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‘I think it’s silly of you to sit at the same table every day.
You ought to give the other girls a turn now and again.’
But the more he thought of it the more he was convinced
that complete surrender on her part was his only way to
freedom. He was like a knight of old, metamorphosed by
magic spells, who sought the potions which should restore
him to his fair and proper form. Philip had only one hope.
Mildred greatly desired to go to Paris. To her, as to most
English people, it was the centre of gaiety and fashion: she
had heard of the Magasin du Louvre, where you could get
the very latest thing for about half the price you had to pay
in London; a friend of hers had passed her honeymoon in
Paris and had spent all day at the Louvre; and she and her
husband, my dear, they never went to bed till six in the
morning all the time they were there; the Moulin Rouge
and I don’t know what all. Philip did not care that if she
yielded to his desires it would only be the unwilling price
she paid for the gratification of her wish. He did not care
upon what terms he satisfied his passion. He had even had a
mad, melodramatic idea to drug her. He had plied her with
liquor in the hope of exciting her, but she had no taste for
wine; and though she liked him to order champagne be-
cause it looked well, she never drank more than half a glass.
She liked to leave untouched a large glass filled to the brim.
‘It shows the waiters who you are,’ she said.
Philip chose an opportunity when she seemed more than
usually friendly. He had an examination in anatomy at the
end of March. Easter, which came a week later, would give
Mildred three whole days holiday.

Of Human Bondage