There are several duties to be attended to. Her pink muslin gown needs rearranging, and the huge bunch of crimson flowers Quamina has gathered her must be put in the drawing-room. They are bright, and will please Carol's eye. As she places them in tall, picturesque vases, Paulina's words return with aggressive force. The sort of woman who stays at home tending flowers! They take the pleasure from her simple task. She leaves the fallen blossoms half on a couch, half on the ground, turning from them disgusted. Perhaps Paulina was right! Carol would find her far more of a companion if she shouldered her gun and rode off with him to the jungle; but she hates killing things. The chase is brutal! Sport is revolting! Thus she consoles herself, and sends Quamina for the muslin gown. How tenderly Carol had kissed her when he said good-bye. How brilliant he seemed that morning! She laughs again at the thought of his wit. Her Carol was always clever. He has marked a passage of Spencer's in a novel Eleanor is reading; she picks it up and comes across it. It is like a rude shock. Why has he pencilled such disagreeable lines? Full little knowest thou that hast not tried. What hell it is in suing long to bide; To loose good dayes that might be better spent, To waste long nights in pensive discontent. Perhaps it struck him as so strangely different to their ideal existence. The hours do not seem long, for a "light heart goes all the day," but as afternoon wanes she is filled with expectant delight, awaiting Carol's advent. He will be naturally tired, and she draws the couch near the window, piles luxurious pillows upon it, and perches herself at the end of it, placing in readiness a loose lounging coat of yellow Tussore silk. Carol, it is a pretty name, she thinks, taking up his portrait and pressing it to her lips. It is in the same attitude as the one she destroyed in the railway train, upon her first meeting with Elizabeth Kachin's mother. The faint light slants across the verandah, and falls on the yellow cushions placed for Quinton. It creeps into the room, and sheds a halo round the striking likeness she still holds in her hand. Eleanor gazes at the Oriental splendour, the beauties of which no utterance is capable of expressing, and indulges in visions that are pleasant and soothing, marvelling at a scene she has admired a thousand times before, and recalling memories of sweet caresses and whispered words. Filmy shadows fall from the trees without, gradually outlining themselves upon the walls of the room, and the steps from the verandah. The hot air rises from the valley. Eleanor breathes the tropical atmosphere and sighs. She loosens her gown at the throat, and waves an enormous palm-leaf fan leisurely backwards and forwards. The air stirs the soft hair on her forehead, cooling her brow. She raises her eyes to the clock and smiles.