Page:The Painted Veil - Maugham - 1925.djvu/98

 “Well, the best way to understand a man is to put yourself in his shoes. From his point of view you’ve been rather a naughty little thing and he wants to get you out of harm’s way. I always thought he never wanted to divorce you, he doesn’t strike me as that sort of chap; but he made what he thought was a very generous offer and you put his back up by turning it down. I don’t want to blame you, but really for all our sakes I think you ought to have given it a little consideration.”

“But don’t you see it’ll kill me? Don’t you know that he’s taking me there because he knows it’ll kill me.”

“Oh, my dear, don’t talk like that. We’re in a damned awkward position and really it’s no time to be melodramatic.”

“You’ve made up your mind not to understand.” Oh, the pain in her heart, and the fear! She could have screamed. “You can’t send me to certain death. If you have no love or pity for me you must have just ordinary human feeling.”

“I think it’s rather hard on me to put it like that. As far as I can make out your husband is behaving very generously. He’s willing to forgive you if you’ll let him. He wants to get you away and this opportunity has presented itself to take you to some place where for a few months you’ll be out of harm’s way. I don’t pretend that Mei-tan-fu is a health resort, I never knew a Chinese city that was, but there’s no reason to get the wind up about it. In fact that’s the worst thing you can do. I believe