Mildred accepted the monotony of her life.
If she minded that Philip left her sometimes by herself in the evening she never mentioned it.
Occasionally he took her to a music hall.
He carried out his intention that the only tie between them should be the domestic service she did in return for board and lodging.
She had made up her mind that it was no use trying to get work that summer, and with Philip's approval determined to stay where she was till the autumn.
She thought it would be easy to get something to do then.
"As far as I'm concerned you can stay on here when you've got a job if it's convenient.
The room's there, and the woman who did for me before can come in to look after the baby."
He grew very much attached to Mildred's child.
He had a naturally affectionate disposition, which had had little opportunity to display itself.
Mildred was not unkind to the little girl.
She looked after her very well and once when she had a bad cold proved herself a devoted nurse; but the child bored her, and she spoke to her sharply when she bothered; she was fond of her, but had not the maternal passion which might have induced her to forget herself.
Mildred had no demonstrativeness, and she found the manifestations of affection ridiculous.
When Philip sat with the baby on his knees, playing with it and kissing it, she laughed at him.
"You couldn't make more fuss of her if you was her father," she said. "You're perfectly silly with the child."
Philip flushed, for he hated to be laughed at.
It was absurd to be so devoted to another man's baby, and he was a little ashamed of the overflowing of his heart. But the child, feeling Philip's attachment, would put her face against his or nestle in his arms.
"It's all very fine for you," said Mildred. "You don't have any of the disagreeable part of it.
How would you like being kept awake for an hour in the middle of the night because her ladyship wouldn't go to sleep?"
Philip remembered all sorts of things of his childhood which he thought he had long forgotten.
He took hold of the baby's toes.
"This little pig went to market, this little pig stayed at home."
When he came home in the evening and entered the sitting-room his first glance was for the baby sprawling on the floor, and it gave him a little thrill of delight to hear the child's crow of pleasure at seeing him.
Mildred taught her to call him daddy, and when the child did this for the first time of her own accord, laughed immoderately.
"I wonder if you're that stuck on baby because she's mine," asked Mildred, "or if you'd be the same with anybody's baby."
"I've never known anybody else's baby, so I can't say," said Philip.
Towards the end of his second term as in-patients' clerk a piece of good fortune befell Philip.
It was the middle of July.
He went one Tuesday evening to the tavern in Beak Street and found nobody there but Macalister.
They sat together, chatting about their absent friends, and after a while Macalister said to him:
"Oh, by the way, I heard of a rather good thing today, New Kleinfonteins; it's a gold mine in Rhodesia.
If you'd like to have a flutter you might make a bit."
Philip had been waiting anxiously for such an opportunity, but now that it came he hesitated.
He was desperately afraid of losing money.
He had little of the gambler's spirit.
"I'd love to, but I don't know if I dare risk it.
How much could I lose if things went wrong?"
"I shouldn't have spoken of it, only you seemed so keen about it," Macalister answered coldly.
Philip felt that Macalister looked upon him as rather a donkey.
"I'm awfully keen on making a bit," he laughed.
"You can't make money unless you're prepared to risk money."
Macalister began to talk of other things and Philip, while he was answering him, kept thinking that if the venture turned out well the stockbroker would be very facetious at his expense next time they met.
Macalister had a sarcastic tongue.
"I think I will have a flutter if you don't mind," said Philip anxiously.
"All right.
I'll buy you two hundred and fifty shares and if I see a half-crown rise I'll sell them at once."
Philip quickly reckoned out how much that would amount to, and his mouth watered; thirty pounds would be a godsend just then, and he thought the fates owed him something.
He told Mildred what he had done when he saw her at breakfast next morning.
She thought him very silly.
"I never knew anyone who made money on the Stock Exchange," she said. "That's what Emil always said, you can't expect to make money on the Stock Exchange, he said."