"When you go to England and become a great Lord," said she, "you will forget poor Marie."

"Yes," agreed Willie, as one stating the most unchallengeable of truths. Marie Lambert frowned. It was not the reply for which she had angled.

A few more days had passed. Every afternoon, when released from attendance upon Madame Gilbert, the French girl would climb up to an appointed place on the hillside above the camp and there meet Willatopy. They were, she judged, safe from observation. Madame, when not afloat on the sea, stuck to the sea shore, or read books in the shady entrance to her tent. Never gratuitously active on foot, Madame rarely ascended the hill which formed the backbone of Tops Island. She was enjoying a spell of real physical laziness after her unremitting labours in the war.

The bright blue eyes and dark brown skin of Willatopy seemed to the depraved taste of Marie to be the most fascinating masculine combination in colour that she had ever enjoyed; when to them was added the glamour of Willie's succession to an historic peerage, Marie felt that for once in her lurid career she really loved. Willie, she assured him, occupied the whole of her capacious heart. There was no room, no room at all, for junior deck and engine-room officers. Marie knew her mistress. She was well aware that a threat from Madame was no vain play with words. She was convinced that the discovery of her intrigue with Willatopy would mean: first, confinement in the ever-rolling yacht at anchor—a nauseating prospect—and finally, her return to France with Madame as an accuser and relentless enemy. Yet she risked all to sport with Willatopy in the woods.

"That is unkind," said she. "You do not love Marie any more." Willatopy, who was lying at her feet, raised his face lazily. He permitted her, if she pleased, to bend over and kiss him. She did bend over, though conscious of some slight humiliation.

"What do you want?" asked Willatopy, rather crossly. "I have left my brown girls for you. When I was in Thursday Island, I would not look at them. I rejected one whom I used to love, and she wept bitterly. When I offered her a white man, John Clifford, she smacked his face. None of the brown girls would put up with John. All scorned him. He is a filthy little beast. For you, Marie, my white woman, I have turned my back on the brown girls. What more do you want?"

"I do not wish that you should go to England and leave me. If you go, Madame Gilbert will take me away."

"I have told you many times that I do not go to England."

"But you are a lord, the Lord of Topsham."

"I can be a Lord here on my Tops Island."

"I should like, Willie, to be the Lady of Tops Island."

"Well," said Willatopy, knitting his brows, "that is easy. When Madame and the yacht have sailed away, you shall stay here, and be my white Lady. My boys shall build you a fine hut thatched with sago palm."

"I don't think, Willie, that I care much for a hut. You are rich. You have the money of your father, and of your uncle, the late Lord. You can send for men, skilful men, and build a house on this island fit for a white woman and her—her—husband."

"I did not say anything about a husband," observed Willatopy drily.

"But Willie," urged Marie, "you are a grown man. Very soon you will want a home of your own and a wife who loves you. An English Lord must have a white wife, and here am I. You will never find a wife fonder or more beautiful than I would be."

"I do very well as I am," said Willie, philosophically.

Marie Lambert ground her teeth. She had thought to fascinate the brown Heir, and to twist him about her fingers. A marriage, at Murray or Thursday Island, would be as legal as a marriage at St. George's, Hanover Square. If she could prevail upon Willie to marry her now, before he learned the value of his peerage, she would become an English Lady, the Lady of Topsham. After that, there would be no more talk about a fine house on Tops Island. England, and English society, would be her new sphere of campaign.

She had not, I fancy, thought of this scheme at the beginning, or perhaps she would have been less complaisant. A discreet aloofness might have proved a more potent inducement to matrimony than the free love which she had offered. Marie, sitting there grinding her teeth, felt that she could hate Willatopy as savagely as a day or two ago she had loved him. If she had not also feared him, almost as much as she feared Madame Gilbert, she would have let loose her vixenish rage. It was perhaps a little late, but, as a new weapon, she affected a judicious propriety.

"I should not have met you—like this, Willie, if I had doubted your intention to marry me. White women, especially French women, are not like brown girls. They regard their—reputation. If you have been playing with me, I shall not meet you again—much though I love you."

Willatopy thoughtfully considered this new development. To him, her speech was just foolishness, but in his tolerant way he tried to understand it. In his own small world, wives were models of virtue, but girls—and widows—were not. Marie was making a fuss about something, though quite what it was he had no idea.

"One does not marry everybody," he said at last. He could think of no sentence more illuminating.

"I am not—everybody—or anybody," replied Marie with dignity. "I am a French lady, as good a lady as Madame Gilbert. When a man makes love, as you have done, to a French lady, she naturally thinks that he intends to marry her."

This was far over Willatopy's head. It is the woman who proposes marriage in the Straits, and the man who, after fall consideration, gives or withholds his assent. An amour, such as this one of his with Marie, had nothing to do with marriage as he understood it. A man married so that his wife might work for him. He could not picture the white Marie, in her pretty French clothes, working for him or anyone else. She was altogether charming to sport with, but as a wife quite inconceivable. He tried to explain his simple code to Marie. It was not easy, for neither of them had a full command of the English language. Their vocabularies were sufficient for everyday speech, or for love-making, but were incapable of expressing the deeper mysteries of social philosophy.

Marie gathered that Willatopy would not marry her because she could not work in his hut or in his plantation, and that he had no use for a wife who couldn't. If that was all——

"That is nothing," exclaimed she brightly. "That only means that we must not live in Tops Island. After we are married we will go to England where you will be a great Lord and I shall be a great Lady. I shall be Lady Topsham, and I will make Madame Gilbert crever with jealousy."

"But I am not going to England," observed Willatopy, stolidly. He had fully made up his mind not to marry Marie, and was quite capable of continuing his refusal indefinitely. If she turned from him in consequence, he would be grieved, but marry her he would not.

Rather bluntly, perhaps, he conveyed this determination to the perceptions of Marie Lambert.

Furious, she sprang up. Willatopy rose with her. She was about to rate him in voluble French when she remembered that he did not understand a dozen words of that beautiful language. And since she could not do justice to her emotions in English, she stood there gasping, tongue-tied.

Willie smiled, and took both her hands. She strained from him, but in his grip she was helpless. Slowly he drew her close, and bent his bright eyes upon hers. Thus he held her.

"Let me go," she muttered. "Your eyes shine. They make me faint."

"They shine like the sky at dawn," said Willatopy. "Go back to your tent, Marie, and meet me here to-morrow." He kissed her farewell, and, half dazed, she went without another word.

At the appointed hour next day she came again. Willie was late, and when at length, gracefully debonair, he strolled into the clearing, Marie raged furiously.

"I had not intended to come again," cried she, "and now I am sorry that I did."

"You could not keep away," replied the brown Sultan of Tops Island.

"BÊte," roared Marie, and burst into a passion of French, which broke uncomprehended about Willie's ears. She then tried English, but the language would not flow. It is a terrible thing for an angry woman to possess no vehicle of speech. Willatopy, quite unmoved, drew out a packet of cigarettes and lighted one. Since his definite recognition by Madame and the Humming Top as the new Lord Topsham, he had adopted his white holiday clothes as a regular island wear. Clifford and Marie had convinced him that it was improper for a great white lord to go about looking like a Hula savage. His suddenly acquired taste for cigarettes was satisfied by plundering the scanty store of the white slave John.

Marie Lambert plucked the cigarette from his mouth, and flung it down. His eyes lighted up, and he grappled her, crushing the thin white dress into her soft arms. Frightened, she struggled feebly. He kissed her, and she hung helpless in his arms.

"Don't be a fool, Marie," said Willatopy.

He put her down on the ground and lighted another cigarette. Marie, conquered, no longer attempted to suppress this mark of his indifference.

It was not until the time drew near when they must part that Marie returned to the topic of the previous day. Her tenure of Willatopy's affections was so insecure that no moment must be wasted if she were to rivet him to her by the bonds of matrimony.

"It shall be to-morrow," said she softly, patting the brown cheek, which was not far from her own.

"What will be to-morrow?" asked he lazily.

"We will start for Thursday Island in the yawl—and be married there."

"No," said he.

"Yes. Englishmen love French girls, and all of them will envy the Lord Topsham with his wife Marie."

"You could not work in my hut or in my garden. I am very rich, and do not work. But my wife must work very hard indeed."

Marie had been thinking over this aspect of Hula matrimony, and had her answer pat.

"You may take a brown girl as your working wife, if you please. She shall labour for both of us, you the Lord and me the white Lady."

"One time, one wife," replied Willatopy stolidly. "I would not take a brown girl to wife until after I had put you away from me."

"She need not be a real wife," explained Marie eagerly. "Just one who worked. I should be the real wife, of course."

Willatopy considered this proposal gravely. It had certain advantages, for, in his careless savage fashion, he loved the white Marie and her novel attractions. He was exceedingly reluctant to part with her. All this matrimonial fuss worried him, for he had some glimmering of the truth that an English marriage in Thursday Island—the kind of marriage which had bound his parents, and had made him the legitimate heir of Topsham—was something much more serious than the simple native ceremony of the Islands. It might not be easy to put away a Marie wedded to him in Thursday Island.

"My boys will build a hut here," said he at last, "and we will hold a marriage feast. I will take you then. That will be better than the English way."

"No," declared Marie positively, "that would be no more than—this. You could cast me off and go to England, and I should be left here alone on this hateful island."

"My mother and my sisters would be with you," said Willatopy haughtily.

"No. I must marry William, Lord Topsham, in Thursday Island, or—we must part, Willie. I was weak to-day, but I shall not come any more if you will not marry me."

Willatopy gritted his teeth, and Marie was nearer to receiving a hearty whipping than she had been since her nursery days. Nothing protected her except the vague stirrings of Willie's English blood. He would chastise his white slave, John, with unction, but his hand unaccountably shrank from striking this white woman who irritated him so grievously.

He began to speak in a halting fashion, and revealed to the anxiously listening woman the strange new thoughts which were struggling for expression in his awakening mind.

"John says that I must go to England. He says that if I send him away, others will come later. He says that an English Lord cannot live on an Island in the Straits; it is against the law, the English Law, and the Government will come for me. If I try to stay here they will put me in prison. He says that the English Lords are sent for by the King to go to London and help him to rule, and they can't refuse, unless they want to go to prison as rebels. That would be to disobey the King. I love the King, and would not disobey him. If he sends for me, then I must go.... I love you, Marie, but love has nothing to do with making you my wife. I don't want a wife. When the King sends for me he will send for William, Lord Topsham, not for my wife. You and Madame Gilbert are the only white women I have known, close. I want to see other white women, lots of them, before I marry a wife. John says that they will all be my slaves in England, and that I can take my pick among them. I should like that. Of course I could not pick great ladies like Madame Gilbert to be my slaves, at my pleasure, but there will be many others. Like you, Marie."

Marie raged, but that unlucky language difficulty hampered her freedom of speech.

"Madame Gilbert is not so very great," she got out at length. "She is my mistress, because she is rich, and because she saved me when I was in trouble in France. She is just an ordinary widow, not a real lady like I should be if you married me, Willie."

"What is that?" cried Willatopy, starting up. "Madame Gilbert a widow? She told me she had a big handsome husband who loved her very much. She told me so when I said that I would like to marry her. I was a boy then, and had not become Lord Topsham."

"Madame Gilbert is not truthful—like me. She says any old thing which suits her at the moment. Sometimes she tells men that she has a husband, sometimes that she is a widow. She is really a widow, I swear it to you. Her husband was killed in the war."

"How do you know?" asked Willatopy suspiciously. "I would believe Madame before you. She is a Queen, not a common thing like you. She cannot be a widow."

"She is," stated Marie positively, and left the assertion to sink into Willatopy's mind. She was horribly jealous of the boy's honest devotion to Madame Gilbert, and knew that widows were held in scant respect in the Torres Straits. Willie ranked his mother, once the wife of a white god, as altogether different from the ordinary run of brown widows, but she had been, so far, the one exception permitted by his social code. The simple savage mind does not like exceptions.

"No," said he at last. "I am sure that Madame has a big, handsome husband as she declared to me."

"No," shouted Marie.

"Marie," growled Willatopy, "I don't want to smack you, but if you say anything against Madame, I shall, hard."

"You love Madame better than you do me," grumbled Marie.

Willie had never analysed the various mental and physical emotions which are vaguely called love, and reflected upon this charge.

"I expect that I do," said he, arriving at a judgment.

Marie sprang to her feet.

"Que tu es bÊte," she roared, "bÊte comme un sauvage. You are the—the—limit. I go." She dashed away through the woods in a fury. Willatopy grinned as he watched her disappear. His first rapture in the conquest of Marie Lambert was quickly wearing thin, and though he did not wish to part with his white mistress, a little of her society went a long way.

"I wonder," he murmured, "if the she-devil speaks truth, and that Madame is a widow. I will ask her."

* * * * * * *

Madame was lying in a rest chair at the entrance to her tent when Marie arrived. She calmly surveyed the girl who came to a halt before her and awaited orders. She allowed Marie a reasonable amount of time off every afternoon, but on this occasion the maid had outstayed her leave.

"Where have you been?" asked Madame.

"I met the Misses Toppys," explained Marie, "and they detained me. I thought that you would wish me to show the young ladies every respect. I did not like to leave them before they desired to return."

"Quite so," said Madame drily. "I hope that you also show Lord Topsham every—respect."

Marie started; never before had Madame used Willatopy's title when speaking of him to her.

"Certainly, Madame. Whenever I meet his lordship, which is but seldom."

"In the future, it will be even less seldom," serenely observed Madame Gilbert. "The motor boat is waiting for the water to deepen upon the bar. When she leaves for the yacht you will take passage in her. And after that, my dear, it will be la belle France. With what pleasure you will revisit France after so long an exile!"

Marie howled, and grovelled at Madame's feet. "Not France," screamed she. "Any punishment except France."

"Marie," said Madame, unmoved. "You should have learned in these years of our association that I am not wholly a fool. My arm is long, and my eyes can penetrate the thickets—of Tops Island, for example. Yesterday I learned of the clearing in the woods where you have been meeting Lord Topsham. To-day I had you watched—when going and returning. Before, I suspected. Last time in France it was a German officer in hiding. Now it is the brown heir to an English peerage. Your tastes are catholic. They must be restrained, my dear, or they will get you into trouble. When early in the war I found you in Amiens with that German officer I had him haled forth and shot, but I concealed the identity of his associate. I believed your tearful story of innocence. You thought him a loyal Alsatian, didn't you? His accent, I remember, called for some little explanation. You have been a useful maid. I have given you every chance. I warned you, when first Lord Topsham—then the boy, Willatopy, our Pilot—came to us, what would happen if you played tricks with him. It is going to happen now. I shall accompany you to France and inform the civil authorities of the circumstances under which you were found by me four years ago at Amiens close to the fighting lines. The French are very hard upon those of their women who give shelter and comfort to enemy officers in hiding. The French are a susceptible race, yet much prettier women than you have been shot or hanged for smaller crimes than you committed. You will not find the Humming Top very comfortable. She rolls damnably at anchor. After two or three weeks of her you will become quite a hardened sailor. Then you will have leisure to reflect upon your sins and upon their punishment."

Marie sobbed out confessions and appeals at Madame's chair, but the heart of her mistress was harder than its oaken frame. Madame listened politely to the story of Marie's intrigue with Willatopy, and incredulously to her voluble promises of amendment.

"In any case," ended Marie, "I had done with him. He refuses to marry me."

"I thought that was the game," observed Madame. "It is ended, anyhow. And even if I had not tumbled to your carryings on, you would have failed. You could not have been legally married here, and Captain Ching has my orders to blockade the bay. The yawl, with the happy bride and bridegroom, would have been stopped on the way to the wedding. I have not come to the ends of the earth to be foiled by a Marie Lambert. And now, if you will put up your things, the boat will convey you to the Humming Top. For the rest of my stay here I shall dispense with the services of my maid."

At the last Marie showed the courage of her race. She rose, packed up her clothes, and went forth in the motor boat without another word. France was a long way off, and much might happen before she was carried thither to her doom. But the yacht was a very present horror, and Marie needed all her courage to face confinement within its heaving frames. Still she went quietly without another word of wasted appeal. At the boat's side she turned and bowed deferentially to her mistress.

"Au revoir, Marie," said Madame.

"Au 'voir, Madame," said the maid.

Madame Gilbert watched the boat buzz away, and nodded approvingly.

"She has pluck," she murmured. "That is much. We will reconsider the second part of the programme. But for the present it shall hang like a sharp sword over Marie's head."

Marie watched Madame standing there on the shore, and smiled grimly.

"At least," thought she, "I have told Willie that his goddess is a widow. That will take a bit of the gilt and wings off her." From which it would appear that Marie, though subdued and humbled, was not in the least repentant.