"I don't know.
I don't know if you fill him with such a repulsion that it gives him goose-flesh to be near you or if he's burning with a love that for some reason he will not allow himself to show.
I've asked myself if you're both here to commit suicide."
Kitty had seen the startled glance and then the scrutinizing look Waddington gave them when the incident of the salad took place.
"I think you're attaching too much importance to a few lettuce leaves," she said flippantly. She rose. "Shall we go home?
I'm sure you want a whisky and soda."
"You're not a heroine at all events.
You're frightened to death.
Are you sure you don't want to go away?"
"What has it got to do with you?"
"I'll help you."
"Are you going to fall to my look of secret sorrow?
Look at my profile and tell me if my nose isn't a trifle too long."
He gazed at her reflectively, that malicious, ironical look in his bright eyes, but mingled with it, a shadow, like a tree standing at a river's edge and its reflexion in the water, was an expression of singular kindliness.
It brought sudden tears to Kitty's eyes.
"Must you stay?"
"Yes."
They passed under the flamboyant archway and walked down the hill.
When they came to the compound they saw the body of the dead beggar.
He took her arm, but she released herself.
She stood still.
"It's dreadful, isn't it?"
"What?
Death?"
"Yes. It makes everything else seem so horribly trivial.
He doesn't look human.
When you look at him you can hardly persuade yourself that he's ever been alive.
It's hard to think that not so very many years ago he was just a little boy tearing down the hill and flying a kite."
She could not hold back the sob that choked her.
XXXIX
A FEW days later Waddington, sitting with Kitty, a long glass of whisky and soda in his hand, began to speak to her of the convent.
"The Mother Superior is a very remarkable woman," he said. "The Sisters tell me that she belongs to one of the greatest families in France, but they won't tell me which; the Mother Superior, they say, doesn't wish it to be talked of."
"Why don't you ask her if it interests you?" smiled Kitty.
"If you knew her you'd know it was impossible to ask her an indiscreet question."
"She must certainly be very remarkable if she can impress you with awe."
"I am the bearer of a message from her to you.
She has asked me to say that, though of course you may not wish to adventure into the very centre of the epidemic, if you do not mind that it will give her great pleasure to show you the convent."
"It's very kind of her.
I shouldn't have thought she was aware of my existence."
"I've spoken about you; I go there two or three times a week just now to see if there's anything I can do; and I daresay your husband has told them about you.
You must be prepared to find that they have an unbounded admiration for him."
"Are you a Catholic?"
His malicious eyes twinkled and his funny little face was puckered with laughter.
"Why are you grinning at me?" asked Kitty.
"Can any good come out of Galilee? No, I'm not a Catholic.
I describe myself as a member of the Church of England, which I suppose is an inoffensive way of saying that you don't believe in anything very much … When the Mother Superior came here ten years ago she brought seven nuns with her and of those all but three are dead.
You see, at the best of times, Mei-Tan-Fu is not a health resort.
They live in the very middle of the city, in the poorest district, they work very hard and they never have a holiday."
"But are there only three and the Mother Superior now?"
"Oh, no, more have taken their places.