a little hotel he knew in the
Latin Quarter, and they would eat in all sorts of charming little
restaurants; they would go to the play, and he would take her to music
halls. It would amuse her to meet his friends. He had talked to her about
Cronshaw, she would see him; and there was Lawson, he had gone to Paris
for a couple of months; and they would go to the Bal Bullier; there were
excursions; they would make trips to Versailles, Chartres, Fontainebleau.

"It'll cost a lot of money," she said.

"Oh, damn the expense. Think how I've been looking forward to it. Don't
you know what it means to me? I've never loved anyone but you. I never
shall."

She listened to his enthusiasm with smiling eyes. He thought he saw in
them a new tenderness, and he was grateful to her. She was much gentler
than she used to be. There was in her no longer the superciliousness which
had irritated him. She was so accustomed to him now that she took no pains
to keep up before him any pretences. She no longer troubled to do her hair
with the old elaboration, but just tied it in a knot; and she left off the
vast fringe which she generally wore: the more careless style suited her.
Her face was so thin that it made her eyes seem very large; there were
heavy lines under them, and the pallor of her cheeks made their colour
more profound. She had a wistful look which was infinitely pathetic. There
seemed to Philip to be in her something of the Madonna. He wished they
could continue in that same way always. He was happier than he had ever
been in his life.

He used to leave her at ten o'clock every night, for she liked to go to
bed early, and he was obliged to put in another couple of hours' work to
make up for the lost evening. He generally brushed her hair for her before
he went. He had made a ritual of the kisses he gave her when he bade her
good-night; first he kissed the palms of her hands (how thin the fingers
were, the nails were beautiful, for she spent much time in manicuring
them,) then he kissed her closed eyes, first the right one and then the
left, and at last he kissed her lips. He went home with a heart
overflowing with love. He longed for an opportunity to gratify the desire
for self-sacrifice which consumed him.

Presently the time came for her to move to the nursing-home where she was
to be confined. Philip was then able to visit her only in the afternoons.
Mildred changed her story and represented herself as the wife of a soldier