become acquainted with it. And they became acquainted with it in
the bar of Madame Maubert, who served them with yellow wine, and who
watched, from her safe place behind the zinc covered counter, the
effect of yellow wine upon yellow bodies which presumably contained
yellow souls--if any.

All this made its impression upon Ouk. All this enforced labour and
civilization and unaccustomed wine. So it happened that one evening
Ouk remained alone in the bar after his companions had gone, and he
came close up to the zinc covered counter behind which was seated
Madame Maubert, and he regarded her steadily. She too, regarded him
steadily, and beheld in his slim, upright figure something which
attracted her. And Ouk beheld in Madame Maubert something which
attracted him. Seated upon her high stool on the other side of the
counter, she towered above him, but he felt no awe of her, no sense of
her superiority. True, she looked somewhat older than the girls in his
village, but on the other hand, she had a pink and white skin, and Ouk
had not yet come in contact with a pink and white skin. Nor had Madame
Maubert ever seen, close to, the shining, beautiful skin of a young
Oriental. After all, were they not both subjects of the same great
nation, were they not both living and sacrificing themselves for the
preservation of the same ideals? Madame Maubert had given up her man.
Ouk had given up--heaven knows what--the jungle! Anyway, such being
the effect of yellow wine upon Ouk, and such being the effect of Ouk
on Madame Maubert, they both leaned their elbows upon opposite sides
of the zinc counter that evening and looked at each other. For a whole
year Madame Maubert's husband had been away from her, and for nearly a
whole year Ouk had been away from the women of his kind, and suddenly
they realised, gazing at each other from opposite sides of the zinc
covered bar, that Civilization claimed them. Each had a duty to
perform towards its furtherance and enhancement.

IV

Let us now go back to Maubert, standing for long months within his
straw covered hut, or standing in the roadway in front of it,
demanding passports. Every day, for many months past, he remembered
his misspent permission and cursed the way he had passed it. Passed it
in so futile a manner. Things might have been so different. His
companions often chaffed him about it, chaffed him rudely. For he had
never seen fit to tell them that he had not gone down to his home in