Their ponies waited for them at dawn and they rode while the day was still fresh and in the bridle-paths through the jungle lingered the mystery of the tropical night.
They came back, bathed, changed and had breakfast, and Alban went to the office.
Anne spent the morning writing letters and working.
She had fallen in love with the country from the first day she arrived in it and had taken pains to master the common language spoken.
Her imagination was inflamed by the stories she heard of love and jealousy and death.
She was told romantic tales of a time that was only just past. She sought to steep herself in the lore of those strange people.
Both she and Alban read a great deal.
They had for the country a considerable library and new books came from London by nearly every mail.
Little that was noteworthy escaped them.
Alban was fond of playing the piano. For an amateur he played very well.
He had studied rather seriously, and he had an agreeable touch and a good ear; he could read music with ease, and it was always a pleasure to Anne to sit by him and follow the score when he tried something new.
But their great delight was to tour the district.
Sometimes they would be away for a fortnight at a time.
They would go down the river in a prahu and then sail from one little island to another, bathe in the sea, and fish, or else row upstream till it grew shallow and the trees on either bank were so close to one another that you only saw a slim strip of sky between.
Here the boatmen had to pole and they would spend the night in a native house.
They bathed in a river pool so clear that you could see the sand shining silver at the bottom; and the spot was so lovely, so peaceful and remote, that you felt you could stay there for ever.
Sometimes, on the other hand, they would tramp for days along the jungle paths, sleeping under canvas, and notwithstanding the mosquitoes that tormented them and the leeches that sucked their blood, enjoy every moment.
Whoever slept so well as on a camp bed?
And then there was the gladness of getting back, the delight in the comfort of the well-ordered establishment, the mail that had arrived with letters from home and all the papers, and the piano.
Alban would sit down to it then, his fingers itching to feel the keys, and in what he played, Stravinsky, Ravel, Darius, Miehaud, she seemed to feel that he put in something of his own, the sounds of the jungle at night, dawn over the estuary, the starry nights and the crystal clearness of the forest pools.
Sometimes the rain fell in sheets for days at a time.
Then Alban worked at Chinese.
He was learning it so that he could communicate with the Chinese of the country in their own language, and Anne did the thousand-and-one things for which she had not had time before.
Those days brought them even more closely together; they always had plenty to talk about, and when they were occupied with their separate affairs they were pleased to feel in their bones that they were near to one another.
They were wonderfully united.
The rainy days that shut them up within the walls of the bungalow made them feel as if they were one body in face of the world.
On occasion they went to Port Wallace.
It was a change, but Anne was always glad to get home.
She was never quite at her ease there.
She was conscious that none of the people they met liked Alban.
They were very ordinary people, middle-class and suburban and dull, without any of the intellectual interests that made life so full and varied to Alban and her, and many of them were narrow-minded and ill-natured; but since they had to pass the better part of their lives in contact with them, it was tiresome that they should feel so unkindly towards Alban.
They said he was conceited.
He was always very pleasant with them, but she was aware that they resented his cordiality.
When he tried to be jovial they said he was putting on airs, and when he chaffed them they thought he was being funny at their expense.
Once they stayed at Government House, and Mrs Hannay, the Governor's wife, who liked her, talked to her about it.
Perhaps the Governor had suggested that she should give Anne a hint.
'You know, my dear, it's a pity your husband doesn't try to be more come-hither with people.
He's very intelligent; don't you think it would be better if he didn't let others see he knows it quite so clearly?
My husband said to me only yesterday: of course I know Alban Torel is the cleverest young man in the Service, but he does manage to put my back up more than anyone I know.
I am the Governor, but when he talks to me he always gives me the impression that he looks upon me as a damned fool.'
The worst of it was that Anne knew how low an opinion Alban had of the Governor's parts.
'He doesn't mean to be superior,' Anne answered, smiling.
'And he really isn't in the least conceited.
I think it's only because he has a straight nose and high cheek-bones.'
'You know, they don't like him at the club.
They call him Powder-Puff Percy.'
Anne flushed.
She had heard that before and it made her very angry.
Her eyes filled with tears.
'I think it's frightfully unfair.'