He got up, took some native fishing-tackle off the window-sill and made for the door.
"I won't intrude again. If you'll not be needing the boat to-day for the children, I suppose you can have no objection if I take Kingfisher, my fellow-sinner, and go fishing."
She saw the pair of them from her window, plunging into the jungle, while she was washing Thu Daw.
The little chap was beginning to say whole sentences in English, though he seldom honoured anybody but John with his conversation.
Drearily, Ferlie blamed herself for the reticence which had prevented her from attempting to make clear her reasons for admitting territory from which all but Divine Love must be locked out. She was steadied by that conviction. And Cyprian would come back. She must try and satisfy him before seeking satisfaction anywhere herself.
CHAPTER XIX
Cyprian took the motor-boat to a further point than he had originally intended choosing.
Kingfisher, who had fastened his canoe behind it, with forethought concerning creeks which did his intelligence justice, found his companion, even for a foreigner, exceedingly stupid over the fishing. Cyprian, on the other hand, was regretting proper tackle, and finding Kingfisher's methods irritatingly childish.
Everybody in the islands was childish. Jellybrand with his weak chin and his goggles, and his ridiculous tuft of hair sticking out at the back, and his lisping faith; the natives with their infantile intellects, not half a degree removed from John's, and now Ferlie with her clouded illogical trust in the differing satellites of a long-dead Teacher, who, to Cyprian's mind, had shown less courage in deciding the doubtful question of the Life-to-Come than had the Buddha. Cyprian recalled the words of one modern writer, "Buddhism is the religion of men; not of children." Assuredly, had the Christ only professed to preach the religion of children. Well, Ferlie was a child. She would outgrow it, and he, in the light of his extra experience, must be patient.