Leaving the workers rolling lushishi ropes between the palm of their hands and the flat of their thighs, with orders to make a certain length before they knocked off for the night, she started in search of Dick to tell him she was going back to Archie. She dreaded the task before her. Her generosity shrank from the wreck she must work in Dick's dreams. That morning she had had to sacrifice her pride; now Dick's romance was the victim. Her days seemed a string of unendurable tasks.
Somehow she had mismanaged her offer to Archie. Instead of relieving him she had added to his distress. And the news she had for Dick, in its nature, carried nothing but pain. She scourged her imagination for some means to soften the blow.
As she meditated she caught sight of Dick's tall white-clad figure on one of the mounds that marked where the monastery had stood. She noticed that he had listened to Archie's monosyllabic advice, not to go far afield without his gun, as the rocks might harbour leopards. 'That's where those two rounds come in,' Archie had muttered.
She shouted to Dick, but the distance absorbed her voice. Forgetting fear of the ruins in dislike for her mission, she clambered up the shattered stairway.
Dick was plainly glad to see her. She had not been near him since dinner the night before, and she was struck by the change. He seemed to have filled out to the dimensions of his old care-free self. The storm of panic and jealousy had passed and left no mark, for Dick was one of those fortunate beings who can emerge on the far side of the Valley of the Shadow with an unimpaired flow of small talk.
I've just seen a water-spout,' he told her.
Norah examined him with wonder. His eyes were clear and happy, his manner without embarrassment, his bearing debonair—the Dick she had known and loved. He seemed unaffected by the heat, his hair well brushed and white clothes spotless and tidy. With his white topee on his head and the Mauser in his hand, he looked, she told him, like the frontispiece of a South Sea novel.
Where was the water-spout, she asked him. It was over on the far side, he said, a wisp of opaque mist joining the lake with a cloud. Snow-white at its foot; grey where it met the cloud.
'A pillar?' asked Norah, putting off the moment she dreaded.
'No, it sort of trailed. Wide at the base and the top; pinched in at the middle.'