case, 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
