Then she went back to dinner, he got a scrappy meal at a hotel, and in the afternoon they took a walk in Brockwell Park.  They had nothing much to say to one another, and Philip, desperately afraid she was bored (she was very easily bored), racked his brain for topics of conversation.  He realised that these walks amused neither of them, but he could not bear to leave her, and did all he could to lengthen them till she became tired and out of temper.  He knew that she did not care for him, and he tried to force a love which his reason told him was not in her nature:  she was cold.  He had no claim on her, but he could not help being exacting.  Now that they were more intimate he found it less easy to control his temper; he was often irritable and could not help saying bitter things.  Often they quarrelled, and she would not speak to him for a while; but this always reduced him to subjection, and he crawled before her.  He was angry with himself for showing so little dignity.  He grew furiously jealous if he saw her speaking to any other man in the shop, and when he was jealous he seemed to be beside himself.  He would deliberately insult her, leave the shop and spend afterwards a sleepless night tossing on his bed, by turns angry and remorseful.  Next day he would go to the shop and appeal for forgiveness.

“Don’t be angry with me,” he said.  “I’m so awfully fond of you that I can’t help myself.”

“One of these days you’ll go too far,” she answered.

He was anxious to come to her home in order that the greater intimacy should give him an advantage over the stray acquaintances she made during her working-hours; but she would not let him.

“My aunt would think it so funny,” she said.

He suspected that her refusal was due only to a disinclination to let him see her aunt.  Mildred had represented her as the widow of a professional man (that was her formula of distinction), and was uneasily conscious that the good woman could hardly be called distinguished.  Philip imagined that she was in point of fact the widow of a small tradesman.  He knew that Mildred was a snob.  But he found no means by which he could indicate to her that he did not mind how common the aunt was.

Their worst quarrel took place one evening at dinner when she told him that a man had asked her to go to a play with him.  Philip turned pale, and his face grew hard and stern.

“You’re not going?” he said.

“Why shouldn’t I?  He’s a very nice gentlemanly fellow.”

“I’ll take you anywhere you like.”

“But that isn’t the same thing.  I can’t always go about with you.  Besides he’s asked me to fix my own day, and I’ll just go one evening when I’m not going out with you.  It won’t make any difference to you.”

“If you had any sense of decency, if you had any gratitude, you wouldn’t dream of going.”

“I don’t know what you mean by gratitude.  If you’re referring to the things you’ve given me you can have them back.  I don’t want them.”