that evening:  they must kill the evening somehow; they were too stupid, both of them to content themselves with conversation:  he got a fierce delight in reminding himself of the vulgarity of their minds which suited them so exactly to one another.  He watched the play with an abstracted mind, trying to give himself gaiety by drinking whiskey in each interval; he was unused to alcohol, and it affected him quickly, but his drunkenness was savage and morose.  When the play was over he had another drink.  He could not go to bed, he knew he would not sleep, and he dreaded the pictures which his vivid imagination would place before him.  He tried not to think of them.  He knew he had drunk too much.  Now he was seized with a desire to do horrible, sordid things; he wanted to roll himself in gutters; his whole being yearned for beastliness; he wanted to grovel.

He walked up Piccadilly, dragging his club-foot, sombrely drunk, with rage and misery clawing at his heart.  He was stopped by a painted harlot, who put her hand on his arm; he pushed her violently away with brutal words.  He walked on a few steps and then stopped.  She would do as well as another.  He was sorry he had spoken so roughly to her.  He went up to her.

“I say,” he began.

“Go to hell,” she said.

Philip laughed.

“I merely wanted to ask if you’d do me the honour of supping with me tonight.”

She looked at him with amazement, and hesitated for a while.  She saw he was drunk.

“I don’t mind.”

He was amused that she should use a phrase he had heard so often on Mildred’s lips.  He took her to one of the restaurants he had been in the habit of going to with Mildred.  He noticed as they walked along that she looked down at his limb.

“I’ve got a club-foot,” he said.  “Have you any objection?”

“You are a cure,” she laughed.

When he got home his bones were aching, and in his head there was a hammering that made him nearly scream.  He took another whiskey and soda to steady himself, and going to bed sank into a dreamless sleep till mid-day.

LXXVIII

At last Monday came, and Philip thought his long torture was over.  Looking out the trains he found that the latest by which Griffiths could reach home that night left Oxford soon after one, and he supposed that Mildred would take one which started a few minutes later to bring her to London.  His desire was to go and meet it, but he thought Mildred would like to be left alone for a day; perhaps she would drop him a line in the evening to say she was back, and if not he would call at her lodgings next morning:  his spirit was cowed.  He felt a bitter hatred for Griffiths, but for Mildred, notwithstanding all that had passed, only a heart-rending desire.  He was glad now that Hayward was not in London on Saturday afternoon when, distraught, he went in search of human