What is the first name of the person that the club-footed artist proposes to?
Sensitive, club-footed artist Philip Carey is a Briton who has been studying painting in Paris for four years. His art teacher tells him his work lacks talent, so he returns to London to become a medical doctor, but his moodiness and chronic self-doubt make it difficult for him to keep up in his schoolwork.
Philip falls passionately in love with vulgar tearoom waitress Mildred Rogers, even though she is disdainful of his club foot and his obvious interest in her. Although he is attracted to the anemic and pale-faced woman, she is manipulative and cruel toward him when he asks her out. Her constant response to his romantic invitations is "I don't mind," an expression so uninterested that it infuriates him – which only causes her to use it all the more. His daydreams about her (her image appears over an illustration in his medical school anatomy textbook, and a skeleton in the classroom is transformed into Mildred) cause him to be distracted from his studies, and he fails his medical examinations.
When Philip proposes to her, Mildred declines, telling him she will be marrying a loutish salesman Emil Miller instead. The self-centered Mildred vindictively berates Philip with nasty insults for becoming romantically interested in her.
Philip begins to forget Mildred when he falls in love with Norah, an attractive and considerate romance writer working under a male pseudonym. She slowly cures him of his painful addiction to Mildred. But just when it appears that Philip is finding happiness, Mildred returns, pregnant and claiming that Emil has abandoned her.
Philip provides a flat for her, arranges to take care of her financially, and breaks off his relationship with Norah. Norah and Philip admit how interpersonal relationships may amount to bondage (Philip was bound to Mildred, as Norah was to Philip, and as Mildred was to Miller).
Mildred