Page 576 - of-human-bondage-

LXXIII

hree weeks later Philip saw Mildred and her baby off to
TBrighton. She had made a quick recovery and looked
better than he had ever seen her. She was going to a board-
ing-house where she had spent a couple of weekends with
Emil Miller, and had written to say that her husband was
obliged to go to Germany on business and she was com-
ing down with her baby. She got pleasure out of the stories
she invented, and she showed a certain fertility of inven-
tion in the working out of the details. Mildred proposed to
find in Brighton some woman who would be willing to take
charge of the baby. Philip was startled at the callousness
with which she insisted on getting rid of it so soon, but she
argued with common sense that the poor child had much
better be put somewhere before it grew used to her. Philip
had expected the maternal instinct to make itself felt when
she had had the baby two or three weeks and had counted
on this to help him persuade her to keep it; but nothing of
the sort occurred. Mildred was not unkind to her baby; she
did all that was necessary; it amused her sometimes, and
she talked about it a good deal; but at heart she was indif-
ferent to it. She could not look upon it as part of herself. She
fancied it resembled its father already. She was continually
wondering how she would manage when it grew older; and
she was exasperated with herself for being such a fool as to