Page:The Painted Veil - Maugham - 1925.djvu/35

 case, and then went away. Her mother asked her later who he was.

“I haven’t a notion. Did you ask him to come here?”

“Yes, I met him at the Baddeleys. He said he’d seen you at various dances. I said I was always at home on Sundays.”

“His name is Fane and he’s got some sort of job in the East.”

“Yes, he’s a doctor. Is he in love with you?”

“Upon my word, I don’t know.”

“I should have thought you knew by now when a young man was in love with you.”

“I wouldn’t marry him if he were,” said Kitty lightly.

Mrs. Garstin did not answer. Her silence was heavy with displeasure. Kitty flushed: she knew that her mother did not care now whom she married so long as somehow she got her off her hands.

URING the next week she met him at three dances and now, his shyness perhaps wearing off a little, he was somewhat more communicative. He was a doctor, certainly, but he did not practise; he was a bacteriologist (Kitty had only a very vague idea what that meant) and he had a job at Hong-Kong. He was going back in the autumn. He talked a good deal about China. She made it a practice to appear interested in whatever people