They heard Griffiths coming heavily down the stairs, and Philip went into his bed-room to wash.  They dined in the neighbourhood in an Italian restaurant.  Philip was cross and silent, but he quickly realised that he was showing to disadvantage in comparison with Griffiths, and he forced himself to hide his annoyance.  He drank a good deal of wine to destroy the pain that was gnawing at his heart, and he set himself to talk.  Mildred, as though remorseful for what she had said, did all she could to make herself pleasant to him.  She was kindly and affectionate.  Presently Philip began to think he had been a fool to surrender to a feeling of jealousy.  After dinner when they got into a hansom to drive to a music-hall Mildred, sitting between the two men, of her own accord gave him her hand.  His anger vanished.  Suddenly, he knew not how, he grew conscious that Griffiths was holding her other hand.  The pain seized him again violently, it was a real physical pain, and he asked himself, panic-stricken, what he might have asked himself before, whether Mildred and Griffiths were in love with one another.  He could not see anything of the performance on account of the mist of suspicion, anger, dismay, and wretchedness which seemed to be before his eyes; but he forced himself to conceal the fact that anything was the matter; he went on talking and laughing.  Then a strange desire to torture himself seized him, and he got up, saying he wanted to go and drink something.  Mildred and Griffiths had never been alone together for a moment.  He wanted to leave them by themselves.

“I’ll come too,” said Griffiths.  “I’ve got rather a thirst on.”

“Oh, nonsense, you stay and talk to Mildred.”

Philip did not know why he said that.  He was throwing them together now to make the pain he suffered more intolerable.  He did not go to the bar, but up into the balcony, from where he could watch them and not be seen.  They had ceased to look at the stage and were smiling into one another’s eyes.  Griffiths was talking with his usual happy fluency and Mildred seemed to hang on his lips.  Philip’s head began to ache frightfully.  He stood there motionless.  He knew he would be in the way if he went back.  They were enjoying themselves without him, and he was suffering, suffering.  Time passed, and now he had an extraordinary shyness about rejoining them.  He knew they had not thought of him at all, and he reflected bitterly that he had paid for the dinner and their seats in the music-hall.  What a fool they were making of him!  He was hot with shame.  He could see how happy they were without him.  His instinct was to leave them to themselves and go home, but he had not his hat and coat, and it would necessitate endless explanations.  He went back.  He felt a shadow of annoyance in Mildred’s eyes when she saw him, and his heart sank.

“You’ve been a devil of a time,” said Griffiths, with a smile of welcome.

“I met some men I knew.  I’ve been talking to them, and I couldn’t get away.  I thought you’d be all right together.”