Page 488 - of-human-bondage-

Sometimes he awoke in the morning and felt nothing;
his soul leaped, for he thought he was free; he loved no lon-
ger; but in a little while, as he grew wide awake, the pain
settled in his heart, and he knew that he was not cured yet.
Though he yearned for Mildred so madly he despised her.
He thought to himself that there could be no greater torture
in the world than at the same time to love and to contemn.
Philip, burrowing as was his habit into the state of his
feelings, discussing with himself continually his condition,
came to the conclusion that he could only cure himself of
his degrading passion by making Mildred his mistress. It
was sexual hunger that he suffered from, and if he could sat-
isfy this he might free himself from the intolerable chains
that bound him. He knew that Mildred did not care for him
at all in that way. When he kissed her passionately she with-
drew herself from him with instinctive distaste. She had no
sensuality. Sometimes he had tried to make her jealous by
talking of adventures in Paris, but they did not interest her;
once or twice he had sat at other tables in the tea-shop and
affected to flirt with the waitress who attended them, but
she was entirely indifferent. He could see that it was no pre-
tence on her part.
‘You didn’t mind my not sitting at one of your tables this
afternoon?’ he asked once, when he was walking to the sta-
tion with her. ‘Yours seemed to be all full.’
This was not a fact, but she did not contradict him. Even
if his desertion meant nothing to her he would have been
grateful if she had pretended it did. A reproach would have
been balm to his soul.