Chapter 61 Chapter 61

Philip had seen her every day since then.He even started eating lunch at that dim sum shop.Mildred would not let him do it, saying it would give gossip to the girls in the shop, so he contented himself with tea there.But he stayed near the dim sum shop almost every day until she got off work, and walked her to the station with her.They dine out together once or twice a week.He also gave her small presents of gold bracelets, gloves, handkerchiefs, and the like.He spends a lot now, overspending every month.He also had to: Mildred only showed a little warmth when she got a gift.She knew the price of everything, and her gratitude varied with the value of the gift.Philip didn't care about that either.As long as Mildred took the initiative to give him a sweet kiss, he would be intoxicated. As for the means by which he moved Yi Ren's feelings, he didn't care.He realized that Mildred was bored at home on Sundays, and on Sunday mornings he ran to Henighill, met her at the end of the road, and accompanied her to church.

"I've been meaning to go to the church for a long time. It's quite a sight, isn't it?" From church she went home to lunch, and Philip ate something casually in a hotel.In the afternoon they went for another walk in Brockwell Park.They had nothing much to talk about, and Philip, fearing she would be bored (as she was always bored), had to rack his brains for some subject of small talk with her.Philip knew that a walk like this was not much fun for either of them, but he could not bear to leave her, and tried to prolong the walk as long as possible, and it often ended in her exhausting herself, and ending in a fit of temper.Philip knew that she didn't like him, and his reason told him that this woman was born with a hard heart and didn't know what love was at all, but he just wanted to get love from her.He has no right to make demands on her, but he can't help but force her.As they got to know each other gradually, he was not as easy to restrain his temper as in the past, he would get angry easily, and when he got angry, he would inevitably say some harsh words.They bickered a lot, and then she ignored him, only to end up with the cheeky approach of him always begging for mercy.Philip sometimes hated himself for being so spineless.Besides, if he saw Mildred talking to other men in the dining room, he would be sour and jealous, and once he had knocked over the vinegar jar, he could no longer control himself like mad.He would intentionally humiliate her in public and leave in a huff.But at night, he was angry for a while and regretted for a while, tossing and turning the bed, unable to sleep at night.The next day, he would run to the store again to apologize to her face to face and beg her for forgiveness.

"Don't be mad at me," he said, "I did it out of desperation, because I like you so much." "One day you're going to be so troublesome," she replied. Philip very much wanted to go to her house, to get closer, so that he would have the upper hand over the casual acquaintances she had made at work.But Mildred would not let him go. "Won't my aunt be surprised?" she said. Philip thought that she refused him only because she did not want him to see her aunt.Mildred kept saying that her aunt was a widow and her husband was a freelancer (in her eyes, freelance is synonymous with "respect"), and she knew that her precious aunt was very difficult. He can be called "qualified", so he feels that the boss is uncomfortable.She was, Philip reckoned, no more than the widow of a small merchant.He knew Mildred was a snob.He wanted to show her his heart, no matter how humble her aunt's background was, he didn't care, but he just didn't know how to make it clear.

One evening, while they were eating together, they quarreled again, and this time it was all over.She told Philip that a man wanted to take her to the theater with him.When Philip heard this, his face was pale, and his face was so tense that it seemed impossible to pierce a needle. "You won't go?" "Why not? He's a respectable gentleman." "As long as you say you like it, I'm willing to take you anywhere." "It's two different things. I can't always follow you around. Besides, he let me decide which day to go to the theater. I can choose any day, as long as it's not a day to go out with you. .It doesn't bother you or anything."

"If you had any sense of self-love, if you had any sense of gratitude, you wouldn't want to say anything." "I don't understand what you mean by gratitude. If you mean the things you gave me, you can take them back. Who cares about those things." Her tone of voice was like a shrew swearing at the street - but it was not the first time she had spoken in this tone. "It's so boring to follow you around all the time. You just keep saying, do you love me? Do you love me? It's so boring." (Philip knew it was absurd to ask her to answer that question again and again, but then he had to.

"Well, I do like you," she always replied. "Just that? I love you with all my heart." "I'm not that kind of person, I won't do that." "I wish you knew how much happiness a single word brings me!" "Hey, I still have the same old saying: I am such a person by nature, and anyone who deals with me has to be tolerant! If it doesn't suit their taste, I have to ask them to be wronged." Sometimes, she was more blunt.When Philip asked the old question, she simply answered: "Bie Yi followed me to do this." Philip then fell silent, hating her to death. )

Now Philip said: "Well, I gotta ask, if I really bore you, why do you stoop to come out with me?" "I don't want to come out. You can rest assured that you didn't drag me here." This remark hurt Philip's self-esteem greatly, and he interjected frantically: "You think I'm so easy to bully, I'm only good for treating you to dinner and watching a show with you when you can't find anyone else, but once someone comes, you have to obediently roll aside? Come on, I'm not happy to carry it Such a treetop." "I don't want people to talk to me like that. Now just see how I miss your damned supper!"

After finishing speaking, she stood up suddenly, put her coat on her body, and walked out of the restaurant quickly.Philip still sat there, making up his mind to let her go.But ten minutes later he was seen hastily jumping into a cab and chasing her again.He reckoned that she was going to Victoria Station by bus, so she was traveling by carriage, and might be able to get there at the same time.He saw her standing on the platform at a glance, tried to avoid her sight, and quietly took the same train with her to Henishil.He planned to wait until she was almost home before talking to her, and then she couldn't avoid it even if she wanted to.

As soon as she turned around, he just turned into the side street from the bustling street bright as day, and he immediately rushed up. "Mildred," he called softly. She just walked forward, neither looking at him nor answering him.Philip called her again, and she stopped and turned to face Philip. "What do you mean? I saw you wandering around Victoria Station. Why do you keep pestering me?" "I'm so sorry. Let's make peace." "No. I've had enough of your bad temper, and your jealousy. I don't like you, never have, and never will. That's the end of it."

She hurried on, and Philip had to go faster to keep up with her. "You never put yourself in my shoes," he said. "If you don't have anyone in your heart, then of course you will laugh and laugh all day long, be kind, and don't care about anything, but if you fall in love like me, it will be difficult to control your temper. Pity, pity Me. I don't mind if you don't like me. After all, feelings can't be forced. As long as you can make me love you, that's fine." She just walked forward and refused to speak.Seeing that he would be at her door within a few hundred yards, Philip felt a twinge in his heart.He could no longer care about decency.He poured out his love and regret incoherently.

"As long as you can forgive me this time, I promise that I will never let you be wronged again in the future. You can go out with whoever you like. If you are free anytime, if you are willing to accompany me for a while, I will be satisfied." She stopped again, for they had come to the corner where they usually parted. "Now go your own way. I don't want you near my door." "I won't go unless you say you forgive me." "I'm sick of it all." Philip hesitated for a moment.He had an intuition that he could say something that would touch her heart, but it would make him sick to have the words come out. "Fate is cruel. How much pain I have to endure. You don't know what life is like for a cripple. Of course you don't like me. I don't expect you to like me." "Philip, I don't mean that," she began hastily, with sudden pity in her tone. "You know, what you're saying isn't true." Philip simply made a fake show.He lowered his voice, his voice slightly hoarse. "Oh, I can feel it," he said. She took Philip's hand and looked at him with tears in her eyes. "I can assure you: I never gave it a second thought. Except for the first day or two, I never gave it a second thought." He was sullen and silent like a tragedian, and he made it seem to her that he was overwhelmed with grief, completely overwhelmed by the wave of emotion. "Philip, you know I like you very much. It's just that you're a little too much sometimes. Let's make peace." She raised her head and brought her lips to Philip's, with a long sigh of relief, and took her kiss. "Are you happy now?" she asked. "Delighted." She bade him good night and hurried away down the road.The next day he gave her a small pocket watch with a brooch attached to the fob to attach to her coat.This was the gift she had been looking forward to for a long time. But after three or four days Mildred, serving him tea, said to him: "Do you remember what you promised me that night? You mean what you say, don't you?" "yes." He knew exactly what she was referring to, so he was prepared for what she was going to say next. "To-night I'm going out with the gentleman I mentioned to you last time." "Okay. Hope you enjoy yourself." "You don't mind, do you?" Now he was quiet, completely in control of his emotions. "Of course I don't like it very much," he smiled slightly, "but now I want to restrain myself as much as possible and stop losing my temper." As soon as this date was mentioned, she seemed very excited, and she didn't feel like talking too much.Philip wondered: Was she doing it to hurt him, or was it simply because she was not born with the feeling of others?He had grown accustomed to excuse her, thinking that her indifference was pure ignorance.She was slow by nature, and she didn't know that she had hurt his heart. "It's not much fun to fall in love with a girl who has neither imagination nor sense of humor," he thought as he listened. But, again, it was precisely because of her natural lack of these two qualities that Philip didn't think much of her.Otherwise, how could he forgive her for causing him pain again and again. "He has a reservation at the Tivoli," she said. "He asked me to choose, and I chose the theatre. First we're going to dinner in the Royal Dining Room. He says it's the grandest restaurant in London." "He's a gentleman through and through," Philip murmured to himself, imitating Mildred's accent, but he clenched his teeth and said nothing. Philip also went to the Tivoli Theater and saw Mildred and the others sitting in the second row in front of the nave.Her companion was a smooth-faced young man with well-glossed hair and crisp clothes who looked like a dockside salesman.Mildred wore a black sombrero with ostrich feathers in it, which suited her well.She listened to her host with that little smile Philip knew well.The expression on her face has always been lifeless and very dull.Only the kind of vulgar jokes could make her laugh out loud.Philip could see, however, that she was very interested, and listened with great interest.He said sourly to himself that she and that flashy, talkative companion were a match made in heaven.Mildred is dull by nature, and likes to be close to shallow people who are chattering.Although Philip liked to discuss various problems with others, he was not very good at idle chatter.Some of his friends, such as Lawson, had a knack for humor, gags, and jokes at the whim, which he often admired.Mildred found nothing interesting to him.She wanted to hear men talk about football and horse-racing, neither of which Philip knew.He couldn't say a word of the fashionable words that could make Yiren smile, it was really frustrating. Philip, who had always been superstitious about printed publications, was now insatiably nibbling at the Sporting Times, to spice up his conversation.