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of the despair he would suffer, he had thought of suicide, of
the mad passion of anger that would seize him; but perhaps
he had too completely anticipated the emotion he would
experience, so that now he felt merely exhausted. He felt
as one does in a serious illness when the vitality is so low
that one is indifferent to the issue and wants only to be left
alone.
‘You see, I’m getting on,’ she said. ‘I’m twenty-four and
it’s time I settled down.’
He was silent. He looked at the patronne sitting behind
the counter, and his eye dwelt on a red feather one of the
diners wore in her hat. Mildred was nettled.
‘You might congratulate me,’ she said.
‘I might, mightn’t I? I can hardly believe it’s true. I’ve
dreamt it so often. It rather tickles me that I should have
been so jolly glad that you asked me to take you out to din-
ner. Whom are you going to marry?’
‘Miller,’ she answered, with a slight blush.
‘Miller?’ cried Philip, astounded. ‘But you’ve not seen
him for months.’
‘He came in to lunch one day last week and asked me then.
He’s earning very good money. He makes seven pounds a
week now and he’s got prospects.’
Philip was silent again. He remembered that she had al-
ways liked Miller; he amused her; there was in his foreign
birth an exotic charm which she felt unconsciously.
‘I suppose it was inevitable,’ he said at last. ‘You were
bound to accept the highest bidder. When are you going
to marry?’

Of Human Bondage