Edward felt as if he were outside himself, as if he could see himself leaning limply over his desk, his damp mud-colored hair drooping forward—its parting lost—his thin face shining with sweat and almost certainly rather dirty, the red spots growing redder upon his chin and forehead, his lower jaw trembling although he was trying, by hard biting, to hold it steady. “Even if I found Emily,” he thought, “she would hate me now.” He could never be cool or lovable in these thick weary English clothes. Then he thought with sudden pleasure that he would buy a new suit, a cool pale suit in which to meet Emily. He imagined himself, looking delicate and tired and cool in a delicately pale suit, walking triumphantly towards Emily along a Chinese street between booths full of lilies. “Oh, look ... oh, look ...” Emily would cry, throwing her arms up in her exquisitely exaggerated way. “Oh, look ... here’s that darling Edward ... looking like a damned old primrose ...” “Shall I went to tell Ma Lo Yung and other boys come in to lesson?” suggested the saintly Rupert Frazer. “Yes, run along for Heaven’s sake,” said Edward, trembling with various emotions. The day was at last over. It seemed like two days to Edward because it was cut in half by an hour for luncheon. During this hour he could be sullen and quiet; the half dozen other men teachers took little notice of him. The women teachers could be heard screaming in secluded mirth in another room. The week was at last over. Edward had half Saturday and all Sunday to himself. Not quite to himself, for on Sunday he had to be “on duty” for half the day. He sat in the window of his room in the shade of the big palm-tree outside. Heat hummed through the garden, through the open doors and along the dingy passages of the school. Edward did not mind what the boys were doing—whatever it was, they were doing it fairly quietly. Occasionally a tearing yell of laughter or a whine or a shrill protest in Chinese was mixed with the hum of heat and insects. Edward was comforted by comforting spirits, the contents of two bottles which were his only contribution to the furniture of his room. These represented the only money he had spent that week. The new suit was still a dream. He taught in his shirt-sleeves. He had nothing to do on Sundays. Yet he tried to regulate his drinking. He made appointments with himself. “At half past three I will have another....” But sometimes he forgot and had another too early. “It keeps off the mosquitoes,” he thought. One of the big Portuguese boys from his class was standing in the doorway. “Please, Mistah Weelims....” “Have a drink,” said Edward. He thought the boy looked rather beautiful; his black hair was so thick and shining; it was brushed like a smooth breaking wave.