A week later, Bisesa taxed Trejago with the flirtation. She
understood no gradations and spoke openly. Trejago laughed and
Bisesa stamped her little feet--little feet, light as marigold
flowers, that could lie in the palm of a man's one hand.
Much that is written about "Oriental passion and impulsiveness" is
exaggerated and compiled at second-hand, but a little of it is true;
and when an Englishman finds that little, it is quite as startling
as any passion in his own proper life. Bisesa raged and stormed,
and finally threatened to kill herself if Trejago did not at once
drop the alien Memsahib who had come between them. Trejago tried to
explain, and to show her that she did not understand these things
from a Western standpoint. Bisesa drew herself up, and said simply:
"I do not. I know only this--it is not good that I should have made
you dearer than my own heart to me, Sahib. You are an Englishman.
I am only a black girl"--she was fairer than bar-gold in the Mint--
"and the widow of a black man."
Then she sobbed and said: "But on my soul and my Mother's soul, I
love you.
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