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‘You’re not going to give it away that we’re not married?’
she asked quickly.
‘No.’
‘Why won’t you live with me as if we were married
then?’
‘My dear, I can’t explain. I don’t want to humiliate you,
but I simply can’t. I daresay it’s very silly and unreasonable,
but it’s stronger than I am. I loved you so much that now...’
he broke off. ‘After all, there’s no accounting for that sort
of thing.’
‘A fat lot you must have loved me!’ she exclaimed.
The boarding-house to which they had been directed
was kept by a bustling maiden lady, with shrewd eyes and
voluble speech. They could have one double room for twen-
ty-five shillings a week each, and five shillings extra for the
baby, or they could have two single rooms for a pound a
week more.
‘I have to charge that much more,’ the woman explained
apologetically, ‘because if I’m pushed to it I can put two
beds even in the single rooms.’
‘I daresay that won’t ruin us. What do you think, Mil-
dred?’
‘Oh, I don’t mind. Anything’s good enough for me,’ she
answered.
Philip passed off her sulky reply with a laugh, and, the
landlady having arranged to send for their luggage, they sat
down to rest themselves. Philip’s foot was hurting him a
little, and he was glad to put it up on a chair.
‘I suppose you don’t mind my sitting in the same room

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