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the note to Griffiths and showed it to him.
‘You’d better leave it unanswered,’ said he.
‘Oh, I can’t,’ cried Philip. ‘I should be miserable if I
thought of her waiting and waiting. You don’t know what it
is to be sick for the postman’s knock. I do, and I can’t expose
anybody else to that torture.’
‘My dear fellow, one can’t break that sort of affair off
without somebody suffering. You must just set your teeth to
that. One thing is, it doesn’t last very long.’
Philip felt that Norah had not deserved that he should
make her suffer; and what did Griffiths know about the de-
grees of anguish she was capable of? He remembered his
own pain when Mildred had told him she was going to be
married. He did not want anyone to experience what he had
experienced then.
‘If you’re so anxious not to give her pain, go back to her,’
said Griffiths.
‘I can’t do that.’
He got up and walked up and down the room nervously.
He was angry with Norah because she had not let the mat-
ter rest. She must have seen that he had no more love to give
her. They said women were so quick at seeing those things.
‘You might help me,’ he said to Griffiths.
‘My dear fellow, don’t make such a fuss about it. People
do get over these things, you know. She probably isn’t so
wrapped up in you as you think, either. One’s always rath-
er apt to exaggerate the passion one’s inspired other people
with.’
He paused and looked at Philip with amusement.

0 Of Human Bondage