children, but it was all I could think of at the moment and it had to do.
I was afraid to go down to dinner that night for fear I might meet Boy. If he asked me to my face I knew I was not the sort of person to say 'no.' That's just me all over. I know what I think, and generally just say it straight out. That's one thing. But to do it, that's quite another thing altogether. I'm conscious of a weak sort of feeling underneath that would make me do quite other than what I said. It's a great mistake to have a strong brain and a weak heart. But still, anything's better than a weak head.
I didn't sleep much that first night in India, though I was dead tired. I kept thinking of snakes, and I didn't only think of cockroaches, I saw them. Big fat ones they were—you could hear them in imagination scrunch under your feet if you stepped on them. Then, too, I had never slept inside mosquito curtains before. They are a kind of net hung round from four posts at the corners of the bed, covered in across the top and tucked in under the mattress below. It's a bit stuffy inside, but when you're in a country where all sorts of awful creepy things are as like as not crawling over the floor and up the legs of your bed, they're a real comfort, let alone keeping out the mosquitoes, which they are really meant for. So you can guess I tucked mine in tight under the mattress that first night after having seen cockroaches and imagined snakes.
Well, I fell asleep at last, but only to wake
