Page:The Painted Veil - Maugham - 1925.djvu/138

 short and plump, with a homely face, red cheeks and merry eyes. Waddington, introducing Kitty to her, called her Seur St. Joseph.

“C’est la dame du docteur?” she asked, beaming, and then added that the Mother Superior would join them directly.

Sister St. Joseph could speak no English and Kitty’s French was halting; but Waddington, fluent, voluble and inaccurate, maintained a stream of facetious comment which convulsed the good-humoured nun. Her cheerful, easy laughter not a little astonished Kitty. She had an idea that the religious were always grave and this sweet and childlike merriment touched her.

HE door opened, to Kitty’s fancy not quite naturally but as though it swung back of itself on its hinges, and the Mother Superior entered the little room. She stood for an instant on the threshold and a grave smile hovered upon her lips as she looked at the laughing Sister and Waddington’s puckered, clownish face. Then she came forward and held out her hand to Kitty.

“Mrs. Fane?” She spoke in English with a good deal of accent, but with a correct pronunciation, and she gave the shadow of a bow. “It is a great pleasure to me to make the acquaintance of the wife of our good and brave doctor.”

Kitty felt that the Superior’s eyes held her in a