Page:The Painted Veil - Maugham - 1925.djvu/71

 down the hill, but he answered curtly. She shrugged her shoulders; she was growing a trifle impatient: if he wanted to sulk, let him, she didn’t care. They drove in silence till they reached their destination. It was a large dinner party. There were too many people and too many courses. While Kitty chatted gaily with her neighbours she watched Walter. He was deathly pale and his face was pinched.

“Your husband is looking rather washed out. I thought he didn’t mind the heat. Has he been working very hard?”

“He always works hard.”

“I suppose you’re going away soon?”

“Oh, yes, I think I shall go to Japan as I did last year,” she said. “The doctor says I must get out of the heat if I don’t want to go all to pieces.”

Walter did not as usual when they were dining out give her a little smiling glance now and then. He never looked at her. She had noticed that when he came down to the car he kept his eyes averted, and he did the same when, with his usual politeness, he gave her his hand to alight. Now, talking with the women on either side of him, he did not smile, but looked at them with steady and unblinking eyes; and really his eyes looked enormous and in that pale face coal black. His face was set and stern.

“He must be an agreeable companion,” thought Kitty ironically.

The idea of those unfortunate ladies trying to indulge in small talk with that grim mask not a little diverted her.

Of course he knew; there was no doubt about