Susan was no longer annoyed with her people for their unexpected appearance. Now that it had been decided that they were to live by themselves and do something to earn their living, she felt glad that they had come to Panama. They would not be very far from her; she could go to see them fairly often; the old associations, severed when she left Jamaica, were renewed once more. With her elbows on the table and her entwined fingers supporting her chin, she watched them eat with a pleasant glow of hospitality. “Tell me all about home,” she said. “You ever see Maria?”

“No,” said Catherine; “but I meet Hezekiah one day, an’ him tell me that Maria hear that you married: somebody write from Colon to tell her. She will never get a man to put a ring on her finger. You ever see Tom an’ Jones since you married, Sue?”

“No; I don’t think them ever come up this way; an’ since I married, going eight weeks now, I never leave Culebra once.”

“Jones never write you?” asked her aunt.

“No! Him couldn’t do that. I have nothing more to do wid him.”

“I never did like dat young man,” said Mr. Proudleigh with grave deliberation. “He talk too much, an’ him always using big words dat I couldn’t understand. I never thoughted that you would be happy with him, Sue.”

“Did Jones ever do you anything, pupa?” asked Susan sharply.

“Me? No. Him couldn’t do me anyt’ing. I wouldn’t make him take a liberty wid me!”

“An’ when you used to borrow a shillin’ from him every now an’ then, behind my back, though you know you couldn’t pay him back, he ever refused you?”

This little matter of the loans Mr. Proudleigh had hitherto regarded as an entirely private business arrangement between Samuel Josiah and himself; indeed, he had always prefaced his request for a loan with a speech on the wisdom of not letting one’s left hand know what one’s right hand did. He had never failed to intimate clearly that Susan was one of those symbolical left hands that had always better be kept in ignorance of all important financial transactions between man and man. But now that, to his intense surprise, Susan mentioned his past obligations to Jones, he asserted with assurance, “I goin’ to pay him back every farden. I will write an’ send de money.” An excellent resolution, though he did not trouble to mention when he would write or where the money was to come from.

“Well, seeing that Jones was kind to you in Jamaica, I don’t see why y’u should say you don’t like him,” Susan continued. “We didn’t get on too well sometimes in Colon, for him was a little wild an’ he got into bad company. That is why I leave him an’ married Mackenzie. But I don’t ’ave anything to say against him, for him didn’t stint me in anything, an’ him never ill-treat me.”

“I always liked Mr. Jones, though I never borrow any money from him,” said Miss Proudleigh untruthfully, pleased at being able to get even with her brother for his recent attempt to establish her age at fifty. “He was always polite an’ gentlemanly.”

Mr. Proudleigh had in the meantime filled his mouth to its utmost capacity, with a view of showing that he could not without grave inconvenience take any further part in a conversation which was becoming unpleasantly personal. Catherine had finished eating. Seeing this, Susan invited her into the kitchen, on the excuse that she wished to prepare something for Mackenzie.

“You have it dull, Sue?” asked Catherine, as soon as the two found themselves alone.

“Lord, yes! Every day it is one thing over an’ over. I know some of de people here, but you can’t make a dance when you like, or ’ave much merriment.”

“But you have you’ husband.”

Susan twisted her mouth slightly, a facial contortion which Catherine interpreted as meaning that Mackenzie’s existence did not contribute materially to making life bright at Culebra.

“Mac is all right enough,” Susan explained, “but him is very quiet an’ serious.”

After a moment’s hesitation, she added:

“Jones was livelier.”

“Then why you leave Jones?”

Susan let the question pass.

“Marriage is dull,” she said: “you are not you’ own mistress. It is true you ’ave a honourable position, but what is the good of that if it don’t make you any happier?”

With unconscious inconsistency she continued. “Sam promised to marry me when we was at sea, but he wouldn’t do it afterwards. It would have been better for him if he did keep his word.”

Catherine was looking at her narrowly as she spoke. She saw quite cle............