No More Learning

She knows and is deeply sorry for the evil she has done to Kashima; but
Major Vansuythen cannot understand why Mrs. Boulte does not drop in
to afternoon tea at least three times a week. "When there are only two
women in one Station, they ought to see a great deal of each other,"
says Major Vansuythen.

Long and long before ever Mrs. Vansuythen came out of those far-away
places where there is society and amusement, Kurrell had discovered that
Mrs. Boulte was the one woman in the world for him and--you dare not
blame them. Kashima was as out of the world as Heaven or the Other
Place, and the Dosehri hills kept their secret well. Boulte had no
concern in the matter. He was in camp for a fortnight at a time. He was
a hard, heavy man, and neither Mrs. Boulte nor Kurrell pitied him. They
had all Kashima and each other for their very, very own; and Kashima
was the Garden of Eden in those days. When Boulte returned from his
wanderings he would slap Kurrell between the shoulders and call him "old
fellow," and the three would dine together. Kashima was happy then when
the judgment of God seemed almost as distant as Narkarra or the railway
that ran down to the sea. But the Government sent Major Vansuythen to
Kashima, and with him came his wife.
The etiquette of Kashima is much the same as that of a desert island.
When a stranger is cast away there, all hands go down to the shore to
make him welcome. Kashima assembled at the masonry platform close to
the Narkarra Road, and spread tea for the Vansuythens. That ceremony was
reckoned a formal call, and made them free of the Station, its rights
and privileges. When the Vansuythens were settled down, they gave a tiny
housewarming to all Kashima; and that made Kashima free of their house,
according to the immemorial usage of the Station.

Then the Rains came, when no one could go into camp, and the Narkarra
Road was washed away by the Kasun River, and in the cup-like pastures
of Kashima the cattle waded knee-deep. The clouds dropped down from the
Dosehri hills and covered everything.

At the end of the Rains, Boulte's manner toward his wife changed and
became demonstratively affectionate. They had been married twelve years,
and the change startled Mrs. Boulte, who hated her husband with the hate
of a woman who has met with nothing but kindness from her mate, and, in
the teeth of this kindness, had done him a great wrong. Moreover,
she had her own trouble to fight with--her watch to keep over her own
property, Kurrell. For two months the Rains had hidden the Dosehri hills
and many other things besides; but when they lifted, they showed Mrs.
Boulte that her man among men, her Ted--for she called him Ted in the
old days when Boulte was out of earshot--was slipping the links of the
allegiance.

"The Vansuythen Woman has taken him," Mrs. Boulte said to herself;
and when Boulte was away, wept over her belief, in the face of the
over-vehement blandishments of Ted. Sorrow in Kashima is as fortunate
as Love, because there is nothing to weaken it save the flight of Time.