It was about nine o'clock. As we approached the hotel, which was only a short distance from the office of The Lantern, it pleased me as a happy omen that somewhere within those fragrant, moonlit gardens a band began to play most beautifully.
Mr. Campbell took me to the room of the girl whose place I was to take, and who was also from Quebec. She had already gone to bed, but she rose to let me in. Mr. Campbell merely knocked hard on the door and said:
"Here's Miss Ascough. You should have met her," and angrily shoved me in, so it seemed to me.
Miss Foster, her hair screwed up in curl-papers, after looking at me only a moment, said in a tired, complaining voice, like that of a sick person, that I had better get to bed right away; and then she got into bed, and turned her face to the wall. I tried to draw her out a bit while undressing, but to all my questions she returned monosyllabic answers. I put out the light, and crept into bed beside her. The last thing she said to me, and very irritably, was:
"Keep to your own side of the bed."
I slept fairly well, considering the oppressiveness of the heat, but I awoke once when something buzzed against my face.
"What's that?" I cried, sitting up in bed.
She murmured crossly:
"Oh, for heaven's sake lie down! I haven't slept a wink for a century. You'll have to get used to Jamaica bugs and scorpions. They ought to have screens in the windows!"
After that I slept with the sheet over my head.