She loved him no longer.
Oh, the relief and the sense of liberation!
It was strange to look back and remember how passionately she had yearned for him; she thought she would die when he failed her; she thought life thenceforward had nothing to offer but misery.
And now already she was laughing.
A worthless creature.
What a fool she had made of herself!
And now, considering him calmly, she wondered what on earth she had seen in him.
It was lucky that Waddington knew nothing, she could never have endured his malicious eyeing and his ironical innuendoes.
She was free, free at last, free!
She could hardly prevent herself from laughing aloud.
The children were playing some romping game and it was her habit to look on with an indulgent smile, restraining them when they made too much noise and taking care that in their boisterousness none was hurt; but now in her high spirits, feeling as young as any of them, she joined in the game.
The little girls received her with delight.
They chased up and down the room, shouting at the top of their shrill voices, with fantastic and almost barbarous glee.
They grew so excited that they leaped into the air with joy.
The noise was terrific.
Suddenly the door opened and the Mother Superior stood on the threshold.
Kitty, abashed, extricated herself from the clutches of a dozen little girls who with wild shrieks had seized her.
"Is this how you keep these children good and quiet?" asked the Mother Superior, a smile on her lips.
"We were having a game, Mother.
They got excited.
It is my fault, I led them on."
The Mother Superior came forward and as usual the children clustered about her.
She put her hands round their narrow shoulders and playfully pulled their little yellow ears.
She looked at Kitty with a long, soft look.
Kitty was flushed and she was breathing quickly.
Her liquid eyes were shining and her lovely hair, disarranged in all the struggling and the laughter, was in adorable confusion.
"Que vousetes belle, ma chere enfant," said the Mother Superior. "It does the heart good to look at you.
No wonder these children adore you."
Kitty blushed deeply and, she knew not why, tears suddenly filled her eyes.
She covered her face with her hands.
"Oh, Mother, you make me ashamed."
"Come, do not be silly.
Beauty is also a gift of God, one of the most rare and precious, and we should be thankful if we are happy enough to possess it and thankful, if we are not, that others possess it for our pleasure."
She smiled again and as though Kitty were a child too gently patted her soft cheek.
LIII
SINCE she had been working at the convent Kitty had seen less of Waddington.
Two or three times he had come down to the river bank to meet her and they had walked up the hill together.
He came in to drink a whisky and soda, but he would seldom stay to dinner.
One Sunday, however, he suggested that they should take their luncheon with them and go in chairs to a Buddhist monastery.
It was situated ten miles from the city and had some reputation as a place of pilgrimage.
The Mother Superior, insisting that Kitty must have a day's rest, would not let her work on Sundays and Walter of course was as busy then as usual.
They started early in order to arrive before the heat of the day and were carried along a narrow causeway* between the rice-fields.
Now and then they passed comfortable farm-houses nestling with friendly intimacy in a grove of bamboos.
Kitty enjoyed the idleness; it was pleasant after being cooped up in the city to see about her the wide country.
They came to the monastery, straggling low buildings by the side of the river, agreeably shaded by trees, and were led by smiling monks through courtyards, empty with a solemn emptiness, and shown temples with grimacing gods.
In the sanctuary sat the Buddha, remote and sad, wistful, abstracted and faintly smiling.
There was about everything a sense of dejection; the magnificence was shoddy and ruined; the gods were dusty and the faith that had made them was dying.
The monks seemed to stay on sufferance, as though they awaited a notice to quit; and in the smile of the abbot, with his beautiful politeness, was the irony of resignation.
One of these days the monks would wander away from the shady, pleasant wood, and the buildings, crumbling and neglected, would be battered by fierce storms and besieged by the surrounding nature.
Wild creepers would twine themselves about the dead images and the trees would grow in the courtyards.