Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham.mobi [239]
He was overwhelmed with horror. For a moment he felt such a weakness in his legs that he could hardly stand; then he walked after her quickly; he touched her on the arm.
“Mildred.”
She turned round with a violent start. He thought that she reddened, but in the obscurity he could not see very well. For a while they stood and looked at one another without speaking. At last she said:
“Fancy seeing you!”
He did not know what to answer; he was horribly shaken; and the phrases that chased one another through his brain seemed incredibly melodramatic.
“It’s awful,” he gasped, almost to himself.
She did not say anything more, she turned away from him, and looked down at the pavement. He felt that his face was distorted with misery.
“Isn’t there anywhere we can go and talk?”
“I don’t want to talk,” she said sullenly. “Leave me alone, can’t you?”
The thought struck him that perhaps she was in urgent need of money and could not afford to go away at that hour.
“I’ve got a couple of sovereigns on me if you’re hard up,” he blurted out.
“I don’t know what you mean. I was just walking along here on my way back to my lodgings. I expected to meet one of the girls from where I work.”
“For God’s sake don’t lie now,” he said.
Then he saw that she was crying, and he repeated his question.
“Can’t we go and talk somewhere? Can’t I come back to your rooms?”
“No, you can’t do that,” she sobbed. “I’m not allowed to take gentlemen in there. If you like I’ll meet you tomorrow.”
He felt certain that she would not keep an appointment. He was not going to let her go.
“No. You must take me somewhere now.”
“Well, there is a room I know, but they’ll charge six shillings for it.”
“I don’t mind that. Where is it?”
She gave him the address, and he called a cab. They drove to a shabby street beyond the British Museum in the neighborhood of the Gray’s Inn Road, and she stopped the cab at the comer.
“They don’t like you to drive up to the door,” she said.
They were the first words either of them had spoken since getting into the cab. They walked a few yards and Mildred knocked three times, sharply, at a door. Philip noticed in the fanlight a cardboard on which was an announcement that apartments were to let. The door was opened quietly, and an elderly tall woman let them in. She gave Philip a stare and then spoke to Mildred in an undertone. Mildred led Philip along a passage to a room at the back. It was quite dark; she asked him for a match, and lit the gas; there was no globe, and the gas flared shrilly. Philip saw that he was in a dingy little bedroom with a suite of furniture painted to look like pine much too large for it; the lace curtains were very dirty; the grate was hidden by a large paper fan. Mildred sank on the chair which stood by the side of the chimney-piece. Philip sat on the edge of the bed. He felt ashamed. He saw. now that Mildred’s cheeks were thick with rouge, her eyebrows were blackened; but she looked thin and ill, and the red on her cheeks exaggerated the greenish pallor of her skin. She stared at the paper fan in a listless fashion. Philip could not think what to say, and he had a choking in his throat as if he were going to cry. He covered his eyes with his hands.
“My God, it is awful,” he groaned.
“I don’t know what you’ve got to fuss about. I should have thought you’d have been rather pleased.”
Philip did not answer, and in a moment she broke into a sob.
“You don’t think I do it because I like it. do you?”
“Oh, my dear,” he cried. “I’m so sorry, I’m so awfully sorry.”
“That’ll do me a fat lot of good.”
Again Philip found nothing to say. He was desperately afraid of saying anything which she might take for a reproach or a sneer.
“Where’s the baby?” he asked at last.
“I’ve got her with me in London. I hadn’t got the money to keep her on at Brighton, so I had to take her. I’ve got a room up Highbury way. I told them I was on the stage. It