"But with whom can I see that world?" she said with sudden passion.
"Money--I have it. I don't want it. I want to be loved. I want a man.
What shall I do? I cannot marry a native, for they do not think as I
do. I--I dread to marry a Frenchman. You know _le droit du mari_? A
French wife has no freedom."

I cited Madame Bapp, who chastised her spouse.

"He is no man, that _criquet!_" she said scornfully.

"I would be better off not to marry, if I had a real man who loved me,
and who would take me across the sea! What am I saying? The nuns
would be shocked. I do not know--oh, I do not know what it is that
tears at me! But I want to see the world, and I want a man to love me."

"Your islands here are more beautiful than any of the developed
countries," I said. "There are many thieves there, too, to take your
money."

"I have read that," she answered, "and I am not afraid. I am afraid
of nothing. I want to know a different life than here. I will at
least go to Tahiti. I am tired of the convent. The nuns talk always
of religion, and I am young, and I am half French. We die young,
most of us, and I have had no pleasure."

I saw her black eyes, as she puffed her cigarette, shining with her
vision. Some man would put tears in them soon, I thought, if she
chose that path.

Would she be happy in Tahiti? If she could find one of her own kind,