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earned a little now and then by doing locums when some-
one took a holiday or fell ill, and a charitable institution
gave them a small pension; but her life was lonely, it would
be something to do to look after a child, and the few shil-
lings a week paid for it would help her to keep things going.
She promised that it should be well fed.
‘Quite the lady, isn’t she?’ said Mildred, when they went
away.
They went back to have tea at the Metropole. Mildred
liked the crowd and the band. Philip was tired of talking,
and he watched her face as she looked with keen eyes at
the dresses of the women who came in. She had a peculiar
sharpness for reckoning up what things cost, and now and
then she leaned over to him and whispered the result of her
meditations.
‘D’you see that aigrette there? That cost every bit of seven
guineas.’
Or: ‘Look at that ermine, Philip. That’s rabbit, that is—
that’s not ermine.’ She laughed triumphantly. ‘I’d know it
a mile off.’
Philip smiled happily. He was glad to see her pleasure,
and the ingenuousness of her conversation amused and
touched him. The band played sentimental music.
After dinner they walked down to the station, and Philip
took her arm. He told her what arrangements he had made
for their journey to France. She was to come up to London
at the end of the week, but she told him that she could not
go away till the Saturday of the week after that. He had al-
ready engaged a room in a hotel in Paris. He was looking

Of Human Bondage