'You're an ugly, little fat man, Guy, but you've got charm. I can't help loving you.'
A wave of emotion swept over her and her eyes filled with tears. She saw his face contorted for a moment with the extremity of his feeling and his voice was a little shaky when he answered.
'It's a terrible thing for me to have married a woman who's mentally deficient,' he said.
She chuckled. It was the characteristic answer which she would have liked him to make.
It was hard to realize that nine months ago she had never even heard of him. She had met him at a small place by the seaside where she was spending a month's holiday with her mother. Doris was a secretary to a Member of Parliament. Guy was home on leave. They were staying at the same hotel, and he quickly told her all about himself. He was born in Sembulu, where his father had served for thirty years under the second Sultan, and on leaving school he had entered the same service. He was devoted to the country.
'After all, England's a foreign land to me,' he told her. 'My home's Sembulu.'
And now it was her home too. He asked her to marry him at the end of the month's holiday. She had known he was going to, and had decided to refuse him. She was her widowed mother's only child and she could not go so far away from her, but when the moment came she did not quite know what happened to her, she was carried off her feet by an unexpected emotion, and she accepted him. They had been settled now for four months in the little outstation of which he was in charge. She was very happy.
She told him once that she had quite made up her mind to refuse him.
'Are you sorry you didn't?' he asked, with a merry smile in his twinkling blue eyes.
'I should have been a perfect fool if I had. What a bit of luck that fate or chance or whatever it was stepped in and took the matter entirely out of my hands!'
Now she heard Guy clatter down the steps to the bath-house. He was a noisy fellow and even with bare feet he could not be quiet. But he uttered an exclamation. He said two or three words in the local dialect and she could not understand. Then she heard someone speaking to him, not aloud, but in a sibilant whisper. Really it was too bad of people to waylay him when he was going to have his bath. He spoke again and though his voice was low she could hear that he was vexed. The other voice was raised now; it was a woman's. Doris supposed it was someone who had a complaint to make. It was like a Malay woman to come in that surreptitious way. But she was evidently getting very little from Guy, for she heard him say: Get out. That at all events she understood, and then she heard him bolt the door. There was a sound of the water he was throwing over himself (the bathing arrangements still amused her, the bath-houses were under the bedrooms, on the ground; you had a large tub of water and you sluiced yourself with a little tin pail) and in a couple of minutes he was back again in the dining-room. His hair was still wet. They sat down to luncheon.
'It's lucky I'm not a suspicious or a jealous person,' she laughed. 'I don't know that I should altogether approve of your having animated conversations with ladies while you're having your bath.'
His face, usually so cheerful, had borne a sullen look when he came in, but now it brightened.
'I wasn't exactly pleased to see her.'
'So I judged by the tone of your voice. In fact, I thought you were rather short with the young person.'
'Damned cheek, waylaying me like that!'
'What did she want?'
'Oh, I don't know. It's a woman from the kampong. She's had a row with her husband or something.'
'I wonder if it's the same one who was hanging about this morning.'
He frowned a little.
'Was there someone hanging about?'
'Yes, I went into your dressing-room to see that everything was nice and tidy, and then I went down to the bath-house. I saw someone slink out of the door as I went down the steps and when I looked out I saw a woman standing there.'
'Did you speak to her?'
'I asked her what she wanted and she said something, but I couldn't understand.'
'I'm not going to have all sorts of stray people prowling about here,' he said. 'They've got no right to come.'
He smiled, but Doris, with the quick perception of a woman in love, noticed that he smiled only with his lips, not as usual with his eyes also, and wondered what it was that troubled him.
'What have you been doing this morning?' he asked.
'Oh, nothing much. I went for a little walk.'
'Through the kampong?'
'Yes. I saw a man send a chained monkey up a tree to pick coconuts, which rather thrilled me.'
'It's rather a lark, isn't it?'
'Oh, Guy, there were two little boys watching him who were much whiter than the others. I wondered if they were half-castes. I spoke to them, but they didn't know a word of English.'
'There are two or three half-caste children in the kampong,' he answered.
'Who do they belong to?'
'Their mother is one of the village girls.'
'Who is their father?'
'Oh, my dear, that's the sort of question we think it a little dangerous to ask out here.' He paused. 'A lot of fellows have native wives, and then when they go home or marry they pension them off and send them back to their village.'
Doris was silent. The indifference with which he spoke seemed a little callous to her. There was almost a frown on her frank, open, pretty English face when she replied.
'But what about the children?'
'I have no doubt they're properly provided for. Within his means, a man generally sees that there's enough money to have them decently educated. They get jobs as clerks in a government office, you know; they're all right.'
She gave him a slightly rueful smile.
'You can't expect me to think it's a very good system.'
'You mustn't be too hard,' he smiled back.
'I'm not hard. But I'm thankful you never had a Malay wife. I should have hated it. Just think if those two little brats were yours.'
The boy changed their plates. There was never much variety in their menu. They started luncheon with river fish, dull and insipid, so that a good deal of tomato ketchup was needed to make it palatable, and then went on to some kind of stew. Guy poured Worcester Sauce over it.
'The old Sultan didn't think it was a white woman's country,' he said presently. 'He rather encouraged people to-keep house with native girls. Of course things have changed now. The country's perfectly quiet and I suppose we know better how to cope with the climate.'
'But, Guy, the eldest of those boys wasn't more than seven or eight and the other was about five.'
'It's awfully lonely on an outstation. Why, often one doesn't see another white man for six months on end. A fellow comes out here when he's only a boy.' He gave her that charming smile of his which transfigured his round, plain face. 'There are excuses, you know.'
She always found that smile irresistible. It was his best argument. Her eyes grew once more soft and tender.
'I'm sure there are.' She stretched her hand across the little table and put it on his. 'I'm very lucky to have caught you so young. Honestly, it would upset me dreadfully if I were told that you had lived like that.'
He took her hand and pressed it.
'Are you happy here, darling?'
'Desperately.'
She looked very cool and fresh in her linen frock. The heat did not distress her. She had no more than the prettiness of youth, though her brown eyes were fine; but she had a pleasing frankness of expression, and her dark, short hair was neat and glossy. She gave you the impression of a girl of spirit and you felt sure that the Member of Parliament for whom she worked had in her a very competent secretary.
'I loved the country at once,' she said. 'Although I'm alone so much I don't think I've ever once felt lonely.'
Of course she had read novels about the Malay Archipelago and she had formed an impression of a sombre land with great ominous rivers and a silent, impenetrable jungle. When a little coasting steamer set them down at the mouth of the river, where a large boat, manned by a dozen Dyaks, was waiting to take them to the station, her breath was taken away by the beauty, friendly rather than awe-inspiring, of the scene. It had a gaiety, like the joyful singing