Thought Ferlie of the declaration that whom the gods love they chasten.
"Perhaps, Cyprian, because you are so worth while to try and teach things to."
But this was cold and cryptic comfort and she knew it.
In the night she heard him restlessly passing from room to room till, finally, his footsteps paused on the verandah. She slipped a wrap about her shoulders and went to him where he leant against the open trellis-work of the porch, astir with shivering leaves.
His face, clear-cut against a sheet of trembling moonlight, was drawn and ghastly, and when she touched his arm his whole body started violently.
"Cyprian," said Ferlie sharply, "Can't you take your medicine like a man?"
The taunt stung him to an effort of self-control.
"It's that damned frangipani," he told her apologetically, "And it is part of Burma—and so of my life henceforth—eternally."
She slipped a hand in his and drew him down the garden-walk till they stood beneath the trees, stiff with their own sweetness.
"You have got to face that scent, here and now. You have got to think of it for what it is: a rich passionate fragrance embodying all that was generous and brave and joyous in the spirit of Hla Byu. That is what she would have wished, Cyprian. That is what she is wishing now."