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Philip. Then there was Maupassant. Miss Wilkinson with a
rippling laugh looked at Philip knowingly. What a man, but
what a writer! Hayward had talked of Maupassant, and his
reputation was not unknown to Philip.
‘Did he make love to you?’ he asked.
The words seemed to stick funnily in his throat, but he
asked them nevertheless. He liked Miss Wilkinson very
much now, and was thrilled by her conversation, but he
could not imagine anyone making love to her.
‘What a question!’ she cried. ‘Poor Guy, he made love to
every woman he met. It was a habit that he could not break
himself of.’
She sighed a little, and seemed to look back tenderly on
the past.
‘He was a charming man,’ she murmured.
A greater experience than Philip’s would have guessed
from these words the probabilities of the encounter: the
distinguished writer invited to luncheon en famille, the
governess coming in sedately with the two tall girls she was
teaching; the introduction:
‘Notre Miss Anglaise.’
‘Mademoiselle.’
And the luncheon during which the Miss Anglaise sat
silent while the distinguished writer talked to his host and
hostess.
But to Philip her words called up much more romantic
fancies.
‘Do tell me all about him,’ he said excitedly.
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ she said truthfully, but in such

1 Of Human Bondage