"But don't you see it'll kill me? Don't you know that he's taking me there because he knows it'll kill me."
"Oh, my dear, don't talk like that. We're in a damned awkward position and really it's no time to be melodramatic."
"You've made up your mind not to understand." Oh, the pain in her heart, and the fear! She could have screamed. "You can't send me to certain death. If you have no love or pity for me you must have just ordinary human feeling."
"I think it's rather hard on me to put it like that. As far as I can make out your husband is behaving very generously. He's willing to forgive you if you'll let him. He wants to get you away and this opportunity has presented itself to take you to some place where for a few months you'll be out of harm's way. I don't pretend that Mei-tan-fu is a health resort, I never knew a Chinese city that was, but there's no reason to get the wind up about it. In fact that's the worst thing you can do. I believe as many people die from sheer fright in an epidemic as because they get infected."
"But I'm frightened now. When Walter spoke of it I almost fainted."
"At the first moment I can quite believe it was a shock, but when you come to look at it calmly you'll be all right. It'll be the sort of experience that not everyone has had."
"I thought, I thought . . ."
She rocked to and fro in an agony. He did not speak, and once more his face wore that sullen look which till lately she had never known. Kitty was not crying now. She was dry-eyed, calm, and though her voice was low it was steady.
"Do you want me to go?"
"It's Hobson's choice, isn't it?"