Page 248 - of-human-bondage-

to her than she to him. He was expected to show his sense
of obligation in ways which were rather a nuisance: he had
been a good deal used to solitude, and it was a necessity to
him sometimes; but Miss Wilkinson looked upon it as an
unkindness if he was not always at her beck and call. The
Miss O’Connors asked them both to tea, and Philip would
have liked to go, but Miss Wilkinson said she only had five
days more and wanted him entirely to herself. It was flat-
tering, but a bore. Miss Wilkinson told him stories of the
exquisite delicacy of Frenchmen when they stood in the
same relation to fair ladies as he to Miss Wilkinson. She
praised their courtesy, their passion for self-sacrifice, their
perfect tact. Miss Wilkinson seemed to want a great deal.
Philip listened to her enumeration of the qualities which
must be possessed by the perfect lover, and he could not
help feeling a certain satisfaction that she lived in Berlin.
‘You will write to me, won’t you? Write to me every day.
I want to know everything you’re doing. You must keep
nothing from me.’
‘I shall be awfully, busy’ he answered. ‘I’ll write as often
as I can.’
She flung her arms passionately round his neck. He was
embarrassed sometimes by the demonstrations of her af-
fection. He would have preferred her to be more passive. It
shocked him a little that she should give him so marked
a lead: it did not tally altogether with his prepossessions
about the modesty of the feminine temperament.
At length the day came on which Miss Wilkinson was to
go, and she came down to breakfast, pale and subdued, in