F----, in ---- Street. My goodness! I WAS glad to leave--and so were
the Misses F---- to see me go. They said I was downright wicked,
because one day I tore the dress off a girl who said my skin was
tallowy, like my name. When I came back to Tahiti my guardian took me
to Raiatea, where he had a business, and said I must marry him, the
beast!"

"Oh, shut up, Taoi!" growled the deep-voiced Pallou, who sat beside me.
"What the deuce does this man care about your doings?"

"Shut up yourself, you brute! Can't I talk to any one I like, you
turtle-headed fool? Am I not a good wife to you, you great, over-grown
savage? Won't you let a poor devil of a woman talk a little? Look here,
Tom, do you see that flash jacket he's wearing? Well, I sat up two
nights making that--for him to come over here with, and show off before
the Rotoava girls. Go and die, you ----!"

The big half-caste looked at Tom and then at me. His lips twitched with
suppressed passion, and a dangerous gleam shone a moment in his dark
eyes.

"Here, I say, Taloi," broke in Tom, good-humouredly, "just go easy a
bit with Ted. As for him a-looking at any of the girls here, I knows
better--and so do you."

Taloi's laugh, clear as the note of a bird, answered him, and then she
said she was sorry, and the lines around Pallou's rigid mouth softened
down. It was easy to see that this grim half-white loved, for all her
bitter tongue, the bright creature who sat in the big chair.