One evening Walter, coming back earlier than usual, asked him to stay to dinner. A curious incident happened. They had their soup and their fish and then with the chicken a fresh green salad was handed to Kitty by the boy.
“Good God, you’re not going to eat that,” cried Waddington, as he saw Kitty take some.
“Yes, we have it every night.”
“My wife likes it,” said Walter.
The dish was handed to Waddington, but he shook his head.
“Thank you very much, but I’m not thinking of committing suicide just yet.”
Walter smiled grimly and helped himself. Waddington said nothing more, in fact he became strangely taciturn, and soon after dinner he left them.
It was true that they ate salad every night. Two days after their arrival the cook, with the unconcern of the Chinese, had sent it in and Kitty, without thinking, took some. Walter leaned forward quickly.
“You oughtn’t to eat that. The boy’s crazy to serve it.”
“Why not?” asked Kitty, looking at him full in the face.
“It’s always dangerous, it’s madness now. You’ll kill yourself.”
“I thought that was the idea,” said Kitty.
She began to eat it coolly. She was seized with she knew not what spirit of bravado. She watched Walter with mocking eyes. She thought that he grew a trifle pale, but when the salad was handed to him he helped himself. The cook, finding they did not refuse it, sent them some in every day and every day, courting death, they ate it. It was grotesque to take such a risk. Kitty, in terror of the disease, took it with the feeling not only that she was thus maliciously avenging herself on Walter, but that she was flouting her own desperate fears.
XXXVIII
It was the day after this that Waddington, coming to the bungalow in the afternoon, when he had sat a little asked Kitty if she would not go for a stroll with him. She had not been out of the compound since her arrival. She was glad enough.
“There are not many walks, I’m afraid,” he said. “But we’ll go to the top of the hill.”
“Oh, yes, where the archway is. I’ve seen it often from the terrace.”
One of the boys opened the heavy doorway for them and they stepped out into the dusty lane. They walked a few yards and then Kitty seizing Waddington’s arm in fright, gave a startled cry.
“Look!”
“What’s the matter?”
At the foot of the wall that surrounded the compound a man lay on his back with his legs stretched out and his arms thrown over his head. He wore the patched blue rags and the wild mop of hair of the Chinese beggar.
“He looks as if he were dead,” Kitty gasped.
“He is dead. Come along; you’d better look the other way. I’ll have him moved when we come back.”
But Kitty was trembling so violently that she could not stir.
“I’ve never seen anyone dead before.”
“You’d better hurry up and get used to it then, because you’ll see a good many before you’ve done with this cheerful spot.”
He took her hand and drew it in his arm. They walked for a little in silence.
“Did he die of cholera?” she said at last.
“I suppose so.”
They walked up the hill till they came to the archway. It was richly carved. Fantastic and ironical it stood like a landmark in the surrounding country. They sat down on the pedestal and faced the wide plain. The hill was sown close with the little green mounds of the dead, not in lines but disorderly, so that you felt that beneath the surface they must strangely jostle one another. The narrow causeway meandered sinuously among the green rice fields. A small boy seated on the neck of a water-buffalo drove it slowly home, and three peasants in wide straw hats lolloped with sidelong gait under their heavy loads. After the heat of the day it was pleasant in that spot to catch the faint breeze of the evening and the wide expanse of country brought a sense of restful melancholy to the tortured heart. But Kitty could not rid her mind of the dead beggar.
“How can you talk and laugh and drink whisky when people are dying all around you?” she asked suddenly.
Waddington did not answer. He turned round and looked at her, then he put his hand on her arm.
“You know, this is no place for a woman,” he said gravely. “Why don’t you go?”
She gave him a sidelong glance from beneath her long lashes and there was the shadow of a smile on her lips.
“I should have thought under the circumstances a wife’s place was by her husband’s side.”
“When they telegraphed to me that you were coming with Fane I was astonished. But then it occurred to me that perhaps you’d been a nurse and all this sort of thing was in the day’s work. I expected you to be one of those grim-visaged females who lead you a dog’s life when you’re ill in hospital. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I came into the bungalow and saw you sitting down and resting. You looked very frail and white and tired.”
“You couldn’t expect me to look my best after nine days on the road.”
“You look frail and white and tired now, and if you’ll allow me to say so, desperately unhappy.”
Kitty flushed because she could not help it, but she was able to give a laugh that sounded merry enough.
“I’m sorry you don’t like my expression. The only reason I have for looking unhappy is that since I was twelve I’ve known that my nose was a little too long. But to cherish a secret sorrow is a most effective pose: you can’t think how many sweet young men have wanted to console me.”
Waddington’s blue and shining eyes rested on her and she knew that he did not believe a word she said. She did not care so long as he pretended to.
“I knew that you hadn’t been
