"Walter Fane."
She did not know why he came to dances, he did not dance very well, and he seemed to know few people.
She had a passing thought that he was in love with her: but she dismissed it with a shrug of the shoulders: she had known girls who thought every man they met was in love with them and had always found them absurd.
But she gave Walter Fane just a little more of her attention.
He certainly did not behave like any of the other youths who had been in love with her.
Most of them told her so frankly and wanted to kiss her: a good many did.
But Walter Fane never talked of her and very little of himself.
He was rather silent; she did not mind that because she had plenty to say and it pleased her to see him laugh when she made a facetious* remark; but when he talked it was not stupidly.
He was evidently shy.
It appeared that he lived in the East and was home on leave.
One Sunday afternoon he appeared at their house in South Kensington.
There were a dozen people there, and he sat for some time, somewhat ill at ease, and then went away.
Her mother asked her later who he was.
"I haven't a notion.
Did you ask him to come here?"
"Yes, I met him at the Baddeleys.
He said he'd seen you at various dances.
I said I was always at home on Sundays."
"His name is Fane and he's got some sort of job in the East."
"Yes, he's a doctor.
Is he in love with you?"
"Upon my word, I don't know!"
"I should have thought you knew by now when a young man was in love with you."
"I wouldn't marry him if he were," said Kitty lightly.
Mrs. Garstin did not answer.
Her silence was heavy with displeasure.
Kitty flushed: she knew that her mother did not care now whom she married so long as somehow she got her off her hands.
X
DURING the next week she met him at three dances and now, his shyness perhaps wearing off a little, he was somewhat more communicative.
He was a doctor, certainly, but he did not practise; he was a bacteriologist (Kitty had only a very vague idea what that meant) and he had a job at Hong Kong.
He was going back in the autumn.
He talked a good deal about China.
She made it a practice to appear interested in whatever people talked to her of, but indeed the life in Hong Kong sounded quite jolly; there were clubs and tennis and racing and polo and golf.
"Do people dance much there?"
"Oh, yes, I think so."
She wondered whether he told her these things with a motive.
He seemed to like her society, but never by a pressure of the hand, by a glance or by a word, did he give the smallest indication that he looked upon her as anything but a girl whom you met and danced with.
On the following Sunday he came again to their house.
Her father happened to come in, it was raining and he had not been able to play golf, and he and Walter Fane had a long chat.
She asked her father afterwards what they had talked of.
"It appears he's stationed at Hong Kong.
The Chief Justice is an old friend of mine at the Bar.
He seems an unusually intelligent young man."
She knew that her father was as a rule bored to death by the young people whom for her sake and now her sister's he had been forced for years to entertain.
"It's not often you like any of my young men, father," she said.
His kind, tired eyes rested upon her.
"Are you going to marry him by any chance?"
"Certainly not."
"Is he in love with you?"
"He shows no sign of it."