Philip's habit of considering business letters led him to pause. "Yes, that is _amende honorable_," he said at length. "It will do excellently. But if you are bored, Madge, why not take your mother with you, or I would meet you there?" "Oh, no, he would think it so odd," she said lightly. "You see, I am accustomed to go alone. And he has told me that he hates other people in the studio while he is painting." She directed the note and rang the bell. "There is one thing more, Philip," she said, "and that is that I don't want my mother to know I am going. You see, I told her, too, that I was not going to sit again, and if one goes back on one's word, well, the fewer people who know about it the better. Everyone hates a changeable person who doesn't know her own mind." Philip willingly gave his assurance on this point, for though it seemed to him rather a superfluous refinement, he was, on the whole, so pleased to have met with no opposition that he was delighted to leave the matter settled without more discussion. Then, since it was already time for him to go home and dress for the early dinner before the theatre, he got up. "Ah! Madge," he said, lingering a moment. "You don't know, and you can't guess, how divinely happy you make me. In the big things I knew it was so, but in little things it is so also. You are complete all through." This struck her like a blow. She could scarcely look at him, it was even harder to return his caress. "Oh, don't think too well of me," she said, "and--and go now, or you will be late." Then, after he had gone, Madge felt tired as she had never felt tired before. The fact that the tension was over showed her what the tension had been; she had struggled, and while she struggled the need for effort had postponed the effect of weariness which the effort produced. She could go on living her ordinary life, and had not this occurred she could still have gone on, but it was only now, when the need for going on was over, that she knew how utterly weary she was. Yet with the weariness there was given her a draught of wine; it would no longer be "to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow," but to-morrow only. She knew as surely as she knew how tired she was, that to-morrow would see her with him, and the rest she was content to leave; no imagination or picturing of hers was necessary. It would be as it would be. After Philip had left her, there was still half an hour before she need go to dress, but the thought that her solitude might be disturbed here by anyone who called, or by her mother, who would be returning any minute, caused her to go upstairs to her own room, where, till the advent of her maid at dressing-time, she would be alone.