“I do like his books,” said Mildred.
“I read them all. They’re so refined.”
He remembered what Norah had said of herself.
“I have an immense popularity among kitchen-maids.
They think me so genteel.”
Philip, in return for Griffiths’ confidences,
had told him the details of his own complicated amours,
and on Sunday morning, after breakfast when they sat
by the fire in their dressing-gowns and smoked, he
recounted the scene of the previous day. Griffiths
congratulated him because he had got out of his difficulties
so easily.
“It’s the simplest thing in the world
to have an affair with a woman,” he remarked
sententiously, “but it’s a devil of a nuisance
to get out of it.”
Philip felt a little inclined to pat himself on the
back for his skill in managing the business.
At all events he was immensely relieved. He thought
of Mildred enjoying herself in Tulse Hill, and he found
in himself a real satisfaction because she was happy.
It was an act of self-sacrifice on his part that he
did not grudge her pleasure even though paid for by
his own disappointment, and it filled his heart with
a comfortable glow.
But on Monday morning he found on his table a letter
from Norah. She wrote:
Dearest,
I’m sorry I was cross on Saturday. Forgive
me and come to tea in the
afternoon as usual. I love you.
Your
Norah.
His heart sank, and he did not know what to do.
He took the note to Griffiths and showed it to him.
“You’d better leave it unanswered,”
said he.
“Oh, I can’t,” cried Philip.
“I should be miserable if I thought of her waiting
and waiting. You don’t know what it is to
be sick for the postman’s knock. I do,
and I can’t expose anybody else to that torture.”
“My dear fellow, one can’t break that
sort of affair off without somebody suffering.
You must just set your teeth to that. One thing
is, it doesn’t last very long.”
Philip felt that Norah had not deserved that he should
make her suffer; and what did Griffiths know about
the degrees of anguish she was capable of? He
remembered his own pain when Mildred had told him she
was going to be married. He did not want anyone
to experience what he had experienced then.
“If you’re so anxious not to give her
pain, go back to her,” said Griffiths.
“I can’t do that.”
He got up and walked up and down the room nervously.
He was angry with Norah because she had not let the
matter rest. She must have seen that he had no
more love to give her. They said women were so
quick at seeing those things.
“You might help me,” he said to Griffiths.
“My dear fellow, don’t make such a fuss
about it. People do get over these things, you
know. She probably isn’t so wrapped up in
you as you think, either. One’s always
rather apt to exaggerate the passion one’s inspired
other people with.”
