Page:The Painted Veil - Maugham - 1925.djvu/270

 UT next morning Kitty rose early and leaving a note for Dorothy to say that she was gone out on business took a tram down the hill. She made her way through the crowded streets with their motor cars, rickshaws and chairs, and the motley throng of Europeans and Chinese, to the offices of the P. & O. Company. A ship was sailing in two days, the first ship out of the port, and she had made up her mind that at all costs she must go on it. When the clerk told her that every berth was booked she asked to see the chief agent. She sent in her name and the agent, whom she had met before, came out to fetch her into his office. He knew her circumstances and when she told him what she wished he sent for the passenger list. He looked at it with perplexity.

“I beseech you to do what you can for me,” she urged him.

“I don’t think there’s any one in the Colony who wouldn’t do anything in the world for you, Mrs. Fane,” he answered.

He sent for a clerk and made enquiries. Then he nodded.

“I’m going to shift one or two people. I know you want to get home and I think we ought to do our best for you. I can give you a little cabin to yourself. I expect you’d prefer that.”

She thanked him. She left him with an elated heart. Flight: that was her only thought. Flight!