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the first time that Philip and Mildred had been thrown en-
tirely together. In London he did not see her all day, and
when he came home the household affairs, the baby, the
neighbours, gave them something to talk about till he set-
tled down to work. Now he spent the whole day with her.
After breakfast they went down to the beach; the morn-
ing went easily enough with a bathe and a stroll along the
front; the evening, which they spent on the pier, having put
the baby to bed, was tolerable, for there was music to lis-
ten to and a constant stream of people to look at; (Philip
amused himself by imagining who they were and weaving
little stories about them; he had got into the habit of an-
swering Mildred’s remarks with his mouth only so that his
thoughts remained undisturbed;) but the afternoons were
long and dreary. They sat on the beach. Mildred said they
must get all the benefit they could out of Doctor Brighton,
and he could not read because Mildred made observations
frequently about things in general. If he paid no attention
she complained.
‘Oh, leave that silly old book alone. It can’t be good for
you always reading. You’ll addle your brain, that’s what
you’ll do, Philip.’
‘Oh, rot!’ he answered.
‘Besides, it’s so unsociable.’
He discovered that it was difficult to talk to her. She had
not even the power of attending to what she was herself say-
ing, so that a dog running in front of her or the passing of
a man in a loud blazer would call forth a remark and then
she would forget what she had been speaking of. She had a

Of Human Bondage