To the foreign colony it became evident that, in the side of President Ham, Billy was a thorn, sharp, irritating, virulent, and that at any moment Ham might pluck that thorn and Billy would leave Hayti in haste, and probably in handcuffs.  This was evident to Billy, also, and the prospect was most disquieting.  Not because he loved Hayti, but because since he went to lodge at the cafe of the Widow Ducrot, he had learned to love her daughter Claire, and Claire loved him.

On the two thousand dollars due him from Ham they plotted to marry.  This was not as great an adventure as it might appear.  Billy knew that from the Wilmot people he always was sure of a salary, and one which, with such an excellent housekeeper as was Claire, would support them both.  But with his two thousand dollars as capital they could afford to plunge; they could go upon a honeymoon; they need not dread a rainy day, and, what was of greatest importance, they need not delay.  There was good reason against delay, for the hand of the beautiful Claire was already promised.  The Widow Ducrot had promised it to Paillard, he of the prosperous commission business, the prominent embonpoint, and four children.  Monsieur Paillard possessed an establishment of his own, but it was a villa in the suburbs; and so, each day at noon, for his dejeune he left his office and crossed the street to the Cafe Ducrot.  For five years this had been his habit.  At first it was the widow’s cooking that attracted him, then for a time the widow herself; but when from the convent Claire came to assist her mother in the cafe, and when from a lanky, big-eyed, long-legged child she grew into a slim, joyous, and charming young woman, she alone was the attraction, and the Widower Paillard decided to make her his wife.  Other men had made the same decision; and when it was announced that between Claire and the widower a marriage had been “arranged,” the clerks in the foreign commission houses and the agents of the steamship lines drowned their sorrow in rum and ran the house flags to half-staff.  Paillard himself took the proposed alliance calmly.  He was not an impetuous suitor.  With Widow Ducrot he agreed that Claire was still too young to marry, and to himself kept the fact that to remarry he was in no haste.  In his mind doubts still lingered.  With a wife, young enough to be one of his children, disorganizing the routine of his villa, would it be any more comfortable than he now found it?  Would his eldest daughter and her stepmother dwell together in harmony?  The eldest daughter had assured him that so far as she was concerned they would not; and, after all, in marrying a girl, no matter how charming, without a dot, and the daughter of a boarding-house keeper, no matter how respectable, was he not disposing of himself too cheaply?  These doubts assailed Papa Paillard; these speculations were in his mind.  And while he speculated Billy acted.