fool of me, she must. And I
suppose it was this that set her talking, for now she made sure that we
were friends. A lot she told me, sitting in my lap and eating my dish,
as I ate hers, from foolery--a lot about herself and her mother and
Case, all which would be very tedious, and fill sheets if I set it down
in Beach de Mar, but which I must give a hint of in plain English, and
one thing about myself, which had a very big effect on my concerns, as
you are soon to hear.

It seems she was born in one of the Line Islands; had been only two or
three years in these parts, where she had come with a white man, who was
married to her mother and then died; and only the one year in Falesa.
Before that they had been a good deal on the move, trekking about after
the white man, who was one of those rolling stones that keep going round
after a soft job. They talk about looking for gold at the end of a
rainbow; if a man wants an employment that'll last him till he dies, let
him start out on the soft-job hunt. There's meat and drink in it too,
and beer and skittles, for you never hear of them starving, and rarely
see them sober; and as for steady sport, cock-fighting isn't in the same
county with it. Anyway, this beachcomber carried the woman and her
daughter all over the shop, but mostly to out-of-the-way islands, where
there were no police, and he thought, perhaps, the soft job hung out.
I've my own view of this old party; but I was just as glad he had kept
Uma clear of Apia and Papeete and these flash towns. At last he struck
Fale-alii on this island, got some trade--the Lord knows how!--muddled
it all away in the usual style, and died worth next to nothing, bar a
bit of land at Falesa that he had got for a bad debt, which was what put
it in the minds of the mother and daughter to come there and live. It
seems Case encouraged them all he could, and helped to get their house
built. He was very kind those days, and gave Uma trade, and there is no
doubt he had his eye on her from the beginning. However, they had scarce
settled, when up turned a young man, a native, and wanted to marry her.
He was a small chief, and had some fine mats and old songs in his
family, and was "very pretty," Uma said; and, altogether, it was an
extraordinary match for a penniless girl and an out-islander.

At the first word of this I got downright sick with jealousy.

"And you mean to say you would have married