Page 457 - of-human-bondage-

‘Now then, quarrelsome.’
At the station he took a ticket and said he was going to
accompany her home.
‘You don’t seem to have much to do with your time,’ she
said.
‘I suppose I can waste it in my own way.’
They seemed to be always on the verge of a quarrel. The
fact was that he hated himself for loving her. She seemed
to be constantly humiliating him, and for each snub that
he endured he owed her a grudge. But she was in a friendly
mood that evening, and talkative: she told him that her par-
ents were dead; she gave him to understand that she did not
have to earn her living, but worked for amusement.
‘My aunt doesn’t like my going to business. I can have the
best of everything at home. I don’t want you to think I work
because I need to.’ Philip knew that she was not speaking
the truth. The gentility of her class made her use this pre-
tence to avoid the stigma attached to earning her living.
‘My family’s very well-connected,’ she said.
Philip smiled faintly, and she noticed it.
‘What are you laughing at?’ she said quickly. ‘Don’t you
believe I’m telling you the truth?’
‘Of course I do,’ he answered.
She looked at him suspiciously, but in a moment could
not resist the temptation to impress him with the splendour
of her early days.
‘My father always kept a dog-cart, and we had three ser-
vants. We had a cook and a housemaid and an odd man. We
used to grow beautiful roses. People used to stop at the gate

Of Human Bondage