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CIV

he social evenings took place on alternate Mondays.
TThere was one at the beginning of Philip’s second week
at Lynn’s. He arranged to go with one of the women in his
department.
‘Meet ‘em ‘alf-way,’ she said, ‘same as I do.’
This was Mrs. Hodges, a little woman of five-and-forty,
with badly dyed hair; she had a yellow face with a network
of small red veins all over it, and yellow whites to her pale
blue eyes. She took a fancy to Philip and called him by his
Christian name before he had been in the shop a week.
‘We’ve both known what it is to come down,’ she said.
She told Philip that her real name was not Hodges, but
she always referred to ‘me ‘usband Misterodges;’ he was a
barrister and he treated her simply shocking, so she left him
as she preferred to be independent like; but she had known
what it was to drive in her own carriage, dear—she called
everyone dear—and they always had late dinner at home.
She used to pick her teeth with the pin of an enormous sil-
ver brooch. It was in the form of a whip and a hunting-crop
crossed, with two spurs in the middle. Philip was ill at ease
in his new surroundings, and the girls in the shop called
him ‘sidey.’ One addressed him as Phil, and he did not an-
swer because he had not the least idea that she was speaking
to him; so she tossed her head, saying he was a ‘stuck-up

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