The Painted Veil Page 0,27

them?"

"At the moment."

"And what's to happen to me if Walter divorces me?"

"If we really haven't a leg to stand on* of course we won't defend. There shouldn't be any publicity and people are pretty broad-minded nowadays."

For the first time Kitty thought of her mother. She shivered. She looked again at Townsend. Her pain now was tinged with resentment.

"I'm sure you'd have no difficulty in bearing any inconvenience that I had to suffer," she said.

"We're not going to get much further by saying disagreeable things to one another," he answered.

She gave a cry of despair. It was dreadful that she should love him so devotedly and yet feel such bitterness towards him. It was not possible that he understood how much he meant to her.

"Oh, Charlie, don't you know how I love you?"

"But, my dear, I love you. Only we're not living in a desert island and we've got to make the best we can out of the circumstances that are forced upon us. You really must be reasonable."

"How can I be reasonable? To me our love was everything and you were my whole life. It is not very pleasant to realize that to you it was only an episode."

"Of course it wasn't an episode. But you know, when you ask me to get my wife, to whom I'm very much attached, to divorce me, and ruin my career by marrying you, you're asking a good deal."

"No more than I'm willing to do for you."

"The circumstances are rather different."

"The only difference is that you don't love me."

"One can be very much in love with a woman without wishing to spend the rest of one's life with her."

She gave him a quick look and despair seized her. Heavy tears rolled down her cheeks.

"Oh, how cruel! How can you be so heartless?"

She began to sob hysterically. He gave an anxious glance at the door.

"My dear, do try and control yourself."

"You don't know how I love you," she gasped. "I can't live without you. Have you no pity for me?"

She could not speak any more. She wept without restraint.

"I don't want to be unkind, and Heaven knows I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I must tell you the truth."

"It's the ruin of my whole life. Why couldn't you leave me alone? What harm had I ever done you?"

"Of course if it does you any good to put all the blame on me you may."

Kitty blazed with sudden anger.

"I suppose I threw myself at your head. I suppose I gave you no peace till you yielded to my entreaties."*

"I don't say that. But I certainly should never have thought of making love to you if you hadn't made it perfectly clear that you were ready to be made love to."

Oh, the shame of it! She knew that what he said was true. His face now was sullen and worried and his hands moved uneasily. Every now and then he gave her a little glance of exasperation.

"Won't your husband forgive you?" He said after a while.

"I never asked him."

Instinctively he clenched his hands. She saw him suppress the exclamation of annoyance which came to his lips.

"Why don't you go to him and throw yourself on his mercy? If he's as much in love with you as you say he's bound to forgive you."

"How little you know him!"

XXVI

SHE wiped her eyes. She tried to pull herself together.

"Charlie, if you desert me I shall die."

She was driven now to appeal to his compassion. She ought to have told him at once. When he knew the horrible alternative that was placed before her his generosity, his sense of justice, his manliness, would be so vehemently aroused that he would think of nothing but her danger. Oh, how passionately she desired to feel his dear, protecting arms around her!

"Walter wants me to go to Mei-Tan-Fun."

"Oh, but that's the place where the cholera is. They've got the worst epidemic that they've had for fifty years. It's no place for a woman. You can't possibly go there."

"If you let me down I shall have to."

"What do you mean? I don't understand."

"Walter is taking the place of the missionary doctor who died. He wants me to go with him."

"When?"

"Now. At once."

Townsend pushed back his chair and looked at her with puzzled eyes.

"I may be very stupid, but I can't make head or tail* out of what you're saying. If he wants you to go to this place with him what about a divorce?"

"He's given me my choice. I must either go