“I have to be rather careful what I say,” she told him, “as there’s another lady here whose husband’s in the Indian Civil.”

“I wouldn’t let that disturb me if I were you,” said Philip.  “I’m convinced that her husband and yours went out on the same boat.”

“What boat?” she asked innocently.

“The Flying Dutchman.”

Mildred was safely delivered of a daughter, and when Philip was allowed to see her the child was lying by her side.  Mildred was very weak, but relieved that everything was over.  She showed him the baby, and herself looked at it curiously.

“It’s a funny-looking little thing, isn’t it?  I can’t believe it’s mine.”

It was red and wrinkled and odd.  Philip smiled when he looked at it.  He did not quite know what to say; and it embarrassed him because the nurse who owned the house was standing by his side; and he felt by the way she was looking at him that, disbelieving Mildred’s complicated story, she thought he was the father.

“What are you going to call her?” asked Philip.

“I can’t make up my mind if I shall call her Madeleine or Cecilia.”

The nurse left them alone for a few minutes, and Philip bent down and kissed Mildred on the mouth.

“I’m so glad it’s all over happily, darling.”

She put her thin arms round his neck.

“You have been a brick to me, Phil dear.”

“Now I feel that you’re mine at last.  I’ve waited so long for you, my dear.”

They heard the nurse at the door, and Philip hurriedly got up.  The nurse entered.  There was a slight smile on her lips.

LXXIII

Three weeks later Philip saw Mildred and her baby off to Brighton.  She had made a quick recovery and looked better than he had ever seen her.  She was going to a boarding-house where she had spent a couple of weekends with Emil Miller, and had written to say that her husband was obliged to go to Germany on business and she was coming down with her baby.  She got pleasure out of the stories she invented, and she showed a certain fertility of invention in the working out of the details.  Mildred proposed to find in Brighton some woman who would be willing to take charge of the baby.  Philip was startled at the callousness with which she insisted on getting rid of it so soon, but she argued with common sense that the poor child had much better be put somewhere before it grew used to her.  Philip had expected the maternal instinct to make itself felt when she had had the baby two or three weeks and had counted on this to help him persuade her to keep it; but nothing of the sort occurred.  Mildred was not unkind to her baby; she did all that was necessary; it amused her sometimes, and she talked about it a good deal; but at heart she was indifferent to it.  She could not look upon it as part of herself.  She fancied it resembled its father already.  She was continually wondering how she would manage when it grew older; and she was exasperated with herself for being such a fool as to have it at all.