Page:The Painted Veil - Maugham - 1925.djvu/135

 “Why are you grinning at me?” asked Kitty.

“Can any good come out of Galilee? No, I’m not a Catholic. I describe myself as a member of the Church of England, which I suppose is an inoffensive way of saying that you don’t believe in anything very much. When the Mother Superior came here ten years ago she brought seven nuns with her and of those all but three are dead. You see, at the best of times, Mei-tan-fu is not a health resort. They live in the very middle of the city, in the poorest district, they work very hard and they never have a holiday.”

“But are there only three and the Mother Superior now?”

“Oh, no, more have taken their places. There are six of them now. When one of them died of cholera at the beginning of the epidemic two others came up from Canton.”

Kitty shivered a little.

“Are you cold?”

“No, it was only some one walking over my grave.”

“When they leave France they leave it for ever. They’re not like the Protestant missionaries who have a year’s leave every now and then. I always think that must be the hardest thing of all. We English have no very strong attachment to the soil, we can make ourselves at home in any part of the world, but the French, I think, have an attachment to their country which is almost a physical bond. They’re never really at ease when they’re out of it. It always seems to me very moving that these