Mildred and Griffiths’s Oxford weekend is a romantic betrayal that Philip makes possible with his own money. By urging Mildred to go and supplying the fare, he tries to preserve her affection while consenting to her escape with Harry Griffiths. The weekend reverses that hope: Mildred’s passion grows, Griffiths’s interest fades, and Philip is left to endure the consequences of an intimacy he helped arrange.

Causes and Arrangement

Philip’s offer comes when Mildred describes herself as sick with love for Griffiths, while explaining that they cannot afford to go away together. Her attachment has put Philip in a position of painful generosity. Rather than simply forbid the trip or conceal his jealousy, he asks why she does not go with Griffiths and then insists that he will give her the money. He proposes five pounds for a Saturday-to-Monday jaunt, timed before Griffiths goes home and takes up an appointment at the North London.

The offer is not a disinterested act. Philip wants Mildred to refuse, even as he presses his suggestion on her; he hopes for the intimacy her words seem to promise afterward, and fears what the trip will mean. Mildred clasps her hands and says she would love him so much afterward and do anything for him if he lets them go. Philip agrees. His money thus becomes the means by which Mildred and Griffiths can be together, while his hope of emotional return makes the gift inseparable from his desire.

Departure and Philip’s Reversal

When Mildred returns to confirm the plan, Philip greets her with performed gaiety and asks about the little jaunt. She says they are going and reports that Griffiths is outside, having stayed away because she told him Philip did not want to see him. Griffiths wants to come in and say goodbye, but Philip refuses to see him. The refusal marks the breach already forming: Philip has enabled the journey, but cannot bear to face the man who will share it with Mildred.

After shaking Mildred’s hand, Philip watches through the curtains as she gets into a four-wheeler and leaves. The departure breaks through the composure he has tried to maintain. He throws himself on the bed, tries unsuccessfully to suppress his sobs, and then drinks whiskey and soda. On the chimney-piece are his tickets to Paris; in a burst of rage he throws them into the fire, though he knows he could have recovered their value. The destruction gives momentary relief but does not undo the more intimate loss. He seeks company, finds Lawson abroad and Hayward away for the weekend, and returns to rooms associated with his misery. Alone, he imagines the pair travelling to Oxford and dining at the Clarendon, details made vivid to him by Griffiths’s previous descriptions.

The Weekend’s Unequal Aftermath

Griffiths’s letter, received the following Thursday, frames the affair as a lapse for which he wants Philip’s forgiveness. He says he could not resist Mildred, that her account of Philip’s offer made him feel unable to refuse, and that he is ashamed of having accepted the money. He also writes that he returned home on Monday while Mildred stayed in Oxford for a couple of days. Philip tears up the letter. He despises Griffiths not merely for the betrayal but for regretting it afterward: in Philip’s view, the apology’s sentimentality and appeal to conscience make the conduct seem cowardly and hypocritical rather than redeeming.

The weekend has not meant the same thing to both participants. Mildred’s time with Griffiths inflames her sudden passion rather than exhausting it. After Griffiths goes home, she chooses to remain in Oxford alone for two days because she has been so happy there, and she decides that nothing will induce her to return to Philip. Griffiths, by contrast, has found their time together somewhat tedious and does not want an amusing episode to become a tiresome attachment. The intimacy Philip feared therefore produces opposite outcomes: Mildred becomes more committed, while Griffiths begins looking for a way out.

The Affair’s Consequences

Mildred’s attempt to sustain the connection soon exposes the gap between her intensity and Griffiths’s dwindling interest. She writes him a long, passionate letter, then sends more letters and telegrams when he does not answer. Her messages make him anxious rather than flattered. When she threatens to pawn the dressing-case Philip had given her as a wedding present to raise money for a visit, Griffiths tells her not to come and promises to contact her when he reaches London. At the hospital where he has an appointment, he tells her not to come there on any pretext. After three weeks away, he finds that she decidedly bores him and resolves to end the relationship, though he dislikes quarrels and does not want to cause pain.

The weekend also fixes Philip’s part in the rupture. He had introduced Griffiths to Mildred, proposed that they go away, and forced the money on them; afterward, he recognizes his own role in bringing about what he dreaded. The episode does not make him a detached observer of their affair: his generosity, jealousy, and attachment are bound together. It makes the betrayal especially severe that Mildred and Griffiths’s brief happiness has been financed and facilitated by the person they leave behind.

Narrative Significance

The event’s central irony is that Philip’s attempt to stay close to Mildred helps create the separation he cannot endure. He offers a practical solution to the couple’s lack of money, but the apparent generosity carries a hope of future affection that Mildred cannot fulfill. His refusal to see Griffiths at the door, the painful watching of the departing carriage, and the burning of the Paris tickets trace the damage through action rather than abstract regret: the departure reaches beyond the love affair and into Philip’s immediate plans.

The weekend also overturns the appearance of a stable triangle. Philip imagines the journey as the beginning of a lasting bond between Mildred and Griffiths, but the aftermath reveals a mismatch: Mildred’s passion grows while Griffiths’s wanes. His letter asks forgiveness, yet Philip refuses the consoling role the apology offers him. The episode consequently marks both the collapse of Philip’s hope of winning Mildred and the beginning of a decisive estrangement from Griffiths.