asp.

"Mildred, won't you come out with me tonight? Let's go and dine
somewhere."

"Oh, I can't. My aunt'll be expecting me home."

"I'll send her a wire. You can say you've been detained in the shop; she
won't know any better. Oh, do come, for God's sake. I haven't seen you for
so long, and I want to talk to you."

She looked down at her clothes.

"Never mind about that. We'll go somewhere where it doesn't matter how
you're dressed. And we'll go to a music-hall afterwards. Please say yes.
It would give me so much pleasure."

She hesitated a moment; he looked at her with pitifully appealing eyes.

"Well, I don't mind if I do. I haven't been out anywhere since I don't
know how long."

It was with the greatest difficulty he could prevent himself from seizing
her hand there and then to cover it with kisses.

LX

They dined in Soho. Philip was tremulous with joy. It was not one of the
more crowded of those cheap restaurants where the respectable and needy
dine in the belief that it is bohemian and the assurance that it is
economical. It was a humble establishment, kept by a good man from Rouen
and his wife, that Philip had discovered by accident. He had been
attracted by the Gallic look of the window, in which was generally an
uncooked steak on one plate and on each side two dishes of raw vegetables.
There was one seedy French waiter, who was attempting to learn English in
a house where he never heard anything but French; and the customers were
a few ladies of easy virtue, a menage or two, who had their own napkins
reserved for them, and a few queer men who came in for hurried, scanty
meals.

Here Mildred and Philip were able to get a table to themselves. Philip
sent the waiter for a bottle of Burgundy from the neighbouring tavern, and
they had a potage aux herbes, a steak from the window aux pommes, and
an omelette au kirsch. There was really an air of romance in the meal
and in the place. Mildred, at first a little reserved in her
appreciation--"I never quite trust these foreign places, you never know
what there is in these messed up dishes"--was insensibly moved by it.

"I like this place, Philip," she said. "You feel you can put your elbows
on the table, don't you?"

A tall fellow came in, with a mane of gray hair and a ragged thin beard.
He wore a dilapidated cloak and a wide-awake hat. He nodded to Philip, who
had met him there before.

"He looks like an anarchist," said Mildred.

"He is, one