The Painted Veil

Summary
Chapter I XXIV
The book is about Kitty was a young woman of 25 years and unmarried,
which, for her circumstances, made her desperately oldshe gives up on
finding an ideal mate and marries Walter Fane, a government biologist who
normally lives and works in Hong Kong. She didnt like Walter and even
admitted he irritated her a little bit, because he wasnt her type. However,
Walter was profoundly in love with her. Kitty did not had other choice than
marrying him even though she knew very little about him. She moves to
Hong Kong with him within months after her marriage. Kitty knew she had
made a mistake but blamed her mother for pressuring her.
Two years after the have been together, nothing that Walter did for kitty
can make her love him. Kitty found Walter, a very reserved, restrained,
cold and somehow dull man with no charm. Both of them had nothing in
common and she wondered why he had ever fallen in love with her.
However, it was obvious that he loved her madly and would do anything to
please her.
At a social function, Kitty met Charlie Townsend through her husband,
and the two immediately had a connection. Conversation came easily,
unlike her present situation with Walter, and she immediately knew she
had made a good impression on him.
After their first encounter, the relationship between Kitty and Charlie
developed quickly. He provided such a contrast with her husband that she
fell in love with him very quickly but still she kept him at a distance.
Charlie and Kitty kept their relationship in a secret, more for her sake than
for his, he says. Kitty grew more and more in love as time progressed and
dreamed of even marrying Charlie after he would divorce his wife, Dorothy.
This affair made Kitty happier than ever.
One day when Kitty and Charlie had their usual meeting at her house
from Hong Kong, she heard that someone tried to open the door and she
feared that it may have been Walter but Charlie reassured her that it is
one of the Chinese servants and calmed her.
However, Walter knew that his wife was cheating on him and who also
turned out to be quite a character, came up with a terrible idea for Kitty to
go to a town in China, where is a an outbreak of cholera. Walter also gave
Kitty another choice: he agreed to divorce her in case Charlie Townsend
married her. Being a naive woman, Kitty agreed, but Charlie was too

reasonable and all he suggested for them to do was to keep their heads
and deny everything. However, it was too late since Kitty had already
confessed to Walter everything.
When she finally does it, Charlie decided to keep Dorothy out of the
mess by all means, which gave Kitty quite a shock, because she loved him
so desperately. Therefore, Charlie made it as clear as possible that his
divorcing his wife was quite out of the question.