Page:The Painted Veil - Maugham - 1925.djvu/256

 “Am I late? I hope I haven’t kept you waiting. I had to see the Governor and I simply couldn’t get away.”

He went up to Kitty, and took both her hands.

“I’m so very, very glad you’ve come here. I know Dorothy has told you that we want you to stay as long as ever you like and that we want you to look upon our house as your home. But I want to tell you so myself as well. If there’s anything in the world I can do for you I shall only be too happy.” His eyes wore a charming expression of sincerity; she wondered if he saw the irony in hers. “I’m awfully stupid at saying some things and I don’t want to seem a clumsy fool, but I do want you to know how deeply I sympathise with you in your husband’s death. He was a thundering good chap, and he’ll be missed here more than I can say.”

“Don’t, Charlie,” said his wife. “I’m sure Kitty understands Here are the cocktails.”

Following the luxurious custom of the foreigners in China two boys in uniform came into the room with savouries and cocktails. Kitty refused.

“Oh, you must have one,” insisted Townsend in his breezy, cordial way. “It’ll do you good and I’m sure you haven’t had such a thing as a cocktail since you left Hong-Kong. Unless I’m very much mistaken you couldn’t get ice at Mei-tan-fu.”

“You’re not mistaken,” said Kitty.

For a moment she had a picture before her mind’s eye of that beggar with the tousled head in the blue rags through which you saw the emaciated limbs, who had lain dead against the compound wall.