Alone, alone, in the sea of life enisled! The pain was so great that he struck his fist against a tree, jarring his arm and splitting two knuckles. He must go back to Kyauktada. It was folly, for barely a fortnight had passed since the scene between them, and his only chance was to give her time to forget it. Still, he must go back. He could not stay any longer in this deadly place, alone with his thoughts among the endless, mindless leaves.
A happy thought occurred to him. He could take Elizabeth the leopard-skin that was being cured for her in the jail. It would be a pretext for seeing her, and when one comes bearing gifts one is generally listened to. This time he would not let her cut him short without a word. He would explain, extenuate—make her realise that she had been unjust to him. It was not right that she should condemn him because of Ma Hla May, whom he had turned out of doors for Elizabeth’s own sake. Surely she must forgive him when she heard the truth of the story? And this time she should hear it; he would force her to listen to him if he had to hold her by the arms while he did it.
He went back the same evening. It was a twenty-mile journey, by rutted cart-tracks, but Flory decided to march by night, giving the reason that it was cooler. The servants almost mutinied at the idea of a night-march, and at the very last moment old Sammy collapsed in a semi-genuine fit and had to be plied with gin before he could start. It was a moonless night. They made their way by the light of lanterns, in which Flo’s eyes gleamed like emeralds and the bullocks’ eyes like moonstones. When the sun was up the servants halted to gather sticks and cook breakfast, but Flory was in a fever to be at Kyauktada, and he hurried ahead. He had no feeling of tiredness. The thought of the leopard-skin had filled him with extravagant hopes. He crossed the glittering river by sampan and went straight to Dr Veraswami’s bungalow, getting there about ten.
The doctor invited him to breakfast, and—having shooed the women into some suitable hiding-place—took him into his own bathroom so that he could wash and shave. At breakfast the doctor was very excited and full of denunciations of ‘the crocodile’; for it appeared that the pseudo-rebellion was now on the point of breaking out. It was not till after breakfast that Flory had an opportunity to mention the leopard-skin.
‘Oh, by the way, doctor. What about that skin I sent to the jail to be cured? Is it done yet?’
‘Ah——’ said the doctor in a slightly disconcerted manner, rubbing his nose. He went inside the house—they were breakfasting on the veranda, for the doctor’s wife had protested violently against Flory being brought indoors—and came back in a moment with the skin rolled up in a bundle.
‘Ass a matter of fact——’ he began, unrolling it.
‘Oh, doctor!’
The skin had been utterly ruined. It was as stiff as cardboard, with the leather cracked and the fur discoloured and even rubbed off in patches. It also stank abominably. Instead of being cured, it had been converted into a piece of rubbish.
‘Oh, doctor! What a mess they’ve made of it! How the devil did it happen?’
‘I am so sorry, my friend! I wass about to apologise. It wass the best we could do. There iss no one at the jail who knows how to cure skins now.’
‘But, damn it, that convict used to cure them so beautifully!’
‘Ah, yes. But he iss gone from us these three weeks, alas.’
‘Gone? I thought he was doing seven years?’
‘What? Did you not hear, my friend? I thought you knew who it wass that used to cure the skins. It wass Nga Shwe O.’
‘Nga Shwe O?’
‘The dacoit who escaped with U Po Kyin’s assistance.’
‘Oh, hell!’
The mishap had daunted him dreadfully. Nevertheless, in the afternoon, having bathed and put on a clean suit, he went up to the Lackersteens’ house, at about four. It was very early to call, but he wanted to make sure of catching Elizabeth before she went down to the Club. Mrs Lackersteen, who had been asleep and was not prepared for visitors, received him with an ill grace, not even asking him to sit down.
‘I’m afraid Elizabeth isn’t down yet. She’s dressing to go out riding. Wouldn’t it be better if you left a message?’
‘I’d like to see her, if you don’t mind. I’ve brought her the skin of that leopard we shot together.’
Mrs Lackersteen left him standing up in the drawing-room, feeling lumpish and abnormally large as one does at such times. However, she fetched Elizabeth, taking the opportunity of whispering to her outside the door: ‘Get rid of that dreadful man as soon as you can, dear. I can’t bear him about the house at this time of day.’
As Elizabeth entered the room Flory’s heart pounded so violently that a reddish mist passed behind his eyes. She was wearing a silk shirt and jodhpurs, and she was a little sunburned. Even in his memory she had never been so beautiful. He quailed; on the instant he was lost—every scrap of his screwed-up courage had fled. Instead of stepping forward to meet her he actually backed away. There was a fearful crash behind him; he had upset an occasional table and sent a bowl of zinnias hurtling across the floor.
‘I’m so sorry!’ he exclaimed in horror.
‘Oh, not at all! Please don’t worry about it!’
She helped him to pick up the table, chattering all the while as gaily and easily as though nothing had happened: ‘You have been away a long time, Mr Flory! You’re quite a stranger! We’ve so missed you at the Club!’ etc. etc. She was italicising every other word, with that deadly, glittering brightness that a woman puts on when she is dodging a moral obligation. He was terrified of her. He could not even look her in the face. She took up a box of cigarettes and offered him one, but he refused it. His hand was shaking too much to take it.
‘I’ve brought you that skin,’ he said flatly.
He unrolled it on the table they had just picked up. It looked so shabby and miserable that he wished he had never brought it. She came close to him to examine the skin, so close that her flowerlike cheek was not a foot from his own, and he could feel the warmth of her body. So great was his fear of her that he stepped hurriedly away. And in the same moment she too stepped back with a wince of disgust, having caught the foul odour of the skin. It shamed him terribly. It was almost as though it had been himself and not the skin that stank.
‘Thank you ever so much, Mr Flory!’ She had put another yard between herself and the skin. ‘Such a lovely big skin, isn’t it?’
‘It was, but they’ve spoiled it, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh no! I shall love having it! Are you back in Kyauktada for long? How dreadfully hot it must have been in camp!’
‘Yes, it’s been very hot.’
For three minutes they actually talked of the weather. He was helpless. All that he had promised himself to say, all his arguments and pleadings, had withered in his throat. ‘You fool, you fool,’ he thought, ‘what are you doing? Did you come twenty miles for this? Go on, say what you came to say! Seize her in your arms; make her listen, kick her, beat her—anything sooner than let her choke you with this drivel!’ But it was hopeless, hopeless. Not a word could his tongue utter except futile trivialities. How could he plead or argue, when that bright easy air of hers, that dragged every word to the level of Club-chatter, silenced him before he spoke? Where do they learn it, that dreadful tee-heeing brightness? In these brisk modern girls’ schools, no doubt. The piece of carrion on the table made him more ashamed every moment. He stood there almost voiceless, lumpishly ugly with his face yellow and creased after the sleepless night, and his birthmark like a smear of dirt.
She got rid of him after a very few minutes. ‘And now, Mr Flory, if you don’t mind, I ought really——’
He mumbled rather than said, ‘Won’t you come out with me again some time? Walking, shooting—something?’
‘I have so little time nowadays! All my evenings seem to be full. This evening