"He cannot be jealous of women, Mameena!"
"Oh, women! Piff! I do not care for women; they are very unkind to me,
because--because--well, perhaps you can guess why, Macumazahn," she
answered, glancing at her own reflection in a little travelling
looking-glass that hung from the woodwork of the wagon, for I had been
using it to brush my hair, and smiled very sweetly.
"At least you have your husband, Mameena, and I thought that perhaps by
this time--"
She held up her hand.
"My husband! Oh, I would that I had him not, for I hate him,
Macumazahn; and as for the rest--never! The truth is that I never cared
for any man except one whose name you may chance to remember,
Macumazahn."
"I suppose you mean Saduko--" I began.
"Tell me, Macumazahn," she inquired innocently, "are white people very
stupid? I ask because you do not seem as clever as you used to be. Or
have you perhaps a bad memory?"
Now I felt myself turning red as the sky behind me, and broke in
hurriedly:
"If you did not like your husband, Mameena, you should not have married
him. You know you need not unless you wished."
"When one has only two thorn bushes to sit on, Macumazahn, one chooses
that which seems to have the fewest prickles, to discover sometimes that
they are still there in hundreds, although one did not see them. You
know that at length everyone gets tired of standing."
"Is that why you have taken to walking, Mameena? I mean, what are you
doing here alone?"
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