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ext day he got up early to make the room ready for Mil-
Ndred. He told the woman who had looked after him
that he would not want her any more. Mildred came about
six, and Philip, who was watching from the window, went
down to let her in and help her to bring up the luggage: it
consisted now of no more than three large parcels wrapped
in brown paper, for she had been obliged to sell everything
that was not absolutely needful. She wore the same black
silk dress she had worn the night before, and, though she
had now no rouge on her cheeks, there was still about her
eyes the black which remained after a perfunctory wash in
the morning: it made her look very ill. She was a pathetic
figure as she stepped out of the cab with the baby in her
arms. She seemed a little shy, and they found nothing but
commonplace things to say to one another.
‘So you’ve got here all right.’
‘I’ve never lived in this part of London before.’
Philip showed her the room. It was that in which Cron-
shaw had died. Philip, though he thought it absurd, had
never liked the idea of going back to it; and since Cronshaw’s
death he had remained in the little room, sleeping on a fold-
up bed, into which he had first moved in order to make his
friend comfortable. The baby was sleeping placidly.
‘You don’t recognise her, I expect,’ said Mildred.

Of Human Bondage