He said he'd give him one more chance.
He could take his leave then and go to England.
He advised him to many so that when he got back he'd have someone to look after him.
Harold married me because he wanted a keeper.
They took bets in Kuala Solor on how long I'd make him stay sober.'
'But he was in love with you,' Mrs Skinner interrupted.
'You don't know how he used to speak to me about you, and at that time you're speaking of, when you went to Kuala Solor to have Joan, he wrote me such a charming letter about you.'
Millicent looked at her mother again and a deep colour dyed her sallow skin.
Her hands, lying on her lap, began to tremble a little.
She thought of those first months of her married life.
The government launch took them to the mouth of the river, and they spent the night at the bungalow which Harold said jokingly was their seaside residence.
Next day they went up-stream in a prahu.
From the novels she had read she expected the rivers of Borneo to be dark and strangely sinister, but the sky was blue, dappled with little white clouds, and the green of the mangroves and the nipahs, washed by the flowing water, glistened in the sun.
On each side stretched the pathless jungle, and in the distance, silhouetted against the sky, was the rugged outline of a mountain.
The air in the early morning was fresh and buoyant.
She seemed to enter upon a friendly, fertile land, and she had a sense of spacious freedom.
They watched the banks for monkeys sitting on the branches of the tangled trees, and once Harold pointed out something that looked like a log and said it was a crocodile.
The Assistant Resident, in ducks and a topee, was at the landing-stage to meet them, and a dozen trim little soldiers were lined up to do them honour.
The Assistant Resident was introduced to her.
His name was Simpson.
'By Jove, sir,' he said to Harold.
'I'm glad to see you back.
It's been deuced lonely without you.'
The Resident's bungalow, surrounded by a garden in which grew wildly all manner of gay flowers, stood on the top of a low hill.
It was a trifle shabby and the furniture was sparse, but the rooms were cool and of generous size.
'The kampong is down there,' said Harold, pointing.
Her eyes followed his gesture, and from among the coconut trees rose the beating of a gong.
It gave her a queer little sensation in the heart.
Though she had nothing much to do the days passed easily enough.
At dawn a boy brought them their tea and they lounged about the veranda, enjoying the fragrance of the morning (Harold in a singlet and a sarong, she in a dressing-gown) till it was time to dress for breakfast.
Then Harold went to his office and she spent an hour or two learning Malay.
After tiffin he went back to his office while she slept.
A cup of tea revived them both, and they went for a walk or played golf on the nine-hole links which Harold had made on a level piece of cleared jungle below the bungalow.
Night fell at six and Mr Simpson came along to have a drink.
They chatted till their late dinner hour, and sometimes Harold and Mr Simpson played chess.
The balmy evenings were enchanting.
The fireflies turned the bushes just below the veranda into coldly-sparkling, tremulous beacons, and flowering trees scented the air with sweet odours.
After dinner they read the papers which had left London six weeks before and presently went to bed.
Millicent enjoyed being a married woman, with a house of her own, and she was pleased with the native servants, in their gay sarongs, who went about the bungalow, with bare feet, silent but friendly.
It gave her a pleasant sense of importance to be the wife of the Resident.
Harold impressed her by the fluency with which he spoke the language, by his air of command, and by his dignity.
She went into the court-house now and then to hear him try cases.
The multifariousness of his duties and the competent way in which he performed them aroused her respect.
Mr Simpson told her that Harold understood the natives as well as any man in the country.
He had the combination of firmness, tact, and good-humour which was essential in dealing with that timid, revengeful, and suspicious race.
Millicent began to feel a certain admiration for her husband.
They had been married nearly a year when two English naturalists came to stay with them for a few days on their way to the interior.
They brought a pressing recommendation from the governor, and Harold said he wanted to do them proud.
Their arrival was an agreeable change.
Millicent asked Mr Simpson to dinner (he lived at the Fort and only dined with them on Sunday nights) and after dinner the men sat down to play bridge.