Explore "Lost Horizon" by James Hilton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
They spent the rest of the morning discussing the matter. It was certainly a shock for four persons who in the ordinary course should have been luxuriating in the clubs and mission houses of Peshawar to find themselves faced instead with the prospect of two months in a Tibetan monastery. But it was in the nature of things that the initial shock of their arrival should have left them with slender reserves either of indignation or astonishment; even Mallinson, after his first outburst, subsided into a mood of half-bewildered fatalism. “I’m past arguing about it, Conway,” he said, puffing at a cigarette with nervous irritability. “You know how I feel. I’ve said all along that there’s something queer about this business. It’s crooked. I’d like to be out of it this minute.”
“I don’t blame you for that,” replied Conway. “Unfortunately, it’s not a question of what any of us would like, but of what we’ve all got to put up with. Frankly, if these people say they won’t or can’t supply us with the necessary porters, there’s nothing for it but to wait till the other fellows come. I’m sorry to admit that we’re so helpless in the matter, but I’m afraid it’s the truth.”