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ordered dinner for the two of them when he took the rooms,
and proposed to spend the evening with her quietly. He was
in such a hurry to get back that he took a tram along the
Vauxhall Bridge Road. He thought he had better break the
fact to Norah at once that he could not stay more than a few
minutes.
‘I say, I’ve got only just time to say how d’you do,’ he said,
as soon as he got into her rooms. ‘I’m frightfully busy.’
Her face fell.
‘Why, what’s the matter?’
It exasperated him that she should force him to tell lies,
and he knew that he reddened when he answered that there
was a demonstration at the hospital which he was bound to
go to. He fancied that she looked as though she did not be-
lieve him, and this irritated him all the more.
‘Oh, well, it doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘I shall have you all
tomorrow.’
He looked at her blankly. It was Sunday, and he had been
looking forward to spending the day with Mildred. He told
himself that he must do that in common decency; he could
not leave her by herself in a strange house.
‘I’m awfully sorry, I’m engaged tomorrow.’
He knew this was the beginning of a scene which he
would have given anything to avoid. The colour on Norah’s
cheeks grew brighter.
‘But I’ve asked the Gordons to lunch’—they were an actor
and his wife who were touring the provinces and in London
for Sunday—‘I told you about it a week ago.’
‘I’m awfully sorry, I forgot.’ He hesitated. ‘I’m afraid I

Of Human Bondage