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XXXV

hilip woke early next morning. His sleep had been rest-
Pless; but when he stretched his legs and looked at the
sunshine that slid through the Venetian blinds, making
patterns on the floor, he sighed with satisfaction. He was
delighted with himself. He began to think of Miss Wilkin-
son. She had asked him to call her Emily, but, he knew not
why, he could not; he always thought of her as Miss Wilkin-
son. Since she chid him for so addressing her, he avoided
using her name at all. During his childhood he had often
heard a sister of Aunt Louisa, the widow of a naval officer,
spoken of as Aunt Emily. It made him uncomfortable to call
Miss Wilkinson by that name, nor could he think of any
that would have suited her better. She had begun as Miss
Wilkinson, and it seemed inseparable from his impression
of her. He frowned a little: somehow or other he saw her
now at her worst; he could not forget his dismay when she
turned round and he saw her in her camisole and the short
petticoat; he remembered the slight roughness of her skin
and the sharp, long lines on the side of the neck. His tri-
umph was short-lived. He reckoned out her age again, and
he did not see how she could be less than forty. It made the
affair ridiculous. She was plain and old. His quick fancy
showed her to him, wrinkled, haggard, made-up, in those
frocks which were too showy for her position and too young