It was too airy, fantastic, and unsubstantial to be the work of human hands; it was the fabric of a dream.
The tears ran down Kitty's face and she gazed, her hands clasped to her breast and her mouth, for she was breathless, open a little.
She had never felt so light of heart and it seemed to her as though her body were a shell that lay at her feet and she pure spirit.
Here was Beauty. She took it as the believer takes in his mouth the wafer which is God.
XXXIV
SINCE Walter went out early in the morning, came back at tiffin only for half an hour, and did not then return till dinner was just ready, Kitty found herself much alone.
For some days she did not stir from the bungalow.
It was very hot and for the most part she lay in a long chair by the open window, trying to read.
The hard light of mid-day had robbed the magic palace of its mystery and now it was no more than a temple on the city wall, garish and shabby, but because she had seen it once in such an ecstasy it was never again quite commonplace; and often at dawn or at dusk, and again at night, she found herself able to recapture something of that beauty.
What had seemed to her a mighty bastion was but the city wall and on this, massive and dark, her eyes rested continually.
Behind its crenellations* lay the city in the dread grip of the pestilence.
Vaguely she knew that terrible things were happening there, not from Walter who when she questioned him (for otherwise he rarely spoke to her) answered with a humorous nonchalance which sent a shiver down her spine; but from Waddington and from the amah.
The people were dying at the rate of a hundred a day, and hardly any of those who were attacked by the disease recovered from it; the gods had been brought out from the abandoned temples and placed in the streets; offerings were laid before them and sacrifices made, but they did not stay the plague.
The people died so fast that it was hardly possible to bury them.
In some houses the whole family had been swept away and there was none to perform the funeral rites.
The officer commanding the troops was a masterful man and if the city was not given over to riot and arson it was due to his determination.
He forced his soldiers to bury such as there was no one else to bury and he had shot with his own hand an officer who demurred at entering a stricken house.
Kitty sometimes was so frightened that her heart sank within her and she would tremble in every limb.
It was all very well to say that the risk was small if you took reasonable precautions: she was panic-stricken.
She turned over in her mind crazy plans of escape.
To get away, just to get away, she was prepared to set out as she was and make her way alone, without anything but what she stood up in, to some place of safety.
She thought of throwing herself on the mercy of Waddington, telling him everything and beseeching him to help her to get back to Hong Kong.
If she flung herself on her knees before her husband, and admitted that she was frightened, even though he hated her now he must have enough human feeling in him to pity her.
It was out of the question.
If she went, where could she go?
Not to her mother; her mother would make her see very plainly that, having married her off, she counted on being rid of her; and besides she did not want to go to her mother.
She wanted to go to Charlie, and he did not want her.
She knew what he would say if she suddenly appeared before him.
She saw the sullen look on his face and the shrewd hardness behind his charming eyes.
It would be difficult for him to find words that sounded well.
She clenched her hands.
She would have given anything to humiliate him as he had humiliated her.
Sometimes she was seized with such a frenzy that she wished she had let Walter divorce her, ruining herself if only she could have ruined him too.
Certain things he had said to her made her blush with shame when she recalled them.
XXXV
THE first time she was alone with Waddington she brought the conversation round to Charlie.
Waddington had spoken of him on the evening of their arrival.
She pretended that he was no more than an acquaintance of her husband.
"I never cared much for him," said Waddington. "I've always thought him a bore."
"You must be very hard to please," returned Kitty, in the bright, chaffing way she could assume so easily. "I suppose he's far and away the most popular man in Hong Kong."
"I know.
That is his stock in trade.
He's made a science of popularity.
He has the gift of making every one he meets feel that he is the one person in the world he wants to see.
He's always ready to do a service that isn't any trouble to himself, and even if he doesn't do what you want he manages to give you the impression that it's only because it's not humanly possible."
"That is surely an attractive trait."
"Charm and nothing but charm at last grows a little tiresome, I think.
It's a relief then to deal with a man who isn't quite so delightful but a little more sincere.
I've known Charlie Townsend for a good many years and once or twice I've caught him with the mask off - you see, I never mattered, just a subordinate official in the Customs - and I know that he doesn't in his heart give a damn for any one in the world but himself."
Kitty, lounging easily in her chair, looked at him with smiling eyes. She turned her wedding-ring round and round her finger.