who refused to be cured, she had turned over, with a shrug, to her husband.  This one was more difficult.  Of men of Everett’s traditions and education she had known but few; but she recognized the type.  This young man was no failure in life, no derelict, no outcast flying the law, or a scandal, to hide in the jungle.  He was what, in her Maxim days, she had laughed at as an aristocrat.  He knew her Paris as she did not know it:  its history, its art.  Even her language he spoke more correctly than her husband or herself.  She knew that at his home there must be many women infinitely more attractive, more suited to him, than herself:  women of birth, of position; young girls and great ladies of the other world.  And she knew, also, that, in his present state, at a nod from her he would cast these behind him and carry her into the wilderness.  More quickly than she anticipated, Everett proved she did not overrate the forces that compelled him.

The excursion to the rapids was followed by a second dinner on board the Nigeria.  But now, as on the previous night, Everett fell into sullen silence.  He ate nothing, drank continually, and with his eyes devoured the woman.  When coffee had been served, he left the others at table, and with Madame Ducret slowly paced the deck.  As they passed out of the reach of the lights, he drew her to the rail, and stood in front of her.

“I am not quite mad,” he said, “but you have got to come with me.”

To Everett all he added to this sounded sane and final.  He told her that this was one of those miracles when the one woman and the one man who were predestined to meet had met.  He told her he had wished to marry a girl at home, but that he now saw that the desire was the fancy of a school-boy.  He told her he was rich, and offered her the choice of returning to the Paris she loved, or of going deeper into the jungle.  There he would set up for her a principality, a state within the State.  He would defend her against all comers.  He would make her the Queen of the Congo.

“I have waited for you thousands of years!” he told her.  His voice was hoarse, shaken, and thick.  “I love you as men loved women in the Stone Age—­fiercely, entirely.  I will not be denied.  Down here we are cave people; if you fight me, I will club you and drag you to my cave.  If others fight for you, I will kill them.  I love you,” he panted, “with all my soul, my mind, my body, I love you!  I will not let you go!”

Madame Ducret did not say she was insulted, because she did not feel insulted.  She did not call to her husband for help, because she did not need his help, and because she knew that the ex-wrestler could break Everett across his knee.  She did not even withdraw her hands, although Everett drove the diamonds deep into her fingers.

“You frighten me!” she pleaded.  She was not in the least frightened.  She only was sorry that this one must be discarded among the incurables.