We were much embarrassed by a fat old landowner
heaping presents on us. He nearly wept when we refused to accept a
goat!
All the fortnight we have only met two Europeans--a couple called
Martin. I don't know quite what they were, or why they were holding up
the flag of empire in this lonely outpost, but they were the greyest
people I ever saw.
Finding ourselves in the neighbourhood of Europeans, we called, as in
duty bound. The compound round the bungalow had a dreary look, and
when we were shown into the drawing-room I could see at a glance it
was a room that no one took any interest in. The rugs on the floor
were rumpled, the cushions soiled; photographs stood about in broken
frames, and the flowers were dying in their glasses. When Mrs. Martin
came in, I wasn't surprised at her room. A long grey face, lack-lustre
eyes, greyish hair rolled up anyhow, and greyish clothes with a hiatus
between the bodice and skirt. "This," said I to myself, "is a woman
who has lost interest in herself and her surroundings," Her husband
was small and bleached-looking and, given encouragement, inclined to
be jokesome; sometimes (by accident) he was funny. Mrs. Martin paid
very little attention to us, and none whatever to her husband's jokes.
I laughed loudly. I thought it was so persevering of him to go on
trying to be funny when he was married to such a depressing woman. As
we got up to go I noticed in a corner a child's chair with a little
chintz cover, and seated in it a smiling china doll lacking one arm
and a leg.
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