"For one thing, Philip's affair with Mildred is
not his first sexual experience. His sojourn at the university in
Heidelberg, Germany, at the age of eighteen, has exposed him to a world
somewhat less sexually repressed than the
English society where he has spent his adolescence, and this new
knowledge, in turn, has rendered him vulnerable to the
advances of a woman friend of his uncle and aunt,...Miss Wilkinson,
herself experienced in the ways of the
Continent. Though thirty-seven, Miss Wilkinson looks
younger, and at first fascinates and attracts Philip, who would like to
think she can't be more than twenty-six, only six or
seven years older than he is. As she becomes more importunate, though,
Philip begins to feel discomfort and physical
revulsion in her presence, and he is only too glad when she departs for
governess position in Berlin."
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