Please say yes.
It would give me so much pleasure."
She hesitated a moment; he looked at her with pitifully appealing eyes.
"Well, I don't mind if I do.
I haven't been out anywhere since I don't know how long."
It was with the greatest difficulty he could prevent himself from seizing her hand there and then to cover it with kisses.
LX
They dined in Soho.
Philip was tremulous with joy.
It was not one of the more crowded of those cheap restaurants where the respectable and needy dine in the belief that it is bohemian and the assurance that it is economical.
It was a humble establishment, kept by a good man from Rouen and his wife, that Philip had discovered by accident.
He had been attracted by the Gallic look of the window, in which was generally an uncooked steak on one plate and on each side two dishes of raw vegetables.
There was one seedy French waiter, who was attempting to learn English in a house where he never heard anything but French; and the customers were a few ladies of easy virtue, a menage or two, who had their own napkins reserved for them, and a few queer men who came in for hurried, scanty meals.
Here Mildred and Philip were able to get a table to themselves.
Philip sent the waiter for a bottle of Burgundy from the neighbouring tavern, and they had a potage aux herbes, a steak from the window aux pommes, and an omelette au kirsch.
There was really an air of romance in the meal and in the place.
Mildred, at first a little reserved in her appreciation—"I never quite trust these foreign places, you never know what there is in these messed up dishes"—was insensibly moved by it.
"I like this place, Philip," she said. "You feel you can put your elbows on the table, don't you?"
A tall fellow came in, with a mane of gray hair and a ragged thin beard. He wore a dilapidated cloak and a wide-awake hat.
He nodded to Philip, who had met him there before.
"He looks like an anarchist," said Mildred.
"He is, one of the most dangerous in Europe.
He's been in every prison on the Continent and has assassinated more persons than any gentleman unhung.
He always goes about with a bomb in his pocket, and of course it makes conversation a little difficult because if you don't agree with him he lays it on the table in a marked manner."
She looked at the man with horror and surprise, and then glanced suspiciously at Philip.
She saw that his eyes were laughing. She frowned a little.
"You're getting at me."
He gave a little shout of joy. He was so happy.
But Mildred didn't like being laughed at.
"I don't see anything funny in telling lies."
"Don't be cross."
He took her hand, which was lying on the table, and pressed it gently.
"You are lovely, and I could kiss the ground you walk on," he said.
The greenish pallor of her skin intoxicated him, and her thin white lips had an extraordinary fascination.
Her anaemia made her rather short of breath, and she held her mouth slightly open.
It seemed to add somehow to the attractiveness of her face.
"You do like me a bit, don't you?" he asked.
"Well, if I didn't I suppose I shouldn't be here, should I?
You're a gentleman in every sense of the word, I will say that for you."
They had finished their dinner and were drinking coffee.
Philip, throwing economy to the winds, smoked a three-penny cigar.
"You can't imagine what a pleasure it is to me just to sit opposite and look at you.
I've yearned for you.
I was sick for a sight of you."
Mildred smiled a little and faintly flushed.
She was not then suffering from the dyspepsia which generally attacked her immediately after a meal.
She felt more kindly disposed to Philip than ever before, and the unaccustomed tenderness in her eyes filled him with joy.
He knew instinctively that it was madness to give himself into her hands; his only chance was to treat her casually and never allow her to see the untamed passions that seethed in his breast; she would only take advantage of his weakness; but he could not be prudent now: he told her all the agony he had endured during the separation from her; he told her of his struggles with himself, how he had tried to get over his passion, thought he had succeeded, and how he found out that it was as strong as ever.
He knew that he had never really wanted to get over it.
He loved her so much that he did not mind suffering.