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pared.’
‘I’m awfully sorry, Norah. I want you to know that I’m
very grateful for all you’ve done for me.’
He wondered what it was she saw in him.
‘Oh, it’s always the same,’ she sighed, ‘if you want men to
behave well to you, you must be beastly to them; if you treat
them decently they make you suffer for it.’
She got up from the floor and said she must go. She gave
Philip a long, steady look. Then she sighed.
‘It’s so inexplicable. What does it all mean?’
Philip took a sudden determination.
‘I think I’d better tell you, I don’t want you to think too
badly of me, I want you to see that I can’t help myself. Mil-
dred’s come back.’
The colour came to her face.
‘Why didn’t you tell me at once? I deserved that surely.’
‘I was afraid to.’
She looked at herself in the glass and set her hat straight.
‘Will you call me a cab,’ she said. ‘I don’t feel I can walk.’
He went to the door and stopped a passing hansom; but
when she followed him into the street he was startled to see
how white she was. There was a heaviness in her movements
as though she had suddenly grown older. She looked so ill
that he had not the heart to let her go alone.
‘I’ll drive back with you if you don’t mind.’
She did not answer, and he got into the cab. They drove
along in silence over the bridge, through shabby streets in
which children, with shrill cries, played in the road. When
they arrived at her door she did not immediately get out. It