For the sex that does
not hunt jackals it is easier--you have only to be a little frivolous
and Calcutta will invent for you the most side-shaking nickname, as in
the case of three ladies known in a viceroyalty of happy legend as the
World, the Flesh and the Devil. I should be sorry to give the impression
that Calcutta is therefore a place of gloom. The source of these things
is perennial, and the noise of laughter is ever in the air of the Indian
capital. Between the explosions, however, it is natural enough that the
affairs of a priest of College street and an actress of no address at
all should slip unnoticed, especially as they did not advertise it.
Stephen mostly came, on afternoons when there was no rehearsal, to tea.
He, Stephen, had a perception of contrasts which answered fairly well
the purposes of a sense of humour, and nobody could question hers; it
operated obscurely to keep them in the house.
She told him buoyantly once or twice that he had been sent to her to
take the place of Duff Lindsay, who had fallen to the snare of beauty,
although she mentioned herself that he took it with a difference, a vast
temperamental difference which she was aware of not having yet quite
sounded.
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