Page:The Painted Veil - Maugham - 1925.djvu/183

 ing a passion. She could not tell why the way he spoke of her, notwithstanding his casual manner and his flippant phrases, gave her the impression so strongly of the woman’s intense and unique devotion. It troubled her a little.

“It does seem a long way to Harrington Gardens,” she smiled.

“Why do you say that?”

“I don’t understand anything. Life is so strange. I feel like some one who’s lived all his life by a duck-pond and suddenly is shown the sea. It makes me a little breathless, and yet it fills me with elation. I don’t want to die, I want to live. I’m beginning to feel a new courage. I feel like one of those old sailors who set sail for undiscovered seas and I think my soul hankers for the unknown.”

Waddington looked at her reflectively. Her abstracted gaze rested on the smoothness of the river. Two little drops that flowed silently, silently towards the dark, eternal sea.

“May I come and see the Manchu lady?” asked Kitty, suddenly raising her head.

“She can’t speak a word of English.”

“You’ve been very kind to me, you’ve done a great deal for me, perhaps I could show her by my manner that I had a friendly feeling towards her.”

Waddington gave a thin, mocking little smile, but he answered with good-humour.

“I will come and fetch you one day and she shall give you a cup of jasmine tea.”

She would not tell him that this story of an alien love had from the first moment strangely intrigued