"If your man had clasped the last of you, and if all of you were
known to him as an old story, yet, did you sing that one song, as
I have sung it, yet would his arms again go out to you and his
eyes grow warm with the old mad lights. Do you see? Do you
understand, little wife-woman?"

Saxon could only nod, her lips too dry for speech.

"The golden koa, the king of woods," Mercedes was crooning over
the instrument. "The ukulele--that is what the Hawaiians call it,
which means, my dear, the jumping flea. They are golden-fleshed,
the Hawalians, a race of lovers, all in the warm cool of the
tropic night where the trade winds blow."

Again she struck the strings. She sang in another language, which
Saxon deemed must be French. It was a gayly-devilish lilt,
tripping and tickling. Her large eyes at times grew larger and
wilder, and again narrowed in enticement and wickedness. When she
ended, she looked to Saxon for a verdict.

"I don't like that one so well," Saxon said.

Mercedes shrugged her shoulders.

"They all have their worth, little infant-woman with so much to
learn. There are times when men may be won with wine. There are
times when men may be won with the wine of song, so queer they
are. La la, so many ways, so many ways. There are your pretties,
my dear, your dainties. They are magic nets. No fisherman upon
the sea ever tangled fish more successfully than we women with