Kitty’s+life+at+the+Townsends’

The Townsends lived on the Peak in a house with a wide view over the sea. Kitty was fairly settled at the Townsends that she discovered that she was weary. She needed cheering and Charlie was prepared to cheer her. The best way of making her feel at home was to treat her as one of the family. In all those weeks during which her fancy had been revengefully occupied with him she had built up in her mind a very vivid impression of him. But when Charlie came into the drawing – room before luncheon Kitty received quite a shock, for she discovered that her imagination had played an odd trick on her. The comfort and the unaccustomed amenity of this life broke up the strain under which she had been living. She had forgotten how pleasant it was to take one’s ease, how lulling to be surrounded by pretty things, and how agreeable it was to receive attention. She sank back with a sigh of relief into the facile existence of the luxurious East. It was not displeasing to feel that in a discreet and well-bred fashion she was an object of sympathetic interests. The ladies of consequence in the Colony came to drink a quiet cup of tea with her. These ladies used Kitty as though she were a piece of precious. She couldn’t fail to see that they looked upon her as a little heroine. She wished sometimes that Waddington were there. She often remembered with a faint shudder the bare and empty parlour of the missionary’s bungalow; the rattan chairs and the kitchen table with its cotton cloth, red curtains that had such a dusty look. It was so uncomfortable. She also remembered Mei-tan-fu, the nuns in the convent, Waddington and the Manchu woman who loved him. Kitty was analyzing her life before and after Mei-tan-fu. Kitty’s last talk with Townsend was so tense. She did not sit down, in order to show him that she expected him not to detain her. She was standing at the table and looked down. During their conversation Kitty come to the conclusion that Charlie was really fond of Dorothy. He thought that she was the best wife a man ever had. He said an absurd joke about Walter, on what Kitty said, that he died because of her and him. She hated and despised him and she hated herself. Kitty did not feel human. She felt like an animal. She said that he is a very unimportant little man and she is silly to talk with him seriously. Charlie did not answer for a while and she saw by the shadow in his blue eyes that he was angry with her. Then he asked her about child and whether he could be a father. On what Kitty answered that she would rather kill herself than had a child of him. If the child was his, though she might never see him again, she could never escape him. His power over her would reach out and he would still influence every day of her life.
 * Kitty’s life at the Townsends’? What made her recall Mei-tan-fu every now and then? **