"May I stay to lunch?" he asked. "I am all by myself at home. Ida has gone to Tosari for her malaria and has taken the children with her. She went yesterday. It's an expensive business. How I'm to keep going this month I do not know." "Send the children to us, after they've had a few days in the hills." "Won't they bother you?" "Of course not. I'll write to Ida." "It's really awfully good of you. It would certainly make things easier for me." She laughed softly. "Aren't you well?" he asked. "I feel deadly," she said. "How do you mean?" "I feel as if I were dying by inches." "Why?" "It's terrible here. We've been longing for the rains; and, now that they've come, they are driving me mad. And ... I don't know what: I can't stand it here any longer." "Where?" "In India. I have taught myself to see the good, the beautiful in this country. It's all no use. I can't go on with it." "Go to Holland," he said gently. "My people would be glad to see me, no doubt. It would be good for my boy, because he's forgetting his Dutch daily, though I had begun to teach it to him so conscientiously, and he speaks Malay ... or gibberish. But I can't leave my husband here all alone. He would have nothing here without me. At least, I think so: that is one more sort of illusion. Perhaps it's not so at all." "But, if you fall ill...?" "Oh, I don't know!" Her whole being was filled with an unusual fatigue. "Perhaps you're exaggerating!" he began, cheerfully. "Come, perhaps you're exaggerating! What's upsetting you, what's making you so unhappy? Let's draw up an inventory together." "An inventory of my misfortunes? Very well. My garden is a marsh. Three chairs in my front-verandah are splitting to pieces. The white ants have devoured my beautiful Japanese mats. A new silk frock has come out all over stains, for no reason that I can make out. Another is all unravelled, simply with the heat, I believe. To say nothing of various minor miseries of the same order. To console myself I took refuge in the Feuerzauber. My piano was out of tune; I believe there are cockroaches walking among the strings." He gave a little laugh. "We're idiots here," she continued, "we Europeans in this country! Why do we bring all the paraphernalia of our costly civilization with us, considering that it's bound not to last? Why don't we live in a cool bamboo hut, sleep on a mat, dress in a cotton sarong and a chintz kabaai, with a scarf over our shoulders and a flower in our hair. All your civilization by which you propose to grow rich ... is a western idea, which fails in the long run. Our whole administration ... is so tiring in the heat. Why--if we must be here--don't we live simply and plant paddy and live on nothing?" "You're talking like a woman," he said, with another little laugh.