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by her distress, he pressed her more and more. Her tears
vaguely flattered him, and he kissed her with real passion.
But a day or two later she made a real scene. There was
a tennis-party at the vicarage, and two girls came, daugh-
ters of a retired major in an Indian regiment who had lately
settled in Blackstable. They were very pretty, one was Phil-
ip’s age and the other was a year or two younger. Being
used to the society of young men (they were full of sto-
ries of hill-stations in India, and at that time the stories of
Rudyard Kipling were in every hand) they began to chaff
Philip gaily; and he, pleased with the novelty—the young
ladies at Blackstable treated the Vicar’s nephew with a cer-
tain seriousness—was gay and jolly. Some devil within him
prompted him to start a violent flirtation with them both,
and as he was the only young man there, they were quite
willing to meet him half-way. It happened that they played
tennis quite well and Philip was tired of pat-ball with Miss
Wilkinson (she had only begun to play when she came to
Blackstable), so when he arranged the sets after tea he sug-
gested that Miss Wilkinson should play against the curate’s
wife, with the curate as her partner; and he would play lat-
er with the new-comers. He sat down by the elder Miss
O’Connor and said to her in an undertone:
‘We’ll get the duffers out of the way first, and then we’ll
have a jolly set afterwards.’
Apparently Miss Wilkinson overheard him, for she threw
down her racket, and, saying she had a headache, went away.
It was plain to everyone that she was offended. Philip was
annoyed that she should make the fact public. The set was

Of Human Bondage