Page:The Painted Veil - Maugham - 1925.djvu/284

 arms. Kitty kissed her. She knew how her mother had neglected Doris in favour of her and how harsh she had been with her because she was plain and dull. She wondered whether Doris really felt the extravagant grief she showed. But Doris had always been emotional. She wished she could cry: Doris would think her dreadfully hard. Kitty felt that she had been through too much to feign a distress she did not feel.

“Would you like to come and see father?” she asked her when the strength of the outburst had somewhat subsided.

Doris wiped her eyes. Kitty noticed that her sister’s pregnancy had blunted her features and in her black dress she looked gross and blousy.

“No, I don’t think I will. I shall only cry again. Poor old thing, he’s bearing it wonderfully.”

Kitty showed her sister out of the house and then went back to her father. He was standing in front of the fire and the newspaper was neatly folded. He wanted her to see that he had not been reading it again.

“I haven’t dressed for dinner,” he said. “I didn’t think it was necessary.”

HEY dined. Mr. Garstin gave Kitty the details of his wife’s illness and death, and he told her the kindness of the friends who had written (there were piles of sympathetic letters on his table