Millicent left them presently and went to bed, but they were so noisy that for some time she could not get to sleep.
She did not know at what hour she was awakened by Harold staggering into the room.
She kept silent.
He made up his mind to have a bath before getting into bed; the bath-house was just below their room, and he went down the steps that led to it.
Apparently he slipped, for there was a great clatter, and he began to swear.
Then he was violently sick.
She heard him sluice the buckets of water over himself and in a little while, walking very cautiously this time, he crawled up the stairs and slipped into bed.
Millicent pretended to be asleep.
She was disgusted.
Harold was drunk. She made up her mind to speak about it in the morning.
What would the naturalists think of him?
But in the morning Harold was so dignified that she hadn't quite the determination to refer to the matter.
At eight Harold and she, with their two guests, sat down to breakfast.
Harold looked round the table.
'Porridge,' he said.
'Millicent, your guests might manage a little Worcester sauce for breakfast, but I don't think they'll much fancy anything else.
Personally I shall content myself with a whisky and soda.'
The naturalists laughed, but shamefacedly.
'Your husband's a terror,' said one of them.
'I should not think I had properly performed the duties of hospitality if I sent you sober to bed on the first night of your visit,' said Harold, with his round, stately way of putting things.
Millicent, smiling acidly, was relieved to think that her guests had been as drunk as her husband.
The next evening she sat up with them and the party broke up at a reasonable hour.
But she was glad when the strangers went on with their journey.
Their life resumed its placid course.
Some months later Harold went on a tour of inspection of his district and came back with a bad attack of malaria.
This was the first time she had seen the disease of which she had heard so much, and when he recovered it did not seem strange to her that Harold was very shaky.
She found his manner peculiar.
He would come back from the office and stare at her with glazed eyes; he would stand on the veranda, swaying slightly, but still dignified, and make long harangues about the political situation in England; losing the thread of his discourse, he would look at her with an archness which his natural stateliness made somewhat disconcerting and say:
'Pulls you down dreadfully, this confounded malaria.
Ah, little woman, you little know the strain it puts upon a man to be an empire builder.'
She thought that Mr Simpson began to look worried, and once or twice, when they were alone, he seemed on the point of saying something to her which his shyness at the last moment prevented.
The feeling grew so strong that it made her nervous, and one evening when Harold, she knew not why, had remained later than usual at the office she tackled him.
'What have you got to say to me, Mr Simpson?' she broke out suddenly.
He blushed and hesitated.
'Nothing.
What makes you think I have anything in particular to say to you?'
Mr Simpson was a thin, weedy youth of four and twenty, with a fine head of waving hair which he took great pains to plaster down very flat.
His wrists were swollen and scarred with mosquito bites.
Millicent looked at him steadily.
'If it's something to do with Harold don't you think it would be kinder to tell me frankly?'
He grew scarlet now. He shuffled uneasily on his rattan chair.
She insisted.
'I'm afraid you'll think it awful cheek,' he said at last.
'It's rotten of me to say anything about my chief behind his back.
Malaria's a rotten thing, and after one's had a bout of it one feels awfully down and out.'
He hesitated again.
The corners of his mouth sagged as if he were going to cry.
To Millicent he seemed like a little boy.
'I'll be as silent as the grave,' she said with a smile, trying to conceal her apprehension.
'Do tell me.'