“That particular interior wasn’t much good—eternal rice-fields, and little villages, one just like another, full of little people. The vegetation was something you couldn’t dream, even on hashish, but I’m dead used to vegetation. I nosed around for a few days, and then decided to quit the island entirely. I had engagements elsewhere, if I chose to think so. Anyhow, I wanted something doing. So I went back to Soerabaya. You get boats from there all over.
“They said at the hotel that the Dorriens were leaving the next day. I didn’t look them up; but when I came down to dinner, Mrs. Dorrien was in her place, waiting for her husband. She beckoned to me and smiled, and I had to go over, though she looked more like a Frenchwoman than ever, and I was more a sweep than usual. I had to go; but I went thinking what a damn subtle thing marriage is at home, and how glad I was to be single. There are other sides to it, of course; but that’s the permanent one. Think of being married to a woman who would dress like that for an undercooked, half-caste dinner in a steaming Soerabaya hotel! Think, that is, of what she must be like at close range. She made me sit down.
“‘We are leaving to-morrow, Mr. Hoyting.’
“‘Sorry.’ I couldn’t screw out more.
“‘Yes. We’ve had our mail. We have to go.’ She straightened her shoulders and swept the room with a bored look, as if it were a ballroom full of men who danced badly. I didn’t know whether she was lying about the mail or not. I never get letters, thank God! I haven’t any address. What was certain was that I did not want her to tell me what was in their mail. I sidestepped.
“‘I don’t suppose Soerabaya will soon see the like of that dress again, Mrs. Dorrien.’ It was the most civilized thing I’d seen in a long time, though of course I don’t frequent table d’hôtes in most places. Anyhow, you know how colonial Dutch women get themselves up. ‘Aren’t you afraid the lizards will spoil it?’
“‘This rag?’ The ‘rag’ was gold-colored, as she was, and her laugh clinked like gold. ‘I shall give it to the stewardess if she is half decent to me. We shall have to stop in Paris on the way back. I haven’t had so much as a new sarong since we left America. My clothes are faded, tattered, fly-blown, tarnished with the sea.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Is it really so long since you’ve seen a well-dressed woman? Surely in India—’ That was the best she could do for badinage, and she looked uneasily towards the door as she spoke.
“Suddenly Dorrien appeared in the door. She was silent through our greetings, though I thought she watched him. Whatever it was would break before morning, if it wasn’t already at that instant giving way. They hadn’t many hours’ grace, those two. Why the devil hadn’t I stayed in some undiscoverable, soaking little basket-hovel in the nearest village until the next morning? I didn’t know the people, I didn’t like them; but both of them would cling to me because I was white and because they couldn’t agree about anything in the world. I’ve always wished I had stayed away twenty-four hours more, that time—always. There was no reason under high heaven why I should be in it. And they were nice people, mind you; and neither one of them meant to be a cad. Why, there was nothing either one of them wanted that wasn’t perfectly decent and desirable in itself. They only wanted different things for each other, with the best conscience in the world. And people go on marrying, every day!
“‘I hear you’re going, Dorrien.’ There was no use in trying to be irrelevant. They would have turned any remark into a comment on themselves.
“‘Did Agatha tell you so?’