had learned in
a year.

"She's a very nice woman," said Mildred. "Quite the lady. I told her we
was married."

"D'you think that was necessary?"

"Well, I had to tell her something. It looks so funny me being here and
not married to you. I didn't know what she'd think of me."

"I don't suppose she believed you for a moment."

"That she did, I lay. I told her we'd been married two years--I had to say
that, you know, because of baby--only your people wouldn't hear of it,
because you was only a student"--she pronounced it stoodent--"and so we
had to keep it a secret, but they'd given way now and we were all going
down to stay with them in the summer."

"You're a past mistress of the cock-and-bull story," said Philip.

He was vaguely irritated that Mildred still had this passion for telling
fibs. In the last two years she had learnt nothing. But he shrugged his
shoulders.

"When all's said and done," he reflected, "she hasn't had much chance."

It was a beautiful evening, warm and cloudless, and the people of South
London seemed to have poured out into the streets. There was that
restlessness in the air which seizes the cockney sometimes when a turn in
the weather calls him into the open. After Mildred had cleared away the
supper she went and stood at the window. The street noises came up to
them, noises of people calling to one another, of the passing traffic, of
a barrel-organ in the distance.

"I suppose you must work tonight, Philip?" she asked him, with a wistful
expression.

"I ought, but I don't know that I must. Why, d'you want me to do anything
else?"

"I'd like to go out for a bit. Couldn't we take a ride on the top of a
tram?"

"If you like."

"I'll just go and put on my hat," she said joyfully.

The night made it almost impossible to stay indoors. The baby was asleep
and could be safely left; Mildred said she had always left it alone at
night when she went out; it never woke. She was in high spirits when she
came back with her hat on. She had taken the opportunity to put on a
little rouge. Philip thought it was excitement which had brought a faint
colour to her pale cheeks; he was touched by her child-like delight, and
reproached himself for the austerity with which he had treated her. She
laughed when she got out into the air. The first tram they saw was going
towards Westminster Bridge and they got on it. Philip smoked his pipe, and
they looked at the crowded street. The shops were open, ga