The Painted Veil. W. Somerset Maugham

heart began to beat a little more quickly. She had been proposed to often before, but gaily or sentimentally, and she had answered in the same fashion. No one had ever asked her to marry him in a manner which was so abrupt and yet strangely tragic.

      “It’s very kind of you,” she said, doubtfully.

      “I fell in love with you the first time I saw you. I wanted to ask you before, but I could never bring myself to it.”

      “I’m not sure if that’s very well put,” she chuckled.

      She was glad to have an opportunity to laugh a little, for on that fine, sunny day the air about them seemed on a sudden heavy with foreboding. He frowned darkly.

      “Oh, you know what I mean. I didn’t want to lose hope. But now you’re going away and in the autumn I have to go back to China.”

      “I’ve never thought of you in that way,” she said helplessly.

      He said nothing more. He looked down on the grass sullenly. He was a very odd creature. But now that he had told her she felt in some mysterious way that his love was something she had never met before. She was a little frightened, but she was elated also. His impassivity was vaguely impressive.

      “You must give me time to think.”

      Still he did not say anything. He did not stir. Did he mean to keep her there till she had decided? That was absurd. She must talk it over with her mother. She ought to have got up when she spoke, she had waited thinking he would answer, and now, she did not know why, she found it difficult to make a movement. She did not look at him, but she was conscious of his appearance; she had never seen herself marrying a man so little taller than herself. When you sat close to him you saw how good his features were, and how cold his face. It was strange when you couldn’t help being conscious of the devastating passion which was in his heart.

      “I don’t know you, I don’t know you at all,” she said tremulously.

      He gave her a look and she felt her eyes drawn to his. They had a tenderness which she had never seen in them before, but there was something beseeching in them, like a dog’s that has been whipped, which slightly exasperated her.

      “I think I improve on acquaintance,” he said.

      “Of course you’re shy, aren’t you?”

      It was certainly the oddest proposal she had ever had. And even now it seemed to her that they were saying to one another the last things you would have expected on such an occasion. She was not in the least in love with him. She did not know why she hesitated to refuse him at once.

      “I’m awfully stupid,” he said, “I want to tell you that I love you more than anything in the world, but I find it so awfully difficult to say.”

      Now that was odd too, for inexplicably enough it touched her; he wasn’t really cold, of course, it was his manner that was unfortunate: she liked him at that moment better than she had ever liked him before. Doris was to be married in November. He would be on his way to China then and if she married him she would be with him. It wouldn’t be very nice to be a bridesmaid at Doris’s wedding. She would be glad to escape that. And then Doris as a married woman and herself still single! Every one knew how young Doris was and it would make her seem older. It would put her on the shelf. It wouldn’t be a very good marriage for her, but it was a marriage, and the fact that she would live in China made it easier. She was afraid of her mother’s bitter tongue. Why, all the girls who had come out with her were married long ago and most of them had children; she was tired of going to see them and gushing over their babies. Walter Fane offered her a new life. She turned to him with a smile which she well knew the effect of.

      “If I were so rash as to say I’d marry you when would you want to marry me?”

      He gave a sudden gasp of delight, and his white cheeks flushed.

      “Now. At once. As soon as possible. We’d go to Italy for our honeymoon. August and September.”

      That would save her from spending the summer in a country vicarage, hired at five guineas a week, with her father and mother. In a flash she saw in her mind’s eye the announcement in the Morning Post that, the bridegroom having to return to the East, the wedding would take place at once. She knew her mother well enough, she could be counted on to make a splash; for the moment at least Doris would be in the background and when Doris’s much grander wedding took place she would be far away.

      She stretched out her hand.

      “I think I like you very much. You must give me time to get used to you.”

      “Then it’s yes?” he interrupted.

      “I suppose so.”

      XII

      She knew him very little then, and now, though they had been married for nearly two years, she knew him but little more. At first she had been touched by his kindness and flattered, though surprised, by his passion. He was extremely considerate; he was very attentive to her comfort; she never expressed the slightest wish without his hastening to gratify it. He was constantly giving her little presents. When she happened to feel ill no one could have been kinder or more thoughtful. She seemed to do him a favour when she gave him the opportunity of doing something tiresome for her. And he was always exceedingly polite. He rose to his feet when she entered a room, he gave her his hand to help her out of a car, if he chanced to meet her in the street he took off his hat, he was solicitous to open the door for her when she left a room, he never came into her bedroom or her boudoir without a knock. He treated her not as Kitty had seen most men treat their wives, but as though she were a fellow-guest in a country house. It was pleasing and yet a trifle comic. She would have felt more at home with him if he had been more casual. Nor did their conjugal relations draw her closer to him. He was passionate then, fierce, oddly hysterical too, and sentimental.

      It disconcerted her to realise how emotional he really was. His self-control was due to shyness or to long training, she did not know which; it seemed to her faintly contemptible that when she lay in his arms, his desire appeased, he who was so timid of saying absurd things, who so feared to be ridiculous, should use baby talk. She had offended him bitterly once by laughing and telling him that he was talking the most fearful slush. She had felt his arms grow limp about her, he remained quite silent for a little while, and then without a word released her and went into his own room. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings and a day or two later she said to him:

      “You silly old thing, I don’t mind what nonsense you talk to me.”

      He had laughed in a shamefaced way. She had discovered very soon that he had an unhappy disability to lose himself. He was self-conscious. When there was a party and every one started singing Walter could never bring himself to join in. He sat there smiling to show that he was pleased and amused, but his smile was forced; it was more like a sarcastic smirk, and you could not help feeling that he thought all those people enjoying themselves a pack of fools. He could not bring himself to play the round games which Kitty with her high spirits found such a lark. On their journey out to China he had absolutely refused to put on fancy dress when every one else was wearing it. It disturbed her pleasure that he should so obviously think the whole thing a bore.

      Kitty was lively; she was willing to chatter all day long and she laughed easily. His silence disconcerted her. He had a way which exasperated her of returning no answer to some casual remark of hers. It was true that it needed no answer, but an answer all the same would have been pleasant. If it was raining and she said: “It’s raining cats and dogs,” she would have liked him to say: “Yes, isn’t it?” He remained silent. Sometimes she would have liked to shake him.

      “I said it was raining cats and dogs,” she repeated.

      “I heard you,” he answered, with his affectionate smile.

      It showed that he had not meant to be offensive. He did not speak because he had nothing to say. But if nobody spoke unless he had something to say, Kitty reflected, with a smile, the human race would very