A terrible thing was happening. Everyone was going away except Mrs. Thompson.
“Back soon, Edward,” said Emily. “I must take Toby Ross to the map and make him admit that New York is further west than Valparaiso.”
Two by two they went into another room, Emily and Captain Ross, Mrs. Hoskins and Mr. Thompson. Mrs. Thompson was unable to move since she could not, of course, cross the room unescorted by a man. She sat down tenderly beside Edward.
“It is so hot ...” she leaned forward with her face near his. The heat, he gathered, was a secret between him and her. “It is so hard on me to come into this heat. I suffer so from heat.”
“Emily looks thinner too,” said Edward. He felt ashamed because a face that was not Emily’s was so close to his.
Mrs. Thompson looked aggrieved. “No, but it is particularly difficult for me. People don’t seem to understand how acutely I suffer in this damp heat. I have had bronchitis twice in the last year. My husband is in despair.”
“She expects me to love her the more for her bronchitis,” thought Edward. He sat and perspired. “Why live in India, then?” it occurred to him presently to say fretfully. “Why live at all?” he might have said.
“My whole life is bound up in India. My dearest friends—you don’t happen to know J. L. Wilkinson of the Tea Commission, do you? Funny, I get on so much better with men than with women.... In India we know how to live and enjoy life.... One’s servants adore one—look how difficult the labor problem is in England—We had a house in St. Leonards when we were on leave.... I had to open the front door myself. I often thought how horrified my friends in India would have been ... a fragile person like me....”
Here was Emily coming, leading the procession. “I was right. Toby was wrong.”