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‘You can’t help liking him,’ said Philip.
‘I don’t like good-looking men,’ said Mildred. ‘They’re
too conceited for me.’
‘He wants to know you. I’ve talked to him about you an
awful lot.’
‘What have you said?’ asked Mildred.
Philip had no one but Griffiths to talk to of his love for
Mildred, and little by little had told him the whole story of
his connection with her. He described her to him fifty times.
He dwelt amorously on every detail of her appearance, and
Griffiths knew exactly how her thin hands were shaped and
how white her face was, and he laughed at Philip when he
talked of the charm of her pale, thin lips.
‘By Jove, I’m glad I don’t take things so badly as that,’ he
said. ‘Life wouldn’t be worth living.’
Philip smiled. Griffiths did not know the delight of being
so madly in love that it was like meat and wine and the air
one breathed and whatever else was essential to existence.
Griffiths knew that Philip had looked after the girl while
she was having her baby and was now going away with her.
‘Well, I must say you’ve deserved to get something,’ he
remarked. ‘It must have cost you a pretty penny. It’s lucky
you can afford it.’
‘I can’t,’ said Philip. ‘But what do I care!’
Since it was early for luncheon, Philip and Mildred sat
in one of the shelters on the parade, sunning themselves,
and watched the people pass. There were the Brighton shop-
boys who walked in twos and threes, swinging their canes,
and there were the Brighton shop-girls who tripped along

Of Human Bondage