The sun was still high. Every leaf, every flower in the garden lay open, motionless, as if exhausted, and a sweet, rich, rank smell filled the quivering air. Out of the thick, fleshy leaves of a cactus there rose an aloe stem loaded with pale flowers that looked as though they had been cut out of butter; light flashed upon the lifted spears of the palms; over a bed of scarlet waxen flowers some big black insects “zoom-zoomed”; a great, gaudy creeper, orange splashed with jet, sprawled against a wall. “I don’t need my cape after all,” said she. “It’s really too warm.” So he took it off and carried it over his arm. “Let us go down this path here. I feel so well to-day—marvellously better. Good heavens—look at those children! And to think it’s November!” In a corner of the garden there were two brimming tubs of water. Three little girls, having thoughtfully taken off their drawers and hung them on a bush, their skirts clasped to their waists, were standing in the tubs and tramping up and down. They screamed, their hair fell over their faces, they splashed one another. But suddenly, the smallest, who had a tub to herself, glanced up and saw who was looking. For a moment she seemed overcome with terror, then clumsily she struggled and strained out of her tub, and still holding her clothes above her waist. “The Englishman! The Englishman!” she shrieked and fled away to hide. Shrieking and screaming, the other two followed her. In a moment they were gone; in a moment there was nothing but the two brimming tubs and their little drawers on the bush. “How—very—extraordinary!” said she. “What made them so frightened? Surely they were much too young to . . .” She looked up at him. She thought he looked pale—but wonderfully handsome with that great tropical tree behind him with its long, spiked thorns. For a moment he did not answer. Then he met her glance, and smiling his slow smile, “_Très_ rum!” said he. _Très_ rum! Oh, she felt quite faint. Oh, why should she love him so much just because he said a thing like that. _Très_ rum! That was Robert all over. Nobody else but Robert could ever say such a thing. To be so wonderful, so brilliant, so learned, and then to say in that queer, boyish voice. . . . She could have wept. “You know you’re very absurd, sometimes,” said she. “I am,” he answered. And they walked on. But she was tired. She had had enough. She did not want to walk any more. “Leave me here and go for a little constitutional, won’t you? I’ll be in one of these long chairs. What a good thing you’ve got my cape; you won’t have to go upstairs for a rug. Thank you, Robert, I shall look at that delicious heliotrope. . . . You won’t be gone long?” “No—no. You don’t mind being left?” “Silly! I want you to go. I can’t expect you to drag after your invalid wife every minute. . . . How long will you be?” He took out his watch. “It’s just after half-past four. I’ll be back at a quarter past five.”