Page:The Painted Veil - Maugham - 1925.djvu/22



T couldn’t have been Walter that afternoon. It must have been one of the servants and after all they didn’t matter. Chinese servants knew everything anyway. But they held their tongues.

Her heart beat a little faster as she remembered the way in which that white china knob slowly turned. They mustn’t take risks like that again. It was better to go to the curio shop. No one who saw her go in would think anything of it, and they were absolutely safe there. The owner of the shop knew who Charlie was and he was not such a fool as to put up the back of the Assistant Colonial Secretary. What did anything matter really but that Charlie loved her?

She turned away from the verandah and went back into her sitting-room. She threw herself down on the sofa and stretched out her hand to get a cigarette. Her eye caught sight of a note lying on the top of a book. She opened it. It was written in pencil.

Dear Kitty,

''Here is the book you wanted. I was just going to send it when I met Dr. Fane and he said he’d bring it round himself as he was passing the house.''


 * V.H.

She rang the bell and when the boy came asked him who had brought the book and when.