“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 met 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 neighbourhood of the Gray’s Inn Road, and she stopped the cab at the corner.

“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 bed-room 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.”