“Oh, it’s you,” she said. “Come in.”
He walked in and she closed the door. It was a very small bed-room, untidy as was every place she lived in; there was a pair of shoes on the floor, lying apart from one another and uncleaned; a hat was on the chest of drawers, with false curls beside it; and there was a blouse on the table. Philip looked for somewhere to put his hat. The hooks behind the door were laden with skirts, and he noticed that they were muddy at the hem.
“Sit down, won’t you?” she said. Then she gave a little awkward laugh. “I suppose you were surprised to hear from me again.”
“You’re awfully hoarse,” he answered. “Have you got a sore throat?”
“Yes, I have had for some time.”
He did not say anything. He waited for her to explain why she wanted to see him. The look of the room told him clearly enough that she had gone back to the life from which he had taken her. He wondered what had happened to the baby; there was a photograph of it on the chimney-piece, but no sign in the room that a child was ever there. Mildred was holding her handkerchief. She made it into a little ball, and passed it from hand to hand. He saw that she was very nervous. She was staring at the fire, and he could look at her without meeting her eyes. She was much thinner than when she had left him; and the skin, yellow and dryish, was drawn more tightly over her cheekbones. She had dyed her hair and it was now flaxen: it altered her a good deal, and made her look more vulgar.
“I was relieved to get your letter, I can tell you,” she said at last. “I thought p’raps you weren’t at the ’ospital any more.”
Philip did not speak.
“I suppose you’re qualified by now, aren’t you?”
“No.”