APDL Eductation Resources/APDL Eductation Resources.iso/text/books/human_bond/CHAP76_100

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CHAPTER LXXVI

NEXT day, in the afternoon, Philip sat in his room and wondered
whether Mildred would come. He had slept badly. He had spent the
morning in the club of the Medical School, reading one newspaper
after another. It was the vacation and few students he knew were
in London, but he found one or two people to talk to, he played
a game of chess, and so wore out the tedious hours. After
luncheon he felt so tired, his head was aching so, that he went
back to his lodgings and lay down; he tried to read a novel. He
had not seen Griffiths. He was not in when Philip returned the
night before; he heard him come back, but he did not as usual
look into Philip's room to see if he was asleep; and in the
morning Philip heard him go out early. It was clear that he
wanted to avoid him. Suddenly there was a light tap at his door.
Philip sprang to his feet and opened it. Mildred stood on the
threshold. She did not move.

"Come in," said Philip.

He closed the door after her. She sat down. She hesitated to
begin.

"Thank you for giving me that two shillings last night," she
said.

"Oh, that's all right."

She gave him a faint smile. It reminded Philip of the timid,
ingratiating look of a puppy that has been beaten for
naughtiness and wants to reconcile himself with his master.

"I've been lunching with Harry," she said.

"Have you?"

"If you still want me to go away with you on Saturday, Philip,
I'll come."

A quick thrill of triumph shot through his heart, but it was a
sensation that only lasted an instant; it was followed by a
suspicion.

"Because of the money?" he asked.

"Partly," she answered simply. "Harry can't do anything. He owes
five weeks here, and he owes you seven pounds, and his tailor's
pressing him for money. He'd pawn anything he could, but he's
pawned everything already. I had a job to put the woman off
about my new dress, and on Saturday there's the book at my
lodgings, and I can't get work in five minutes. It always means
waiting some little time till there's a vacancy."

She said all this in an even, querulous tone, as though she were
recounting the injustices of fate, which had to be borne as part
of the natural order of things. Philip did not answer. He knew
what she told him well enough.

"You said partly," he observed at last.

"Well, Harry says you've been a brick to both of us. You've been
a real good friend to him, he says, and you've done for me what
p'raps no other man would have done. We must do the straight
thing, he says. And he said what you said about him, that he's
fickle by nature, he's not like you, and I should be a fool to
throw you away for him. He won't last and you will, he says so
himself."

"D'you _want_ to come away with me?" asked Philip.

"I don't mind."

He looked at her, and the corners of his mouth turned down in an
expression of misery. He had triumphed indeed, and he was going
to have his way. He gave a little laugh of derision at his own
humiliation. She looked at him quickly, but did not speak.

"I've looked forward with all my soul to going away with you,
and I thought at last, after all that wretchedness, I was going
to be happy..."

He did not finish what he was going to say. And then on a
sudden, without warning, Mildred broke into a storm of tears.
She was sitting in the chair in which Norah had sat and wept,
and like her she hid her face on the back of it, towards the
side where there was a little bump formed by the sagging in the
middle, where the head had rested.

"I'm not lucky with women," thought Philip.

Her thin body was shaken with sobs. Philip had never seen a
woman cry with such an utter abandonment. It was horribly
painful, and his heart was torn. Without realising what he did,
he went up to her and put his arms round her; she did not
resist, but in her wretchedness surrendered herself to his
comforting. He whispered to her little words of solace. He
scarcely knew what he was saying, he bent over her and kissed
her repeatedly.

"Are you awfully unhappy?" he said at last.

"I wish I was dead," she moaned. "I wish I'd died when the baby
come."

Her hat was in her way, and Philip took it off for her. He
placed her head more comfortably in the chair, and then he went
and sat down at the table and looked at her.

"It is awful, love, isn't it?" he said. "Fancy anyone wanting to
be in love."

Presently the violence of her sobbing diminished and she sat in
the chair, exhausted, with her head thrown back and her arms
hanging by her side. She had the grotesque look of one of those
painters' dummies used to hang draperies on.

"I didn't know you loved him so much as all that," said Philip.

He understood Griffiths' love well enough, for he put himself in
Griffiths' place and saw with his eyes, touched with his hands;
he was able to think himself in Griffiths' body, and he kissed
her with his lips, smiled at her with his smiling blue eyes. It
was her emotion that surprised him. He had never thought her
capable of passion, and this was passion: there was no mistaking
it. Something seemed to give way in his heart; it really felt to
him as though something were breaking, and he felt strangely
weak.

"I don't want to make you unhappy. You needn't come away with me
if you don't want to. I'll give you the money all the same."

She shook her head.

"No, I said I'd come, and I'll come."

"What's the good, if you're sick with love for him?"

"Yes, that's the word. I'm sick with love. I know it won't last,
just as well as he does, but just now..."

She paused and shut her eyes as though she were going to faint.
A strange idea came to Philip, and he spoke it as it came,
without stopping to think it out.

"Why don't you go away with him?"

"How can I? You know we haven't got the money."

"I'll give you the money"

"You?"

She sat up and looked at him. Her eyes began to shine, and the
colour came into her cheeks.

"Perhaps the best thing would be to get it over, and then you'd
come back to me."

Now that he had made the suggestion he was sick with anguish,
and yet the torture of it gave him a strange, subtle sensation.
She stared at him with open eyes.

"Oh, how could we, on your money? Harry wouldn't think of it."

"Oh yes, he would, if you persuaded him."

Her objections made him insist, and yet he wanted her with all
his heart to refuse vehemently.

"I'll give you a fiver, and you can go away from Saturday to
Monday. You could easily do that. On Monday he's going home till
he takes up his appointment at the North London."

"Oh, Philip, do you mean that?" she cried, clasping her hands.
"if you could only let us go--I would love you so much
afterwards, I'd do anything for you. I'm sure I shall get over
it if you'll only do that. Would you really give us the money?"

"Yes," he said.

She was entirely changed now. She began to laugh. He could see
that she was insanely happy. She got up and knelt down by
Philip's side, taking his hands.

"You are a brick, Philip. You're the best fellow I've ever
known. Won't you be angry with me afterwards?"

He shook his head, smiling, but with what agony in his heart!

"May I go and tell Harry now? And can I say to him that you
don't mind? He won't consent unless you promise it doesn't
matter. Oh, you don't know how I love him! And afterwards I'll
do anything you like. I'll come over to Paris with you or
anywhere on Monday."

She got up and put on her hat.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to ask him if he'll take me."

"Already?"

"D'you want me to stay? I'll stay if you like."

She sat down, but he gave a little laugh.

"No, it doesn't matter, you'd better go at once. There's only
one thing: I can't bear to see Griffiths just now, it would hurt
me too awfully. Say I have no ill-feeling towards him or
anything like that, but ask him to keep out of my way."

"All right." She sprang up and put on her gloves. "I'll let you
know what he says."

"You'd better dine with me tonight."

"Very well."

She put up her face for him to kiss her, and when he pressed his
lips to hers she threw her arms round his neck.

"You are a darling, Philip."

She sent him a note a couple of hours later to say that she had
a headache and could not dine with him. Philip had almost
expected it. He knew that she was dining with Griffiths. He was
horribly jealous, but the sudden passion which had seized the
pair of them seemed like something that had come from the
outside, as though a god had visited them with it, and he felt
himself helpless. It seemed so natural that they should love one
another. He saw all the advantages that Griffiths had over
himself and confessed that in Mildred's place he would have done
as Mildred did. What hurt him most was Griffiths' treachery;
they had been such good friends, and Griffiths knew how
passionately devoted he was to Mildred: he might have spared
him.

He did not see Mildred again till Friday; he was sick for a
sight of her by then; but when she came and he realised that he
had gone out of her thoughts entirely, for they were engrossed
in Griffiths, he suddenly hated her. He saw now why she and
Griffiths loved one another, Griffiths was stupid, oh so stupid!
he had known that all along, but had shut his eyes to it, stupid
and empty-headed: that charm of his concealed an utter
selfishness; he was willing to sacrifice anyone to his
appetites. And how inane was the life he led, lounging about
bars and drinking in music halls, wandering from one light amour
to another! He never read a book, he was blind to everything
that was not frivolous and vulgar; he had never a thought that
was fine: the word most common on his lips was smart; that was
his highest praise for man or woman. Smart! It was no wonder he
pleased Mildred. They suited one another.

Philip talked to Mildred of things that mattered to neither of
them. He knew she wanted to speak of Griffiths, but he gave her
no opportunity. He did not refer to the fact that two evenings
before she had put off dining with him on a trivial excuse. He
was casual with her, trying to make her think he was suddenly
grown indifferent; and he exercised peculiar skill in saying
little things which he knew would wound her; but which were so
indefinite, so delicately cruel, that she could not take
exception to them. At last she got up.

"I think I must be going off now," she said.

"I daresay you've got a lot to do," he answered.

She held out her hand, he took it, said good-bye, and opened the
door for her. He knew what she wanted to speak about, and he
knew also that his cold, ironical air intimidated her. Often his
shyness made him seem so frigid that unintentionally he
frightened people, and, having discovered this, he was able when
occasion arose to assume the same manner.

"You haven't forgotten what you promised?" she said at last, as
he held open the door.

"What is that?"

"About the money"

"How much d'you want?"

He spoke with an icy deliberation which made his words
peculiarly offensive. Mildred flushed. He knew she hated him at
that moment, and he wondered at the self-control by which she
prevented herself from flying out at him. He wanted to make her
suffer.

"There's the dress and the book tomorrow. That's all. Harry
won't come, so we shan't want money for that."

Philip's heart gave a great thud against his ribs, and he let
the door handle go. The door swung to.

"Why not?"

"He says we couldn't, not on your money."

A devil seized Philip, a devil of self-torture which was always
lurking within him, and, though with all his soul he wished that
Griffiths and Mildred should not go away together, he could not
help himself; he set himself to persuade Griffiths through her.

"I don't see why not, if I'm willing," he said.

"That's what I told him."

"I should have thought if he really wanted to go he wouldn't
hesitate."

"Oh, it's not that, he wants to all right. He'd go at once if he
had the money."

"If he's squeamish about it I'll give _you_ the money."

"I said you'd lend it if he liked, and we'd pay it back as soon
as we could."

"It's rather a change for you going on your knees to get a man
to take you away for a week-end."

"It is rather, isn't it?" she said, with a shameless little
laugh. It sent a cold shudder down Philip's spine.

"What are you going to do then?" he asked.

"Nothing. He's going home tomorrow. He must."

That would be Philip's salvation. With Griffiths out of the way
he could get Mildred back. She knew no one in London, she would
be thrown on to his society, and when they were alone together
he could soon make her forget this infatuation. If he said
nothing more he was safe. But he had a fiendish desire to break
down their scruples, he wanted to know how abominably they could
behave towards him; if he tempted them a little more they would
yield, and he took a fierce joy at the thought of their
dishonour. Though every word he spoke tortured him, he found in
the torture a horrible delight.

"It looks as if it were now or never."

"That's what I told him," she said.

There was a passionate note in her voice which struck Philip. He
was biting his nails in his nervousness.

"Where were you thinking of going?"

"Oh, to Oxford. He was at the 'Varsity there, you know. He said
he'd show me the colleges."

Philip remembered that once he had suggested going to Oxford for
the day, and she had expressed firmly the boredom she felt at
the thought of sights.

"And it looks as if you'd have fine weather. It ought to be very
jolly there just now."

"I've done all I could to persuade him."

"Why don't you have another try?"

"Shall I say you want us to go?"

"I don't think you must go as far as that," said Philip.

She paused for a minute or two, looking at him. Philip forced
himself to look at her in a friendly way. He hated her, he
despised her, he loved her with all his heart.

"I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll go and see if he can't arrange
it. And then, if he says yes, I'll come and fetch the money
tomorrow. When shall you be in?"

"I'll come back here after luncheon and wait."

"All right."

"I'll give you the money for your dress and your room now."

He went to his desk and took out what money he had. The dress
was six guineas; there was besides her rent and her food, and
the baby's keep for a week. He gave her eight pounds ten.

"Thanks very much," she said.

She left him.


CHAPTER LXXVII

AFTER lunching in the basement of the Medical School Philip went
back to his rooms. It was Saturday afternoon, and the landlady
was cleaning the stairs.

"Is Mr. Griffiths in?" he asked.

"No, sir. He went away this morning, soon after you went out."

"Isn't he coming back?"

"I don't think so, sir. He's taken his luggage."

Philip wondered what this could mean. He took a book and began
to read. It was Burton's _Journey to Meccah_, which he had
just got out of the Westminster Public Library; and he read the
first page, but could make no sense of it, for his mind was
elsewhere; he was listening all the time for a ring at the bell.
He dared not hope that Griffiths had gone away already, without
Mildred, to his home in Cumberland. Mildred would be coming
presently for the money. He set his teeth and read on; he tried
desperately to concentrate his attention; the sentences etched
themselves in his brain by the force of his effort, but they
were distorted by the agony he was enduring. He wished with all
his heart that he had not made the horrible proposition to give
them money; but now that he had made it he lacked the strength
to go back on it, not on Mildred's account, but on his own.
There was a morbid obstinacy in him which forced him to do the
thing he had determined. He discovered that the three pages he
had read had made no impression on him at all; and he went back
and started from the beginning: he found himself reading one
sentence over and over again; and now it weaved itself in with
his thoughts, horribly, like some formula in a nightmare. One
thing he could do was to go out and keep away till midnight;
they could not go then; and he saw them calling at the house
every hour to ask if he was in. He enjoyed the thought of their
disappointment. He repeated that sentence to himself
mechanically. But he could not do that. Let them come and take
the money, and he would know then to what depths of infamy it
was possible for men to descend. He could not read any more now.
He simply could not see the words. He leaned back in his chair,
closing his eyes, and, numb with misery, waited for Mildred.

The landlady came in.

"Will you see Mrs. Miller, sir?"

"Show her in."

Philip pulled himself together to receive her without any sign
of what he was feeling. He had an impulse to throw himself on
his knees and seize her hands and beg her not to go; but he knew
there was no way of moving her; she would tell Griffiths what he
had said and how he acted. He was ashamed.

"Well, how about the little jaunt?" he said gaily.

"We're going. Harry's outside. I told him you didn't want to see
him, so he's kept out of your way. But he wants to know if he
can come in just for a minute to say good-bye to you."

"No, I won't see him," said Philip.

He could see she did not care if he saw Griffiths or not. Now
that she was there he wanted her to go quickly.

"Look here, here's the fiver. I'd like you to go now."

She took it and thanked him. She turned to leave the room.

"When are you coming back?" he asked.

"Oh, on Monday. Harry must go home then."

He knew what he was going to say was humiliating, but he was
broken down with jealousy and desire.

"Then I shall see you, shan't I?"

He could not help the note of appeal in his voice.

"Of course. I'll let you know the moment I'm back."

He shook hands with her. Through the curtains he watched her
jump into a four-wheeler that stood at the door. It rolled away.
Then he threw himself on his bed and hid his face in his hands.
He felt tears coming to his eyes, and he was angry with himself;
he clenched his hands and screwed up his body to prevent them;
but he could not; and great painful sobs were forced from him.

He got up at last, exhausted and ashamed, and washed his face.
He mixed himself a strong whiskey and soda. It made him feel a
little better. Then he caught sight of the tickets to Paris,
which were on the chimney-piece, and, seizing them, with an
impulse of rage he flung them in the fire. He knew he could have
got the money back on them, but it relieved him to destroy them.
Then he went out in search of someone to be with. The club was
empty. He felt he would go mad unless he found someone to talk
to; but Lawson was abroad; he went on to Hayward's rooms: the
maid who opened the door told him that he had gone down to
Brighton for the week-end. Then Philip went to a gallery and
found it was just closing. He did not know what to do. He was
distracted. And he thought of Griffiths and Mildred going to
Oxford, sitting opposite one another in the train, happy. He
went back to his rooms, but they filled him with horror, he had
been so wretched in them; he tried once more to read Burton's
book, but, as he read, he told himself again and again what a
fool he had been; it was he who had made the suggestion that
they should go away, he had offered the money, he had forced it
upon them; he might have known what would happen when he
introduced Griffiths to Mildred; his own vehement passion was
enough to arouse the other's desire. By this time they had
reached Oxford. They would put up in one of the lodging-houses
in John Street; Philip had never been to Oxford, but Griffiths
had talked to him about it so much that he knew exactly where
they would go; and they would dine at the Clarendon: Griffiths
had been in the habit of dining there when he went on the spree.
Philip got himself something to eat in a restaurant near Charing
Cross; he had made up his mind to go to a play, and afterwards
he fought his way into the pit of a theatre at which one of
Oscar Wilde's pieces was being performed. He wondered if Mildred
and Griffiths would go to a play that evening: they must kill
the evening somehow; they were too stupid, both of them to
content themselves with conversation: he got a fierce delight in
reminding himself of the vulgarity of their minds which suited
them so exactly to one another. He watched the play with an
abstracted mind, trying to give himself gaiety by drinking
whiskey in each interval; he was unused to alcohol, and it
affected him quickly, but his drunkenness was savage and morose.
When the play was over he had another drink. He could not go to
bed, he knew he would not sleep, and he dreaded the pictures
which his vivid imagination would place before him. He tried not
to think of them. He knew he had drunk too much. Now he was
seized with a desire to do horrible, sordid things; he wanted to
roll himself in gutters; his whole being yearned for
beastliness; he wanted to grovel.

He walked up Piccadilly, dragging his club-foot, sombrely drunk,
with rage and misery clawing at his heart. He was stopped by a
painted harlot, who put her hand on his arm; he pushed her
violently away with brutal words. He walked on a few steps and
then stopped. She would do as well as another. He was sorry he
had spoken so roughly to her. He went up to her.

"I say," he began.

"Go to hell," she said.

Philip laughed.

"I merely wanted to ask if you'd do me the honour of supping
with me tonight."

She looked at him with amazement, and hesitated for a while. She
saw he was drunk.

"I don't mind."

He was amused that she should use a phrase he had heard so often
on Mildred's lips. He took her to one of the restaurants he had
been in the habit of going to with Mildred. He noticed as they
walked along that she looked down at his limb.

"I've got a club-foot," he said. "Have you any objection?"

"You are a cure," she laughed.

When he got home his bones were aching, and in his head there
was a hammering that made him nearly scream. He took another
whiskey and soda to steady himself, and going to bed sank into
a dreamless sleep till mid-day.


CHAPTER LXXVIII

AT LAST Monday came, and Philip thought his long torture was
over. looking out the trains he found that the latest by which
Griffiths could reach home that night left Oxford soon after
one, and he supposed that Mildred would take one which started
a few minutes later to bring her to London. His desire was to go
and meet it, but he thought Mildred would like to be left alone
for a day; perhaps she would drop him a line in the evening to
say she was back, and if not he would call at her lodgings next
morning: his spirit was cowed. He felt a bitter hatred for
Griffiths, but for Mildred, notwithstanding all that had passed,
only a heart-rending desire. He was glad now that Hayward was
not in London on Saturday afternoon when, distraught, he went in
search of human comfort: he could not have prevented himself
from telling him everything, and Hayward would have been
astonished at his weakness. He would despise him, and perhaps be
shocked or disgusted that he could envisage the possibility of
making Mildred his mistress after she had given herself to
another man. What did he care if it was shocking or disgusting?
He was ready for any compromise, prepared for more degrading
humiliations still, if he could only gratify his desire.

Towards the evening his steps took him against his will to the
house in which she lived, and he looked up at her window. It was
dark. He did not venture to ask if she was back. He was
confident in her promise. But there was no letter from her in
the morning, and, when about mid-day he called, the maid told
him she had not arrived. He could not understand it. He knew
that Griffiths would have been obliged to go home the day
before, for he was to be best man at a wedding, and Mildred had
no money. He turned over in his mind every possible thing that
might have happened. He went again in the afternoon and left a
note, asking her to dine with him that evening as calmly as
though the events of the last fortnight had not happened. He
mentioned the place and time at which they were to meet, and
hoping against hope kept the appointment: though he waited for
an hour she did not come. On Wednesday morning he was ashamed to
ask at the house and sent a messenger-boy with a letter and
instructions to bring back a reply; but in an hour the boy came
back with Philip's letter unopened and the answer that the lady
had not returned from the country. Philip was beside himself.
The last deception was more than he could bear. He repeated to
himself over and over again that he loathed Mildred, and,
ascribing to Griffiths this new disappointment, he hated him so
much that he knew what was the delight of murder: he walked
about considering what a joy it would be to come upon him on a
dark night and stick a knife into his throat, just about the
carotid artery, and leave him to die in the street like a dog.
Philip was out of his senses with grief and rage. He did not
like whiskey, but he drank to stupefy himself. He went to bed
drunk on the Tuesday and on the Wednesday night.

On Thursday morning he got up very late and dragged himself,
blear-eyed and sallow, into his sitting-room to see if there
were any letters. A curious feeling shot through his heart when
he recognised the handwriting of Griffiths.


_Dear old man:

I hardly know how to write to you and yet I feel I must write.
I hope you're not awfully angry with me. I know I oughtn't to
have gone away with Milly, but I simply couldn't help myself.
She simply carried me off my feet and I would have done anything
to get her. When she told me you had offered us the money to go
I simply couldn't resist. And now it's all over I'm awfully
ashamed of myself and I wish I hadn't been such a fool. I wish
you'd write and say you're not angry with me, and I want you to
let me come and see you. I was awfully hurt at your telling
Milly you didn't want to see me. Do write me a line, there's a
good chap, and tell me you forgive me. It'll ease my conscience.
I thought you wouldn't mind or you wouldn't have offered the
money. But I know I oughtn't to have taken it. I came home on
Monday and Milly wanted to stay a couple of days at Oxford by
herself. She's going back to London on Wednesday, so by the time
you receive this letter you will have seen her and I hope
everything will go off all right. Do write and say you forgive
me. Please write at once.
                                                       yours ever,
                                                         Harry._


Philip tore up the letter furiously. He did not mean to answer
it. He despised Griffiths for his apologies, he had no patience
with his prickings of conscience: one could do a dastardly thing
if one chose, but it was contemptible to regret it afterwards.
He thought the letter cowardly and hypocritical. He was
disgusted at its sentimentality.

"It would be very easy if you could do a beastly thing," he
muttered to himself, "and then say you were sorry, and that put
it all right again."

He hoped with all his heart he would have the chance one day to
do Griffiths a bad turn.

But at all events he knew that Mildred was in town. He dressed
hurriedly, not waiting to shave, drank a cup of tea, and took a
cab to her rooms. The cab seemed to crawl. He was painfully
anxious to see her, and unconsciously he uttered a prayer to the
God he did not believe in to make her receive him kindly. He
only wanted to forget. With beating heart he rang the bell. He
forgot all his suffering in the passionate desire to enfold her
once more in his arms.

"Is Mrs. Miller in?" he asked joyously.

"She's gone," the maid answered.

He looked at her blankly.

"She came about an hour ago and took away her things."

For a moment he did not know what to say.

"Did you give her my letter? Did she say where she was going?"

Then he understood that Mildred had deceived him again. She was
not coming back to him. He made an effort to save his face.

"Oh, well, I daresay I shall hear from her. She may have sent a
letter to another address."

He turned away and went back hopeless to his rooms. He might
have known that she would do this; she had never cared for him,
she had made a fool of him from the beginning; she had no pity,
she had no kindness, she had no charity. The only thing was to
accept the inevitable. The pain he was suffering was horrible,
he would sooner be dead than endure it; and the thought came to
him that it would be better to finish with the whole thing: he
might throw himself in the river or put his neck on a railway
line; but he had no sooner set the thought into words than he
rebelled against it. His reason told him that he would get over
his unhappiness in time; if he tried with all his might he could
forget her; and it would be grotesque to kill himself on account
of a vulgar slut. He had only one life, and it was madness to
fling it away. He _felt_ that he would never overcome his
passion, but he _knew_ that after all it was only a matter of
time.

He would not stay in London. There everything reminded him of
his unhappiness. He telegraphed to his uncle that he was coming
to Blackstable, and, hurrying to pack, took the first train he
could. He wanted to get away from the sordid rooms in which he
had endured so much suffering. He wanted to breathe clean air.
He was disgusted with himself. He felt that he was a little mad.


Since he was grown up Philip had been given the best spare room
at the vicarage. It was a corner-room and in front of one window
was an old tree which blocked the view, but from the other you
saw, beyond the garden and the vicarage field, broad meadows.
Philip remembered the wall-paper from his earliest years. On the
walls were quaint water colours of the early Victorian period by
a friend of the Vicar's youth. They had a faded charm. The
dressing-table was surrounded by stiff muslin. There was an old
tall-boy to put your clothes in. Philip gave a sigh of pleasure;
he had never realised that all those things meant anything to
him at all. At the vicarage life went on as it had always done.
No piece of furniture had been moved from one place to another;
the Vicar ate the same things, said the same things, went for
the same walk every day; he had grown a little fatter, a little
more silent, a little more narrow. He had become accustomed to
living without his wife and missed her very little. He bickered
still with Josiah Graves. Philip went to see the churchwarden.
He was a little thinner, a little whiter, a little more austere;
he was autocratic still and still disapproved of candles on the
altar. The shops had still a pleasant quaintness; and Philip
stood in front of that in which things useful to seamen were
sold, sea-boots and tarpaulins and tackle, and remembered that
he had felt there in his childhood the thrill of the sea and the
adventurous magic of the unknown.

He could not help his heart beating at each double knock of the
postman in case there might be a letter from Mildred sent on by
his landlady in London; but he knew that there would be none.
Now that he could think it out more calmly he understood that in
trying to force Mildred to love him he had been attempting the
impossible. He did not know what it was that passed from a man
to a woman, from a woman to a man, and made one of them a slave:
it was convenient to call it the sexual instinct; but if it was
no more than that, he did not understand why it should occasion
so vehement an attraction to one person rather than another. It
was irresistible: the mind could not battle with it; friendship,
gratitude, interest, had no power beside it. Because he had not
attracted Mildred sexually, nothing that he did had any effect
upon her. The idea revolted him; it made human nature beastly;
and he felt suddenly that the hearts of men were full of dark
places. Because Mildred was indifferent to him he had thought
her sexless; her anaemic appearance and thin lips, the body with
its narrow hips and flat chest, the languor of her manner,
carried out his supposition; and yet she was capable of sudden
passions which made her willing to risk everything to gratify
them. He had never understood her adventure with Emil Miller: it
had seemed so unlike her, and she had never been able to explain
it; but now that he had seen her with Griffiths he knew that
just the same thing had happened then: she had been carried off
her feet by an ungovernable desire. He tried to think out what
those two men had which so strangely attracted her. They both
had a vulgar facetiousness which tickled her simple sense of
humour, and a certain coarseness of nature; but what took her
perhaps was the blatant sexuality which was their most marked
characteristic. She had a genteel refinement which shuddered at
the facts of life, she looked upon the bodily functions as
indecent she had all sorts of euphemisms for common objects, she
always chose an elaborate word as more becoming than a simple
one: the brutality of these men was like a whip on her thin
white shoulders, and she shuddered with voluptuous pain.

One thing Philip had made up his mind about. He would not go
back to the lodgings in which he had suffered. He wrote to his
landlady and gave her notice. He wanted to have his own things
about him. He determined to take unfurnished rooms: it would be
pleasant and cheaper; and this was an urgent consideration, for
during the last year and a half he had spent nearly seven
hundred pounds. He must make up for it now by the most rigid
economy. Now and then he thought of the future with panic; he
had been a fool to spend so much money on Mildred; but he knew
that if it were to come again he would act in the same way. It
amused him sometimes to consider that his friends, because he
had a face which did not express his feelings very vividly and
a rather slow way of moving, looked upon him as strong-minded,
deliberate, and cool. They thought him reasonable and praised
his common sense; but he knew that his placid expression was no
more than a mask, assumed unconsciously, which acted like the
protective colouring of butterflies; and himself was astonished
at the weakness of his will. It seemed to him that he was swayed
by every light emotion, as though he were a leaf in the wind,
and when passion seized him he was powerless. He had no
self-control. He merely seemed to possess it because he was
indifferent to many of the things which moved other people.

He considered with some irony the philosophy which he had
developed for himself, for it had not been of much use to him in
the conjuncture he had passed through; and he wondered whether
thought really helped a man in any of the critical affairs of
life: it seemed to him rather that he was swayed by some power
alien to and yet within himself, which urged him like that great
wind of Hell which drove Paolo and Francesca ceaselessly on. He
thought of what he was going to do and, when the time came to
act, he was powerless in the grasp of instincts, emotions, he
knew not what. He acted as though he were a machine driven by
the two forces of his environment and his personality; his
reason was someone looking on, observing the facts but powerless
to interfere: it was like those gods of Epicurus, who saw the
doings of men from their empyrean heights and had no might to
alter one smallest particle of what occurred.


CHAPTER LXXIX

PHILIP went up to London a couple of days before the session
began in order to find himself rooms. He hunted about the
streets that led out of the Westminster Bridge Road, but their
dinginess was distasteful to him; and at last he found one in
Kennington which had a quiet and old-world air. It reminded one
a little of the London which Thackeray knew on that side of the
river, and in the Kennington Road, through which the great
barouche of the Newcomes must have passed as it drove the family
to the West of London, the plane-trees were bursting into leaf.
The houses in the street which Philip fixed upon were
two-storied, and in most of the windows was a notice to state
that lodgings were to let. He knocked at one which announced
that the lodgings were unfurnished, and was shown by an austere,
silent woman four very small rooms, in one of which there was a
kitchen range and a sink. The rent was nine shillings a week.
Philip did not want so many rooms, but the rent was low and he
wished to settle down at once. He asked the landlady if she
could keep the place clean for him and cook his breakfast, but
she replied that she had enough work to do without that; and he
was pleased rather than otherwise because she intimated that she
wished to have nothing more to do with him than to receive his
rent. She told him that, if he inquired at the grocer's round
the corner, which was also a post office, he might hear of a
woman who would `do' for him.

Philip had a little furniture which he had gathered as he went
along, an arm-chair that he had bought in Paris, and a table, a
few drawings, and the small Persian rug which Cronshaw had given
him. His uncle had offered a fold-up bed for which, now that he
no longer let his house in August, he had no further use; and by
spending another ten pounds Philip bought himself whatever else
was essential. He spent ten shillings on putting a corn-coloured
paper in the room he was making his parlour; and he hung on the
walls a sketch which Lawson had given him of the Quai des Grands
Augustins, and the photograph of the _Odalisque_ by Ingres and
Manet's _Olympia_ which in Paris had been the objects of his
contemplation while he shaved. To remind himself that he too had
once been engaged in the practice of art, he put up a charcoal
drawing of the young Spaniard Miguel Ajuria: it was the best
thing he had ever done, a nude standing with clenched hands, his
feet gripping the floor with a peculiar force, and on his face
that air of determination which had been so impressive; and
though Philip after the long interval saw very well the defects
of his work its associations made him look upon it with
tolerance. He wondered what had happened to Miguel. There is
nothing so terrible as the pursuit of art by those who have no
talent. Perhaps, worn out by exposure, starvation, disease, he
had found an end in some hospital, or in an access of despair
had sought death in the turbid Seine; but perhaps with his
Southern instability he had given up the struggle of his own
accord, and now, a clerk in some office in Madrid, turned his
fervent rhetoric to politics and bull-fighting.

Philip asked Lawson and Hayward to come and see his new rooms,
and they came, one with a bottle of whiskey, the other with a
_pate de foie gras_; and he was delighted when they praised his
taste. He would have invited the Scotch stockbroker too, but he
had only three chairs, and thus could entertain only a definite
number of guests. Lawson was aware that through him Philip had
become very friendly with Norah Nesbit and now remarked that he
had run across her a few days before.

"She was asking how you were."

Philip flushed at the mention of her name (he could not get
himself out of the awkward habit of reddening when he was
embarrassed), and Lawson looked at him quizzically. Lawson, who
now spent most of the year in London, had so far surrendered to
his environment as to wear his hair short and to dress himself
in a neat serge suit and a bowler hat.

"I gather that all is over between you," he said.

"I've not seen her for months."

"She was looking rather nice. She had a very smart hat on with
a lot of white ostrich feathers on it. She must be doing pretty
well."

Philip changed the conversation, but he kept thinking of her,
and after an interval, when the three of them were talking of
something else, he asked suddenly:

"Did you gather that Norah was angry with me?"

"Not a bit. She talked very nicely of you."

"I've got half a mind to go and see her."

"She won't eat you."

Philip had thought of Norah often. When Mildred left him his
first thought was of her, and he told himself bitterly that she
would never have treated him so. His impulse was to go to her;
he could depend on her pity; but he was ashamed: she had been
good to him always, and he had treated her abominably.

"If I'd only had the sense to stick to her!" he said to himself,
afterwards, when Lawson and Hayward had gone and he was smoking
a last pipe before going to bed.

He remembered the pleasant hours they had spent together in the
cosy sitting-room in Vincent Square, their visits to galleries
and to the play, and the charming evenings of intimate
conversation. He recollected her solicitude for his welfare and
her interest in all that concerned him. She had loved him with
a love that was kind and lasting, there was more than sensuality
in it, it was almost maternal; he had always known that it was
a precious thing for which with all his soul he should thank the
gods. He made up his mind to throw himself on her mercy. She
must have suffered horribly, but he felt she had the greatness
of heart to forgive him: she was incapable of malice. Should he
write to her? No. He would break in on her suddenly and cast
himself at her feet--he knew that when the time came he would
feel too shy to perform such a dramatic gesture, but that was
how he liked to think of it--and tell her that if she would take
him back she might rely on him for ever. He was cured of the
hateful disuse from which he had suffered, he knew her worth,
and now she might trust him. His imagination leaped forward to
the future. He pictured himself rowing with her on the river on
Sundays; he would take her to Greenwich, he had never forgotten
that delightful excursion with Hayward, and the beauty of the
Port of London remained a permanent treasure in his
recollection; and on the warm summer afternoons they would sit
in the Park together and talk: he laughed to himself as he
remembered her gay chatter, which poured out like a brook
bubbling over little stones, amusing, flippant, and full of
character. The agony he had suffered would pass from his mind
like a bad dream.

But when next day, about tea-time, an hour at which he was
pretty certain to find Norah at home, he knocked at her door his
courage suddenly failed him. Was it possible for her to forgive
him? It would be abominable of him to force himself on her
presence. The door was opened by a maid new since he had been in
the habit of calling every day, and he inquired if Mrs. Nesbit
was in.

"Will you ask her if she could see Mr. Carey?" he said. "I'll
wait here."
     The maid ran upstairs and in a moment clattered down again.

"Will you step up, please, sir. Second floor front."

"I know," said Philip, with a slight smile.

He went with a fluttering heart. He knocked at the door.

"Come in," said the well-known, cheerful voice.

It seemed to say come in to a new life of peace and happiness.
When he entered Norah stepped forward to greet him. She shook
hands with him as if they had parted the day before. A man stood
up.

"Mr. Carey--Mr. Kingsford."

Philip, bitterly disappointed at not finding her alone, sat down
and took stock of the stranger. He had never heard her mention
his name, but he seemed to Philip to occupy his chair as though
he were very much at home. He was a man of forty, clean-shaven,
with long fair hair very neatly plastered down, and the reddish
skin and pale, tired eyes which fair men get when their youth is
passed. He had a large nose, a large mouth; the bones of his
face were prominent, and he was heavily made; he was a man of
more than average height, and broad-shouldered.

"I was wondering what had become of you," said Norah, in her
sprightly manner. "I met Mr. Lawson the other day--did he tell
you?--and I informed him that it was really high time you came
to see me again."

Philip could see no shadow of embarrassment in her countenance,
and he admired the use with which she carried off an encounter
of which himself felt the intense awkwardness. She gave him tea.
She was about to put sugar in it when he stopped her.

"How stupid of me!" she cried. "I forgot."

He did not believe that. She must remember quite well that he
never took sugar in his tea. He accepted the incident as a sign
that her nonchalance was affected.

The conversation which Philip had interrupted went on, and
presently he began to feel a little in the way. Kingsford took
no particular notice of him. He talked fluently and well, not
without humour, but with a slightly dogmatic manner: he was a
journalist, it appeared, and had something amusing to say on
every topic that was touched upon; but it exasperated Philip to
find himself edged out of the conversation. He was determined to
stay the visitor out. He wondered if he admired Norah. In the
old days they had often talked of the men who wanted to flirt
with her and had laughed at them together. Philip tried to bring
back the conversation to matters which only he and Norah knew
about, but each time the journalist broke in and succeeded in
drawing it away to a subject upon which Philip was forced to be
silent. He grew faintly angry with Norah, for she must see he
was being made ridiculous; but perhaps she was inflicting this
upon him as a punishment, and with this thought he regained his
good humour. At last, however, the clock struck six, and
Kingsford got up.

"I must go," he said.

Norah shook hands with him, and accompanied him to the landing.
She shut the door behind her and stood outside for a couple of
minutes. Philip wondered what they were talking about.

"Who is Mr. Kingsford?" he asked cheerfully, when she returned.

"Oh, he's the editor of one of Harmsworth's Magazines. He's been
taking a good deal of my work lately."

"I thought he was never going."

"I'm glad you stayed. I wanted to have a talk with you." She
curled herself into the large arm-chair, feet and all, in a way
her small size made possible, and lit a cigarette. He smiled
when he saw her assume the attitude which had always amused him.

"You look just like a cat."

She gave him a flash of her dark, fine eyes.

"I really ought to break myself of the habit. It's absurd to
behave like a child when you're my age, but I'm comfortable with
my legs under me."

"It's awfully jolly to be sitting in this room again," said
Philip happily. "You don't know how I've missed it."

"Why on earth didn't you come before?" she asked gaily.

"I was afraid to," he said, reddening.

She gave him a look full of kindness. Her lips outlined a
charming smile.

"You needn't have been."

He hesitated for a moment. His heart beat quickly.

"D'you remember the last time we met? I treated you awfully
badly--I'm dreadfully ashamed of myself."

She looked at him steadily. She did not answer. He was losing
his head; he seemed to have come on an errand of which he was
only now realising the outrageousness. She did not help him, and
he could only blurt out bluntly.

"Can you ever forgive me?"

Then impetuously he told her that Mildred had left him and that
his unhappiness had been so great that he almost killed himself.
He told her of all that had happened between them, of the birth
of the child, and of the meeting with Griffiths, of his folly
and his trust and his immense deception. He told her how often
he had thought of her kindness and of her love, and how bitterly
he had regretted throwing it away: he had only been happy when
he was with her, and he knew now how great was her worth. His
voice was hoarse with emotion. Sometimes he was so ashamed of
what he was saying that he spoke with his eyes fixed on the
ground. His face was distorted with pain, and yet he felt it a
strange relief to speak. At last he finished. He flung himself
back in his chair, exhausted, and waited. He had concealed
nothing, and even, in his self-abasement, he had striven to make
himself more despicable than he had really been. He was
surprised that she did not speak, and at last he raised his
eyes. She was not looking at him. Her face was quite white, and
she seemed to be lost in thought.

"Haven't you got anything to say to me?"

She started and reddened.

"I'm afraid you've had a rotten time," she said. "I'm dreadfully
sorry."

She seemed about to go on, but she stopped, and again he waited.
At length she seemed to force herself to speak.

"I'm engaged to be married to Mr. Kingsford."

"Why didn't you tell me at once?" he cried. "You needn't have
allowed me to humiliate myself before you."

"I'm sorry, I couldn't stop you.... I met him soon after
you"--she seemed to search for an expression that should not
wound him--"told me your friend had come back. I was very
wretched for a bit, he was extremely kind to me. He knew someone
had made me suffer, of course he doesn't know it was you, and I
don't know what I should have done without him. And suddenly I
felt I couldn't go on working, working, working; I was so tired,
I felt so ill. I told him about my husband. He offered to give
me the money to get my divorce if I would marry him as soon as
I could. He had a very good job, and it wouldn't be necessary
for me to do anything unless I wanted to. He was so fond of me
and so anxious to take care of me. I was awfully touched. And
now I'm very, very fond of him."

"Have you got your divorce then?" asked Philip.

"I've got the decree nisi. It'll be made absolute in July, and
then we are going to be married at once."

For some time Philip did not say anything.

"I wish I hadn't made such a fool of myself," he muttered at
length.

He was thinking of his long, humiliating confession. She looked
at him curiously.

"You were never really in love with me," she said.

"It's not very pleasant being in love."

But he was always able to recover himself quickly, and, getting
up now and holding out his hand, he said:

"I hope you'll be very happy. After all, it's the best thing
that could have happened to you."

She looked a little wistfully at him as she took his hand and
held it.

"You'll come and see me again, won't you?" she asked.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "It would make me too envious
to see you happy."

He walked slowly away from her house. After all she was right
when she said he had never loved her. He was disappointed,
irritated even, but his vanity was more affected than his heart.
He knew that himself. And presently he grew conscious that the
gods had played a very good practical joke on him, and he
laughed at himself mirthlessly. It is not very comfortable to
have the gift of being amused at one's own absurdity.


CHAPTER LXXX

FOR the next three months Philip worked on subjects which were
new to him. The unwieldy crowd which had entered the Medical
School nearly two years before had thinned out: some had left
the hospital, finding the examinations more difficult to pass
than they expected, some had been taken away by parents who had
not foreseen the expense of life in London, and some had drifted
away to other callings. One youth whom Philip knew had devised
an ingenious plan to make money; he had bought things at sales
and pawned them, but presently found it more profitable to pawn
goods bought on credit; and it had caused a little excitement at
the hospital when someone pointed out his name in police-court
proceedings. There had been a remand, then assurances on the
part of a harassed father, and the young man had gone out to
bear the White Man's Burden overseas. The imagination of
another, a lad who had never before been in a town at all, fell
to the glamour of music-halls and bar parlours; he spent his
time among racing-men, tipsters, and trainers, and now was
become a book-maker's clerk. Philip had seen him once in a bar
near Piccadilly Circus in a tight-waisted coat and a brown hat
with a broad, flat brim. A third, with a gift for singing and
mimicry, who had achieved success at the smoking concerts of the
Medical School by his imitation of notorious comedians, had
abandoned the hospital for the chorus of a musical comedy. Still
another, and he interested Philip because his uncouth manner and
interjectional speech did not suggest that he was capable of any
deep emotion, had felt himself stifle among the houses of
London. He grew haggard in shut-in spaces, and the soul he knew
not he possessed struggled like a sparrow held in the hand, with
little frightened gasps and a quick palpitation of the heart: he
yearned for the broad skies and the open, desolate places among
which his childhood had been spent; and he walked off one day,
without a word to anybody, between one lecture and another; and
the next thing his friends heard was that he had thrown up
medicine and was working on a farm.

Philip attended now lectures on medicine and on surgery. On
certain mornings in the week he practised bandaging on
out-patients glad to earn a little money, and he was taught
auscultation and how to use the stethoscope. He learned
dispensing. He was taking the examination in _Materia Medica_
in July, and it amused him to play with various drugs,
concocting mixtures, rolling pills, and making ointments. He
seized avidly upon anything from which he could extract a
suggestion of human interest.

He saw Griffiths once in the distance, but, not to have the pain
of cutting him dead, avoided him. Philip had felt a certain
self-consciousness with Griffiths' friends, some of whom were
now friends of his, when he realised they knew of his quarrel
with Griffiths and surmised they were aware of the reason. One
of them, a very tall fellow, with a small head and a languid
air, a youth called Ramsden, who was one of Griffiths' most
faithful admirers, copied his ties, his boots, his manner of
talking and his gestures, told Philip that Griffiths was very
much hurt because Philip had not answered his letter. He wanted
to be reconciled with him.

"Has he asked you to give me the message?" asked Philip.

"Oh, no. I'm saying this entirely on my own," said Ramsden.
"He's awfully sorry for what he did, and he says you always
behaved like a perfect brick to him. I know he'd be glad to make
it up. He doesn't come to the hospital because he's afraid of
meeting you, and he thinks you'd cut him."

"I should."

"It makes him feel rather wretched, you know."

"I can bear the trifling inconvenience that he feels with a good
deal of fortitude," said Philip.

"He'll do anything he can to make it up."

"How childish and hysterical! Why should he care? I'm a very
insignificant person, and he can do very well without my
company. I'm not interested in him any more."

Ramsden thought Philip hard and cold. He paused for a moment or
two, looking about him in a perplexed way.

"Harry wishes to God he'd never had anything to do with the
woman."

"Does he?" asked Philip.

He spoke with an indifference which he was satisfied with. No
one could have guessed how violently his heart was beating. He
waited impatiently for Ramsden to go on.

"I suppose you've quite got over it now, haven't you?"

"I?" said Philip. "Quite."

Little by little he discovered the history of Mildred's
relations with Griffiths. He listened with a smile on his lips,
feigning an equanimity which quite deceived the dull-witted boy
who talked to him. The week-end she spent with Griffiths at
Oxford inflamed rather than extinguished her sudden passion; and
when Griffiths went home, with a feeling that was unexpected in
her she determined to stay in Oxford by herself for a couple of
days, because she had been so happy in it. She felt that nothing
could induce her to go back to Philip. He revolted her.
Griffiths was taken aback at the fire he had aroused, for he had
found his two days with her in the country somewhat tedious; and
he had no desire to turn an amusing episode into a tiresome
affair. She made him promise to write to her, and, being an
honest, decent fellow, with natural politeness and a desire to
make himself pleasant to everybody, when he got home he wrote
her a long and charming letter. She answered it with reams of
passion, clumsy, for she had no gift of expression, ill-written,
and vulgar; the letter bored him, and when it was followed next
day by another, and the day after by a third, he began to think
her love no longer flattering but alarming. He did not answer;
and she bombarded him with telegrams, asking him if he were ill
and had received her letters; she said his silence made her
dreadfully anxious. He was forced to write, but he sought to
make his reply as casual as was possible without being
offensive: he begged her not to wire, since it was difficult to
explain telegrams to his mother, an old-fashioned person for
whom a telegram was still an event to excite tremor. She
answered by return of post that she must see him and announced
her intention to pawn things (she had the dressing-case which
Philip had given her as a wedding-present and could raise eight
pounds on that) in order to come up and stay at the market town
four miles from which was the village in which his father
practised. This frightened Griffiths; and he, this time, made
use of the telegraph wires to tell her that she must do nothing
of the kind. He promised to let her know the moment he came up
to London, and, when he did, found that she had already been
asking for him at the hospital at which he had an appointment.
He did not like this, and, on seeing her, told Mildred that she
was not to come there on any pretext; and now, after an absence
of three weeks, he found that she bored him quite decidedly; he
wondered why he had ever troubled about her, and made up his
mind to break with her as soon as he could. He was a person who
dreaded quarrels, nor did he want to give pain; but at the same
time he had other things to do, and he was quite determined not
to let Mildred bother him. When he met her he was pleasant,
cheerful, amusing, affectionate; he invented convincing excuses
for the interval since last he had seen her; but he did
everything he could to avoid her. When she forced him to make
appointments he sent telegrams to her at the last moment to put
himself off; and his landlady (the first three months of his
appointment he was spending in rooms) had orders to say he was
out when Mildred called. She would waylay him in the street and,
knowing she had been waiting about for him to come out of the
hospital for a couple of hours, he would give her a few
charming, friendly words and bolt off with the excuse that he
had a business engagement. He grew very skilful in slipping out
of the hospital unseen. Once, when he went back to his lodgings
at midnight, he saw a woman standing at the area railings and
suspecting who it was went to beg a shake-down in Ramsden's
rooms; next day the landlady told him that Mildred had sat
crying on the doorsteps for hours, and she had been obliged to
tell her at last that if she did not go away she would send for
a policeman.

"I tell you, my boy," said Ramsden, "you're jolly well out of
it. Harry says that if he'd suspected for half a second she was
going to make such a blooming nuisance of herself he'd have seen
himself damned before he had anything to do with her."

Philip thought of her sitting on that doorstep through the long
hours of the night. He saw her face as she looked up dully at
the landlady who sent her away.

"I wonder what she's doing now."

"Oh, she's got a job somewhere, thank God. That keeps her busy
all day."

The last thing he heard, just before the end of the summer
session, was that Griffiths, urbanity had given way at length
under the exasperation of the constant persecution. He had told
Mildred that he was sick of being pestered, and she had better
take herself off and not bother him again.

"It was the only thing he could do," said Ramsden. "It was
getting a bit too thick."

"Is it all over then?" asked Philip.

"Oh, he hasn't seen her for ten days. You know, Harry's
wonderful at dropping people. This is about the toughest nut
he's ever had to crack, but he's cracked it all right."

Then Philip heard nothing more of her at all. She vanished into
the vast anonymous mass of the population of London.


CHAPTER LXXXI

AT The beginning of the winter session Philip became an
out-patients' clerk. There were three assistant-physicians who
took out-patients, two days a week each, and Philip put his name
down for Dr. Tyrell. He was popular with the students, and there
was some competition to be his clerk. Dr. Tyrell was a tall,
thin man of thirty-five, with a very small head, red hair cut
short, and prominent blue eyes: his face was bright scarlet. He
talked well in a pleasant voice, was fond of a little joke, and
treated the world lightly. He was a successful man, with a large
consulting practice and a knighthood in prospect. From commerce
with students and poor people he had the patronising air, and
from dealing always with the sick he had the healthy man's
jovial condescension, which some consultants achieve as the
professional manner. He made the patient feel like a boy
confronted by a jolly schoolmaster; his illness was an absurd
piece of naughtiness which amused rather than irritated.

The student was supposed to attend in the out-patients' room
every day, see cases, and pick up what information he could; but
on the days on which he clerked his duties were a little more
definite. At that time the out-patients' department at St.
Luke's consisted of three rooms, leading into one another, and
a large, dark waiting-room with massive pillars of masonry and
long benches. Here the patients waited after having been given
their `letters' at mid-day; and the long rows of them, bottles
and gallipots in hand, some tattered and dirty, others decent
enough, sitting in the dimness, men and women of all ages,
children, gave one an impression which was weird and horrible.
They suggested the grim drawings of Daumier. All the rooms were
painted alike, in salmon-colour with a high dado of maroon; and
there was in them an odour of disinfectants, mingling as the
afternoon wore on with the crude stench of humanity. The first
room was the largest and in the middle of it were a table and an
office chair for the physician; on each side of this were two
smaller tables, a little lower: at one of these sat the
house-physician and at the other the clerk who took the `book'
for the day. This was a large volume in which were written down
the name, age, sex, profession, of the patient and the diagnosis
of his disuse.

At half past one the house-physician came in, rang the bell, and
told the porter to send in the old patients. There were always
a good many of these, and it was necessary to get through as
many of them as possible before Dr. Tyrell came at two. The H.P.
with whom Philip came in contact was a dapper little man,
excessively conscious of his importance: he treated the clerks
with condescension and patently resented the familiarity of
older students who had been his contemporaries and did not use
him with the respect he felt his present position demanded. He
set about the cases. A clerk helped him. The patients streamed
in. The men came first. Chronic bronchitis, "a nasty 'acking
cough," was what they chiefly suffered from; one went to the
H.P. and the other to the clerk, handing in their letters: if
they were going on well the words _Rep 14_ were written on
them, and they went to the dispensary with their bottles or
gallipots in order to have medicine given them for fourteen days
more. Some old stagers held back so that they might be seen by
the physician himself, but they seldom succeeded in this; and
only three or four, whose condition seemed to demand his
attention, were kept.

Dr. Tyrell came in with quick movements and a breezy manner. He
reminded one slightly of a clown leaping into the arena of a
circus with the cry: Here we are again. His air seemed to
indicate: What's all this nonsense about being ill? I'll soon
put that right. He took his seat, asked if there were any old
patients for him to see, rapidly passed them in review, looking
at them with shrewd eyes as he discussed their symptoms, cracked
a joke (at which all the clerks laughed heartily) with the H.P.,
who laughed heartily too but with an air as if he thought it was
rather impudent for the clerks to laugh, remarked that it was a
fine day or a hot one, and rang the bell for the porter to show
in the new patients.

They came in one by one and walked up to the table at which sat
Dr. Tyrell. They were old men and young men and middle-aged men,
mostly of the labouring class, dock labourers, draymen, factory
hands, barmen; but some, neatly dressed, were of a station which
was obviously superior, shop-assistants, clerks, and the like.
Dr. Tyrell looked at these with suspicion. Sometimes they put on
shabby clothes in order to pretend they were poor; but he had a
keen eye to prevent what he regarded as fraud and sometimes
refused to see people who, he thought, could well pay for
medical attendance. Women were the worst offenders and they
managed the thing more clumsily. They would wear a cloak and a
skirt which were almost in rags, and neglect to take the rings
off their fingers.

"If you can afford to wear jewellery you can afford a doctor. A
hospital is a charitable institution," said Dr. Tyrell.

He handed back the letter and called for the next case.

"But I've got my letter."

"I don't care a hang about your letter; you get out. You've got
no business to come and steal the time which is wanted by the
really poor."

The patient retired sulkily, with an angry scowl.

"She'll probably write a letter to the papers on the gross
mismanagement of the London hospitals," said Dr. Tyrell, with a
smile, as he took the next paper and gave the patient one of his
shrewd glances.

Most of them were under the impression that the hospital was an
institution of the state, for which they paid out of the rates,
and took the attendance they received as a right they could
claim. They imagined the physician who gave them his time was
heavily paid.

Dr. Tyrell gave each of his clerks a case to examine. The clerk
took the patient into one of the inner rooms; they were smaller,
and each had a couch in it covered with black horse-hair: he
asked his patient a variety of questions, examined his lungs,
his heart, and his liver, made notes of fact on the hospital
letter, formed in his own mind some idea of the diagnosis, and
then waited for Dr. Tyrell to come in. This he did, followed by
a small crowd of students, when he had finished the men, and the
clerk read out what he had learned. The physician asked him one
or two questions, and examined the patient himself. If there was
anything interesting to hear students applied their stethoscope:
you would see a man with two or three to the chest, and two
perhaps to his back, while others waited impatiently to listen.
The patient stood among them a little embarrassed, but not
altogether displeased to find himself the centre of attention:
he listened confusedly while Dr. Tyrell discoursed glibly on the
case. Two or three students listened again to recognise the
murmur or the crepitation which the physician described, and
then the man was told to put on his clothes.

When the various cases had been examined Dr. Tyrell went back
into the large room and sat down again at his desk. He asked any
student who happened to be standing near him what he would
prescribe for a patient he had just seen. The student mentioned
one or two drugs.

"Would you?" said Dr. Tyrell. "Well, that's original at all
events. I don't think we'll be rash."

This always made the students laugh, and with a twinkle of
amusement at his own bright humour the physician prescribed some
other drug than that which the student had suggested. When there
were two cases of exactly the same sort and the student proposed
the treatment which the physician had ordered for the first, Dr.
Tyrell exercised considerable ingenuity in thinking of something
else. Sometimes, knowing that in the dispensary they were worked
off their legs and preferred to give the medicines which they
had all ready, the good hospital mixtures which had been found
by the experience of years to answer their purpose so well, he
amused himself by writing an elaborate prescription.

"We'll give the dispenser something to do. If we go on
prescribing _mist: alb:_ he'll lose his cunning."

The students laughed, and the doctor gave them a circular glance
of enjoyment in his joke. Then he touched the bell and, when the
porter poked his head in, said:

"Old women, please."

He leaned back in his chair, chatting with the H.P. while the
porter herded along the old patients. They came in, strings of
anaemic girls, with large fringes and pallid lips, who could not
digest their bad, insufficient food; old ladies, fat and thin,
aged prematurely by frequent confinements, with winter coughs;
women with this, that, and the other, the matter with them. Dr.
Tyrell and his house-physician got through them quickly. Time
was getting on, and the air in the small room was growing more
sickly. The physician looked at his watch.

"Are there many new women today?" he asked.

"A good few, I think," said the H.P.

"We'd better have them in. You can go on with the old ones."

They entered. With the men the most common ailments were due to
the excessive use of alcohol, but with the women they were due
to defective nourishment. By about six o'clock they were
finished. Philip, exhausted by standing all the time, by the bad
air, and by the attention he had given, strolled over with his
fellow-clerks to the Medical School to have tea. He found the
work of absorbing interest. There was humanity there in the
rough, the materials the artist worked on; and Philip felt a
curious thrill when it occurred to him that he was in the
position of the artist and the patients were like clay in his
hands. He remembered with an amused shrug of the shoulders his
life in Paris, absorbed in colour, tone, values, Heaven knows
what, with the aim of producing beautiful things: the directness
of contact with men and women gave a thrill of power which he
had never known. He found an endless excitement in looking at
their faces and hearing them speak; they came in each with his
peculiarity, some shuffling uncouthly, some with a little trip,
others with heavy, slow tread, some shyly. Often you could guess
their trades by the look of them. You learnt in what way to put
your questions so that they should be understood, you discovered
on what subjects nearly all lied, and by what inquiries you
could extort the truth notwithstanding. You saw the different
way people took the same things. The diagnosis of dangerous
illness would be accepted by one with a laugh and a joke, by
another with dumb despair. Philip found that he was less shy
with these people than he had ever been with others; he felt not
exactly sympathy, for sympathy suggests condescension; but he
felt at home with them. He found that he was able to put them at
their ease, and, when he had been given a case to find out what
he could about it, it seemed to him that the patient delivered
himself into his hands with a peculiar confidence.

"Perhaps," he thought to himself, with a smile, "perhaps I'm cut
out to be a doctor. It would be rather a lark if I'd hit upon
the one thing I'm fit for."

It seemed to Philip that he alone of the clerks saw the dramatic
interest of those afternoons. To the others men and women were
only cases, good if they were complicated, tiresome if obvious;
they heard murmurs and were astonished at abnormal livers; an
unexpected sound in the lungs gave them something to talk about.
But to Philip there was much more. He found an interest in just
looking at them, in the shape of their heads and their hands, in
the look of their eyes and the length of their noses. You saw in
that room human nature taken by surprise, and often the mask of
custom was torn off rudely, showing you the soul all raw.
Sometimes you saw an untaught stoicism which was profoundly
moving. Once Philip saw a man, rough and illiterate, told his
case was hopeless; and, self-controlled himself, he wondered at
the splendid instinct which forced the fellow to keep a stiff
upper-lip before strangers. But was it possible for him to be
brave when he was by himself, face to face with his soul, or
would he then surrender to despair? Sometimes there was tragedy.
Once a young woman brought her sister to be examined, a girl of
eighteen, with delicate features and large blue eyes, fair hair
that sparkled with gold when a ray of autumn sunshine touched it
for a moment, and a skin of amazing beauty. The students' eyes
went to her with little smiles. They did not often see a pretty
girl in these dingy rooms. The elder woman gave the family
history, father and mother had died of phthisis, a brother and
a sister, these two were the only ones left. The girl had been
coughing lately and losing weight. She took off her blouse and
the skin of her neck was like milk. Dr. Tyrell examined her
quietly, with his usual rapid method; he told two or three of
his clerks to apply their stethoscopes to a place he indicated
with his finger; and then she was allowed to dress. The sister
was standing a little apart and she spoke to him in a low voice,
so that the girl should not hear. Her voice trembled with fear.

"She hasn't got it, doctor, has she?"

"I'm afraid there's no doubt about it."

"She was the last one. When she goes I shan't have anybody."

She began to cry, while the doctor looked at her gravely; he
thought she too had the type; she would not make old bones
either. The girl turned round and saw her sister's tears. She
understood what they meant. The colour fled from her lovely face
and tears fell down her cheeks. The two stood for a minute or
two, crying silently, and then the older, forgetting the
indifferent crowd that watched them, went up to her, took her in
her arms, and rocked her gently to and fro as if she were a
baby.

When they were gone a student asked:

"How long d'you think she'll last, sir?"

Dr. Tyrell shrugged his shoulders.

"Her brother and sister died within three months of the first
symptoms. She'll do the same. If they were rich one might do
something. You can't tell these people to go to St. Moritz.
Nothing can be done for them."

Once a man who was strong and in all the power of his manhood
came because a persistent aching troubled him and his
club-doctor did not seem to do him any good; and the verdict for
him too was death, not the inevitable death that horrified and
yet was tolerable because science was helpless before it, but
the death which was inevitable because the man was a little
wheel in the great machine of a complex civilisation, and had as
little power of changing the circumstances as an automaton.
Complete rest was his only chance. The physician did not ask
impossibilities.

"You ought to get some very much lighter job."

"There ain't no light jobs in my business."

"Well, if you go on like this you'll kill yourself. You're very
ill."

"D'you mean to say I'm going to die?"

"I shouldn't like to say that, but you're certainly unfit for
hard work."

"If I don't work who's to keep the wife and the kids?"

Dr. Tyrell shrugged his shoulders. The dilemma had been
presented to him a hundred times. Time was pressing and there
were many patients to be seen.

"Well, I'll give you some medicine and you can come back in a
week and tell me how you're getting on."

The man took his letter with the useless prescription written
upon it and walked out. The doctor might say what he liked. He
did not feel so bad that he could not go on working. He had a
good job and he could not afford to throw it away.

"I give him a year," said Dr. Tyrell.

Sometimes there was comedy. Now and then came a flash of cockney
humour, now and then some old lady, a character such as Charles
Dickens might have drawn, would amuse them by her garrulous
oddities. Once a woman came who was a member of the ballet at a
famous music-hall. She looked fifty, but gave her age as
twenty-eight. She was outrageously painted and ogled the
students impudently with large black eyes; her smiles were
grossly alluring. She had abundant self-confidence and treated
Dr. Tyrell, vastly amused, with the easy familiarity with which
she might have used an intoxicated admirer. She had chronic
bronchitis, and told him it hindered her in the exercise of her
profession.

"I don't know why I should 'ave such a thing, upon my word I
don't. I've never 'ad a day's illness in my life. You've only
got to look at me to know that."

She rolled her eyes round the young men, with a long sweep of
her painted eyelashes, and flashed her yellow teeth at them. She
spoke with a cockney accent, but with an affectation of
refinement which made every word a feast of fun.

"It's what they call a winter cough," answered Dr. Tyrell
gravely. "A great many middle-aged women have it."

"Well, I never! That is a nice thing to say to a lady. No one
ever called me middle-aged before."

She opened her eyes very wide and cocked her head on one side,
looking at him with indescribable archness.

"That is the disadvantage of our profession," said he. "It
forces us sometimes to be ungallant."

She took the prescription and gave him one last, luscious smile.

"You will come and see me dance, dearie, won't you?"

"I will indeed."

He rang the bell for the next case.

"I am glad you gentlemen were here to protect me."

But on the whole the impression was neither of tragedy nor of
comedy. There was no describing it. It was manifold and various;
there were tears and laughter, happiness and woe; it was tedious
and interesting and indifferent; it was as you saw it: it was
tumultuous and passionate; it was grave; it was sad and comic;
it was trivial; it was simple and complex; joy was there and
despair; the love of mothers for their children, and of men for
women; lust trailed itself through the rooms with leaden feet,
punishing the guilty and the innocent, helpless wives and
wretched children; drink seized men and women and cost its
inevitable price; death sighed in these rooms; and the beginning
of life, filling some poor girl with terror and shame, was
diagnosed there. There was neither good nor bad there. There
were just facts. It was life.


CHAPTER LXXXII

TOWARDS the end of the year, when Philip was bringing to a close
his three months as clerk in the out-patients' department, he
received a letter from Lawson, who was in Paris.

_Dear Philip,

Cronshaw is in London and would be glad to see you. He is living
at 43 Hyde Street, Soho. I don't know where it is, but I daresay
you will be able to find out. Be a brick and look after him a
bit. He is very down on his luck. He will tell you what he is
doing. Things are going on here very much as usual. Nothing
seems to have changed since you were here. Clutton is back, but
he has become quite impossible. He has quarrelled with
everybody. As far as I can make out he hasn't got a cent, he
lives in a little studio right away beyond the Jardin des
Plantes, but he won't let anybody see his work. He doesn't show
anywhere, so one doesn't know what he is doing. He may be a
genius, but on the other hand he may be off his head. By the
way, I ran against Flanagan the other day. He was showing Mrs.
Flanagan round the Quarter. He has chucked art and is now in
popper's business. He seems to be rolling. Mrs. Flanagan is very
pretty and I'm trying to work a portrait. How much would you ask
if you were me? I don't want to frighten them, and then on the
other hand I don't want to be such an ass as to ask {Pounds
Sterling symbol}-->  L150 if they're quite willing to give L300.

                                              Yours ever,
                                                 Frederick Lawson._


Philip wrote to Cronshaw and received in reply the following
letter. It was written on a half-sheet of common note-paper, and
the flimsy envelope was dirtier than was justified by its
passage through the post.

_Dear Carey,

Of course I remember you very well. I have an idea that I had
some part in rescuing you from the Slough of Despond in which
myself am hopelessly immersed. I shall be glad to see you. I am
a stranger in a strange city and I am buffeted by the
philistines. It will be pleasant to talk of Paris. I do not ask
you to come and see me, since my lodging is not of a
magnificence fit for the reception of an eminent member of
Monsieur Purgon's Profession, but you will find me eating
modestly any evening between seven and eight at a restaurant
yclept Au Bon Plaisir in Dean Street.

                                          Your sincere
                                                  J. Cronshaw._


Philip went the day he received this letter. The restaurant,
consisting of one small room, was of the poorest class, and
Cronshaw seemed to be its only customer. He was sitting in the
corner, well away from draughts, wearing the same shabby
great-coat which Philip had never seen him without, with his old
bowler on his head.

"I eat here because I can be alone," he said. "They are not
doing well; the only people who come are a few trollops and one
or two waiters out of a job; they are giving up business, and
the food is execrable. But the ruin of their fortunes is my
advantage."

Cronshaw had before him a glass of absinthe. It was nearly three
years since they had met, and Philip was shocked by the change
in his appearance. He had been rather corpulent, but now he had
a dried-up, yellow look: the skin of his neck was loose and
winkled; his clothes hung about him as though they had been
bought for someone else; and his collar, three or four sizes too
large, added to the slatternliness of his appearance. His hands
trembled continually. Philip remembered the handwriting which
scrawled over the page with shapeless, haphazard letters.
Cronshaw was evidently very ill.

"I eat little these days," he said. "I'm very sick in the
morning. I'm just having some soup for my dinner, and then I
shall have a bit of cheese."

Philip's glance unconsciously went to the absinthe, and
Cronshaw, seeing it, gave him the quizzical look with which he
reproved the admonitions of common sense.

"You have diagnosed my case, and you think it's very wrong of me
to drink absinthe."

"You've evidently got cirrhosis of the liver," said Philip.

"Evidently."

He looked at Philip in the way which had formerly had the power
of making him feel incredibly narrow. It seemed to point out
that what he was thinking was distressingly obvious; and when
you have agreed with the obvious what more is there to say?
Philip changed the topic.

"When are you going back to Paris?"

"I'm not going back to Paris. I'm going to die."

The very naturalness with which he said this startled Philip. He
thought of half a dozen things to say, but they seemed futile.
He knew that Cronshaw was a dying man.

"Are you going to settle in London then?" he asked lamely.

"What is London to me? I am a fish out of water. I walk through
the crowded streets, men jostle me, and I seem to walk in a dead
city. I felt that I couldn't die in Paris. I wanted to die among
my own people. I don't know what hidden instinct drew me back at
the last."

Philip knew of the woman Cronshaw had lived with and the two
draggle-tailed children, but Cronshaw had never mentioned them
to him, and he did not like to speak of them. He wondered what
had happened to them.

"I don't know why you talk of dying," he said.

"I had pneumonia a couple of winters ago, and they told me then
it was a miracle that I came through. It appears I'm extremely
liable to it, and another bout will kill me."

"Oh, what nonsense! You're not so bad as all that. You've only
got to take precautions. Why don't you give up drinking?"

"Because I don't choose. It doesn't matter what a man does if
he's ready to take the consequences. Well, I'm ready to take the
consequences. You talk glibly of giving up drinking, but it's
the only thing I've got left now. What do you think life would
be to me without it? Can you understand the happiness I get out
of my absinthe? I yearn for it; and when I drink it I savour
every drop, and afterwards I feel my soul swimming in ineffable
happiness. It disgusts you. You are a puritan and in your heart
you despise sensual pleasures. Sensual pleasures are the most
violent and the most exquisite. I am a man blessed with vivid
senses, and I have indulged them with all my soul. I have to pay
the penalty now, and I am ready to pay."

Philip looked at him for a while steadily.

"Aren't you afraid?"

For a moment Cronshaw did not answer. He seemed to consider his
reply.

"Sometimes, when I'm alone." He looked at Philip. "You think
that's a condemnation? You're wrong. I'm not afraid of my fear.
It's folly, the Christian argument that you should live always
in view of your death. The only way to live is to forget that
you're going to die. Death is unimportant. The fear of it should
never influence a single action of the wise man. I know that I
shall die struggling for breath, and I know that I shall be
horribly afraid. I know that I shall not be able to keep myself
from regretting bitterly the life that has brought me to such a
pass; but I disown that regret. I now, weak, old, diseased,
poor, dying, hold still my soul in my hands, and I regret
nothing."

"D'you remember that Persian carpet you gave me?" asked Philip.

Cronshaw smiled his old, slow smile of past days.

"I told you that it would give you an answer to your question
when you asked me what was the meaning of life. Well, have you
discovered the answer?"

"No," smiled Philip. "Won't you tell it me?"

"No, no, I can't do that. The answer is meaningless unless you
discover it for yourself."


CHAPTER LXXXIII

CRONSHAW was publishing his poems. His friends had been urging
him to do this for years, but his laziness made it impossible
for him to take the necessary steps. He had always answered
their exhortations by telling them that the love of poetry was
dead in England. You brought out a book which had cost you years
of thought and labour; it was given two or three contemptuous
lines among a batch of similar volumes, twenty or thirty copies
were sold, and the rest of the edition was pulped. He had long
since worn out the desire for fame. That was an illusion like
all else. But one of his friends had taken the matter into his
own hands. This was a man of letters, named Leonard Upjohn, whom
Philip had met once or twice with Cronshaw in the cafes of the
Quarter. He had a considerable reputation in England as a critic
and was the accredited exponent in this country of modern French
literature. He had lived a good deal in France among the men who
made the _Mercure de France_ the liveliest review of the day,
and by the simple process of expressing in English their point
of view he had acquired in England a reputation for originality.
Philip had read some of his articles. He had formed a style for
himself by a close imitation of Sir Thomas Browne; he used
elaborate sentences, carefully balanced, and obsolete,
resplendent words: it gave his writing an appearance of
individuality. Leonard Upjohn had induced Cronshaw to give him
all his poems and found that there were enough to make a volume
of reasonable size. He promised to use his influence with
publishers. Cronshaw was in want of money. Since his illness he
had found it more difficult than ever to work steadily; he made
barely enough to keep himself in liquor; and when Upjohn wrote
to him that this publisher and the other, though admiring the
poems, thought it not worth while to publish them, Cronshaw
began to grow interested. He wrote impressing upon Upjohn his
great need and urging him to make more strenuous efforts. Now
that he was going to die he wanted to leave behind him a
published book, and at the back of his mind was the feeling that
he had produced great poetry. He expected to burst upon the
world like a new star. There was something fine in keeping to
himself these treasures of beauty all his life and giving them
to the world disdainfully when, he and the world parting
company, he had no further use for them.

His decision to come to England was caused directly by an
announcement from Leonard Upjohn that a publisher had consented
to print the poems. By a miracle of persuasion Upjohn had
persuaded him to give ten pounds in advance of royalties.

"In advance of royalties, mind you," said Cronshaw to Philip.
"Milton only got ten pounds down."

Upjohn had promised to write a signed article about them, and he
would ask his friends who reviewed to do their best. Cronshaw
pretended to treat the matter with detachment, but it was easy
to see that he was delighted with the thought of the stir he
would make.

One day Philip went to dine by arrangement at the wretched
eating-house at which Cronshaw insisted on taking his meals, but
Cronshaw did not appear. Philip learned that he had not been
there for three days. He got himself something to eat and went
round to the address from which Cronshaw had first written to
him. He had some difficulty in finding Hyde Street. It was a
street of dingy houses huddled together; many of the windows had
been broken and were clumsily repaired with strips of French
newspaper; the doors had not been painted for years; there were
shabby little shops on the ground floor, laundries, cobblers,
stationers. Ragged children played in the road, and an old
barrel-organ was grinding out a vulgar tune. Philip knocked at
the door of Cronshaw's house (there was a shop of cheap
sweetstuffs at the bottom), and it was opened by an elderly
Frenchwoman in a dirty apron. Philip asked her if Cronshaw was
in.

"Ah, yes, there is an Englishman who lives at the top, at the
back. I don't know if he's in. If you want him you had better go
up and see."

The staircase was lit by one jet of gas. There was a revolting
odour in the house. When Philip was passing up a woman came out
of a room on the first floor, looked at him suspiciously, but
made no remark. There were three doors on the top landing.
Philip knocked at one, and knocked again; there was no reply; he
tried the handle, but the door was locked. He knocked at another
door, got no answer, and tried the door again. It opened. The
room was dark.

"Who's that?"

He recognised Cronshaw's voice.

"Carey. Can I come in?"

He received no answer. He walked in. The window was closed and
the stink was overpowering. There was a certain amount of light
from the arc-lamp in the street, and he saw that it was a small
room with two beds in it, end to end; there was a washing-stand
and one chair, but they left little space for anyone to move in.
Cronshaw was in the bed nearest the window. He made no movement,
but gave a low chuckle.

"Why don't you light the candle?" he said then.

Philip struck a match and discovered that there was a
candlestick on the floor beside the bed. He lit it and put it on
the washing-stand. Cronshaw was lying on his back immobile; he
looked very odd in his nightshirt; and his baldness was
disconcerting. His face was earthy and death-like.

"I say, old man, you look awfully ill. Is there anyone to look
after you here?"

"George brings me in a bottle of milk in the morning before he
goes to his work."

"Who's George?"

"I call him George because his name is Adolphe. He shares this
palatial apartment with me."

Philip noticed then that the second bed had not been made since
it was slept in. The pillow was black where the head had rested.

"You don't mean to say you're sharing this room with somebody
else?" he cried.

"Why not? Lodging costs money in Soho. George is a waiter, he
goes out at eight in the morning and does not come in till
closing time, so he isn't in my way at all. We neither of us
sleep well, and he helps to pass away the hours of the night by
telling me stories of his life. He's a Swiss, and I've always
had a taste for waiters. They see life from an entertaining
angle."

"How long have you been in bed?"

"Three days."

"D'you mean to say you've had nothing but a bottle of milk for
the last three days? Why on earth didn't you send me a line? I
can't bear to think of you lying here all day long without a
soul to attend to you."

Cronshaw gave a little laugh.

"Look at your face. Why, dear boy, I really believe you're
distressed. You nice fellow."

Philip blushed. He had not suspected that his face showed the
dismay he felt at the sight of that horrible room and the
wretched circumstances of the poor poet. Cronshaw, watching
Philip, went on with a gentle smile.

"I've been quite happy. Look, here are my proofs. Remember that
I am indifferent to discomforts which would harass other folk.
What do the circumstances of life matter if your dreams make you
lord paramount of time and space?"

The proofs were lying on his bed, and as he lay in the darkness
he had been able to place his hands on them. He showed them to
Philip and his eyes glowed. He turned over the pages, rejoicing
in the clear type; he read out a stanza.

"They don't look bad, do they?"

Philip had an idea. It would involve him in a little expense and
he could not afford even the smallest increase of expenditure;
but on the other hand this was a case where it revolted him to
think of economy.

"I say, I can't bear the thought of your remaining here. I've
got an extra room, it's empty at present, but I can easily get
someone to lend me a bed. Won't you come and live with me for a
while? It'll save you the rent of this."

"Oh, my dear boy, you'd insist on my keeping my window open."

"You shall have every window in the place sealed if you like."

"I shall be all right tomorrow. I could have got up today, only
I felt lazy."

"Then you can very easily make the move. And then if you don't
feel well at any time you can just go to bed, and I shall be
there to look after you."

"If it'll please you I'll come," said Cronshaw, with his torpid
not unpleasant smile.

"That'll be ripping."

They settled that Philip should fetch Cronshaw next day, and
Philip snatched an hour from his busy morning to arrange the
change. He found Cronshaw dressed, sitting in his hat and
great-coat on the bed, with a small, shabby portmanteau,
containing his clothes and books, already packed: it was on the
floor by his feet, and he looked as if he were sitting in the
waiting-room of a station. Philip laughed at the sight of him.
They went over to Kennington in a four-wheeler, of which the
windows were carefully closed, and Philip installed his guest in
his own room. He had gone out early in the morning and bought
for himself a second-hand bedstead, a cheap chest of drawers,
and a looking-glass. Cronshaw settled down at once to correct
his proofs. He was much better.

Philip found him, except for the irritability which was a
symptom of his disease, an easy guest. He had a lecture at nine
in the morning, so did not see Cronshaw till the night. Once or
twice Philip persuaded him to share the scrappy meal he prepared
for himself in the evening, but Cronshaw was too restless to
stay in, and preferred generally to get himself something to eat
in one or other of the cheapest restaurants in Soho. Philip
asked him to see Dr. Tyrell, but he stoutly refused; he knew a
doctor would tell him to stop drinking, and this he was resolved
not to do. He always felt horribly ill in the morning, but his
absinthe at mid-day put him on his feet again, and by the time
he came home, at midnight, he was able to talk with the
brilliancy which had astonished Philip when first he made his
acquaintance. His proofs were corrected; and the volume was to
come out among the publications of the early spring, when the
public might be supposed to have recovered from the avalanche of
Christmas books.


CHAPTER LXXXIV

AT the new year Philip became dresser in the surgical
out-patients' department. The work was of the same character as
that which he had just been engaged on, but with the greater
directness which surgery has than medicine; and a larger
proportion of the patients suffered from those two diseases
which a supine public allows, in its prudishness, to be spread
broadcast. The assistant-surgeon for whom Philip dressed was
called Jacobs. He was a short, fat man, with an exuberant
joviality, a bald head, and a loud voice; he had a cockney
accent, and was generally described by the students as an `awful
bounder'; but his cleverness, both as a surgeon and as a
teacher, caused some of them to overlook this. He had also a
considerable facetiousness, which he exercised impartially on
the patients and on the students. He took a great pleasure in
making his dresses look foolish. Since they were ignorant,
nervous, and could not answer as if he were their equal, this
was not very difficult. He enjoyed his afternoons, with the home
truths he permitted himself, much more than the students who had
to put up with them with a smile. One day a case came up of a
boy with a club-foot. His parents wanted to know whether
anything could be done. Mr. Jacobs turned to Philip.

"You'd better take this case, Carey. It's a subject you ought to
know something about."

Philip flushed, all the more because the surgeon spoke obviously
with a humorous intention, and his brow-beaten dressers laughed
obsequiously. It was in point of fact a subject which Philip,
since coming to the hospital, had studied with anxious
attention. He had read everything in the library which treated
of talipes in its various forms. He made the boy take off his
boot and stocking. He was fourteen, with a snub nose, blue eyes,
and a freckled face. His father explained that they wanted
something done if possible, it was such a hindrance to the kid
in earning his living. Philip looked at him curiously. He was a
jolly boy, not at all shy, but talkative and with a cheekiness
which his father reproved. He was much interested in his foot.

"It's only for the looks of the thing, you know," he said to
Philip. "I don't find it no trouble."

"Be quiet, Ernie," said his father. "There's too much gas about
you."

Philip examined the foot and passed his hand slowly over the
shapelessness of it. He could not understand why the boy felt
none of the humiliation which always oppressed himself. He
wondered why he could not take his deformity with that
philosophic indifference. Presently Mr. Jacobs came up to him.
The boy was sitting on the edge of a couch, the surgeon and
Philip stood on each side of him; and in a semi-circle, crowding
round, were students. With accustomed brilliancy Jacobs gave a
graphic little discourse upon the club-foot: he spoke of its
varieties and of the forms which followed upon different
anatomical conditions.

"I suppose you've got talipes equinus?" he said, turning
suddenly to Philip.

"Yes."

Philip felt the eyes of his fellow-students rest on him, and he
cursed himself because he could not help blushing. He felt the
sweat start up in the palms of his hands. The surgeon spoke with
the fluency due to long practice and with the admirable
perspicacity which distinguished him. He was tremendously
interested in his profession. But Philip did not listen. He was
only wishing that the fellow would get done quickly. Suddenly he
realised that Jacobs was addressing him.

"You don't mind taking off your sock for a moment, Carey?"

Philip felt a shudder pass through him. He had an impulse to
tell the surgeon to go to hell, but he had not the courage to
make a scene. He feared his brutal ridicule. He forced himself
to appear indifferent.

"Not a bit," he said.

He sat down and unlaced his boot. His fingers were trembling and
he thought he should never untie the knot. He remembered how
they had forced him at school to show his foot, and the misery
which had eaten into his soul.

"He keeps his feet nice and clean, doesn't he?" said Jacobs, in
his rasping, cockney voice.

The attendant students giggled. Philip noticed that the boy whom
they were examining looked down at his foot with eager
curiosity. Jacobs took the foot in his hands and said:

"Yes, that's what I thought. I see you've had an operation. When
you were a child, I suppose?"

He went on with his fluent explanations. The students leaned
over and looked at the foot. Two or three examined it minutely
when Jacobs let it go.

"When you've quite done," said Philip, with a smile, ironically.

He could have killed them all. He thought how jolly it would be
to jab a chisel (he didn't know why that particular instrument
came into his mind) into their necks. What beasts men were! He
wished he could believe in hell so as to comfort himself with
the thought of the horrible tortures which would be theirs. Mr.
Jacobs turned his attention to treatment. He talked partly to
the boy's father and partly to the students. Philip put on his
sock and laced his boot. At last the surgeon finished. But he
seemed to have an afterthought and turned to Philip.

"You know, I think it might be worth your while to have an
operation. Of course I couldn't give you a normal foot, but I
think I can do something. You might think about it, and when you
want a holiday you can just come into the hospital for a bit."

Philip had often asked himself whether anything could be done,
but his distaste for any reference to the subject had prevented
him from consulting any of the surgeons at the hospital. His
reading told him that whatever might have been done when he was
a small boy, and then treatment of talipes was not as skilful as
in the present day, there was small chance now of any great
benefit. Still it would be worth while if an operation made it
possible for him to wear a more ordinary boot and to limp less.
He remembered how passionately he had prayed for the miracle
which his uncle had assured him was possible to omnipotence. He
smiled ruefully.

"I was rather a simple soul in those days," he thought.


Towards the end of February it was clear that Cronshaw was
growing much worse. He was no longer able to get up. He lay in
bed, insisting that the window should be closed always, and
refused to see a doctor; he would take little nourishment, but
demanded whiskey and cigarettes: Philip knew that he should have
neither, but Cronshaw's argument was unanswerable.

"I daresay they are killing me. I don't care. You've warned me,
you've done all that was necessary: I ignore your warning. Give
me something to drink and be damned to you."

Leonard Upjohn blew in two or three times a week, and there was
something of the dead leaf in his appearance which made the word
exactly descriptive of the manner of his appearance. He was a
weedy-looking fellow of five-and-thirty, with long pale hair and
a white face; he had the look of a man who lived too little in
the open air. He wore a hat like a dissenting minister's. Philip
disliked him for his patronising manner and was bored by his
fluent conversation. Leonard Upjohn liked to hear himself talk.
He was not sensitive to the interest of his listeners, which is
the first requisite of the good talker; and he never realised
that he was telling people what they knew already. With measured
words he told Philip what to think of Rodin, Albert Samain, and
Caesar Franck. Philip's charwoman only came in for an hour in
the morning, and since Philip was obliged to be at the hospital
all day Cronshaw was left much alone. Upjohn told Philip that he
thought someone should remain with him, but did not offer to
make it possible.

"It's dreadful to think of that great poet alone. Why, he might
die without a soul at hand."

"I think he very probably will," said Philip.

"How can you be so callous!"

"Why don't you come and do your work here every day, and then
you'd be near if he wanted anything?" asked Philip drily.

"I? My dear fellow, I can only work in the surroundings I'm used
to, and besides I go out so much."

Upjohn was also a little put out because Philip had brought
Cronshaw to his own rooms.

"I wish you had left him in Soho," he said, with a wave of his
long, thin hands. "There was a touch of romance in that sordid
attic. I could even bear it if it were Wapping or Shoreditch,
but the respectability of Kennington! What a place for a poet to
die!"

Cronshaw was often so ill-humoured that Philip could only keep
his temper by remembering all the time that this irritability
was a symptom of the disease. Upjohn came sometimes before
Philip was in, and then Cronshaw would complain of him bitterly.
Upjohn listened with complacency.

"The fact is that Carey has no sense of beauty," he smiled. "He
has a middle-class mind."

He was very sarcastic to Philip, and Philip exercised a good
deal of self-control in his dealings with him. But one evening
he could not contain himself. He had had a hard day at the
hospital and was tired out. Leonard Upjohn came to him, while he
was making himself a cup of tea in the kitchen, and said that
Cronshaw was complaining of Philip's insistence that he should
have a doctor.

"Don't you realise that you're enjoying a very rare, a very
exquisite privilege? You ought to do everything in your power,
surely, to show your sense of the greatness of your trust."

"It's a rare and exquisite privilege which I can ill afford,"
said Philip.

Whenever there was any question of money, Leonard Upjohn assumed
a slightly disdainful expression. His sensitive temperament was
offended by the reference.

"There's something fine in Cronshaw's attitude, and you disturb
it by your importunity. You should make allowances for the
delicate imaginings which you cannot feel."

Philip's face darkened.

"Let us go in to Cronshaw," he said frigidly.

The poet was lying on his back, reading a book, with a pipe in
his mouth. The air was musty; and the room, notwithstanding
Philip's tidying up, had the bedraggled look which seemed to
accompany Cronshaw wherever he went. He took off his spectacles
as they came in. Philip was in a towering rage.

"Upjohn tells me you've been complaining to him because I've
urged you to have a doctor," he said. "I want you to have a
doctor, because you may die any day, and if you hadn't been seen
by anyone I shouldn't be able to get a certificate. There'd have
to be an inquest and I should be blamed for not calling a doctor
in."

"I hadn't thought of that. I thought you wanted me to see a
doctor for my sake and not for your own. I'll see a doctor
whenever you like."

Philip did not answer, but gave an almost imperceptible shrug of
the shoulders. Cronshaw, watching him, gave a little chuckle.

"Don't look so angry, my dear. I know very well you want to do
everything you can for me. Let's see your doctor, perhaps he can
do something for me, and at any rate it'll comfort you." He
turned his eyes to Upjohn. "You're a damned fool, Leonard. Why
d'you want to worry the boy? He has quite enough to do to put up
with me. You'll do nothing more for me than write a pretty
article about me after my death. I know you."

Next day Philip went to Dr. Tyrell. He felt that he was the sort
of man to be interested by the story, and as soon as Tyrell was
free of his day's work he accompanied Philip to Kennington. He
could only agree with what Philip had told him. The case was
hopeless.

"I'll take him into the hospital if you like," he said. "He can
have a small ward."

"Nothing would induce him to come."

"You know, he may die any minute, or else he may get another
attack of pneumonia."

Philip nodded. Dr. Tyrell made one or two suggestions, and
promised to come again whenever Philip wanted him to. He left
his address. When Philip went back to Cronshaw he found him
quietly reading. He did not trouble to inquire what the doctor
had said.

"Are you satisfied now, dear boy?" he asked.

"I suppose nothing will induce you to do any of the things
Tyrell advised?"

"Nothing," smiled Cronshaw.


CHAPTER LXXXV

ABOUT a fortnight after this Philip, going home one evening
after his day's work at the hospital, knocked at the door of
Cronshaw's room. He got no answer and walked in. Cronshaw was
lying huddled up on one side, and Philip went up to the bed. He
did not know whether Cronshaw was asleep or merely lay there in
one of his uncontrollable fits of irritability. He was surprised
to see that his mouth was open. He touched his shoulder. Philip
gave a cry of dismay. He slipped his hand under Cronshaw's shirt
and felt his heart; he did not know what to do; helplessly,
because he had heard of this being done, he held a looking-glass
in front of his mouth. It startled him to be alone with
Cronshaw. He had his hat and coat still on, and he ran down the
stairs into the street; he hailed a cab and drove to Harley
Street. Dr. Tyrell was in.

"I say, would you mind coming at once? I think Cronshaw's dead."

"If he is it's not much good my coming, is it?"

"I should be awfully grateful if you would. I've got a cab at
the door. It'll only take half an hour."

Tyrell put on his hat. In the cab he asked him one or two
questions.

"He seemed no worse than usual when I left this morning," said
Philip. "It gave me an awful shock when I went in just now. And
the thought of his dying all alone.... D'you think he knew he
was going to die?"

Philip remembered what Cronshaw had said. He wondered whether at
that last moment he had been seized with the terror of death.
Philip imagined himself in such a plight, knowing it was
inevitable and with no one, not a soul, to give an encouraging
word when the fear seized him.

"You're rather upset," said Dr. Tyrell.

He looked at him with his bright blue eyes. They were not
unsympathetic. When he saw Cronshaw, he said:

"He must have been dead for some hours. I should think he died
in his sleep. They do sometimes."

The body looked shrunk and ignoble. It was not like anything
human. Dr. Tyrell looked at it dispassionately. With a
mechanical gesture he took out his watch.

"Well, I must be getting along. I'll send the certificate round.
I suppose you'll communicate with the relatives."

"I don't think there are any," said Philip.

"How about the funeral?"

"Oh, I'll see to that."

Dr. Tyrell gave Philip a glance. He wondered whether he ought to
offer a couple of sovereigns towards it. He knew nothing of
Philip's circumstances; perhaps he could well afford the
expense; Philip might think it impertinent if he made any
suggestion.

"Well, let me know if there's anything I can do," he said.

Philip and he went out together, parting on the doorstep, and
Philip went to a telegraph office in order to send a message to
Leonard Upjohn. Then he went to an undertaker whose shop he
passed every day on his way to the hospital. His attention had
been drawn to it often by the three words in silver lettering on
a black cloth, which, with two model coffins, adorned the
window: Economy, Celerity, Propriety. They had always diverted
him. The undertaker was a little fat Jew with curly black hair,
long and greasy, in black, with a large diamond ring on a podgy
finger. He received Philip with a peculiar manner formed by the
mingling of his natural blatancy with the subdued air proper to
his calling. He quickly saw that Philip was very helpless and
promised to send round a woman at once to perform the needful
offices. His suggestions for the funeral were very magnificent;
and Philip felt ashamed of himself when the undertaker seemed to
think his objections mean. It was horrible to haggle on such a
matter, and finally Philip consented to an expensiveness which
he could ill afford.

"I quite understand, sir," said the undertaker, "you don't want
any show and that--I'm not a believer in ostentation myself,
mind you--but you want it done gentlemanly-like. You leave it to
me, I'll do it as cheap as it can be done, 'aving regard to
what's right and proper. I can't say more than that, can I?"

Philip went home to eat his supper, and while he ate the woman
came along to lay out the corpse. Presently a telegram arrived
from Leonard Upjohn.


_Shocked and grieved beyond measure. Regret cannot come
tonight. Dining out. With you early tomorrow. Deepest sympathy.
Upjohn._


In a little while the woman knocked at the door of the
sitting-room.

"I've done now, sir. Will you come and look at 'im and see it's
all right?"

Philip followed her. Cronshaw was lying on his back, with his
eyes closed and his hands folded piously across his chest.

"You ought by rights to 'ave a few flowers, sir."

"I'll get some tomorrow."

She gave the body a glance of satisfaction. She had performed
her job, and now she rolled down her sleeves, took off her
apron, and put on her bonnet. Philip asked her how much he owed
her.

"Well, sir, some give me two and sixpence and some give me five
shillings."

Philip was ashamed to give her less than the larger sum. She
thanked him with just so much effusiveness as was seemly in
presence of the grief he might be supposed to feel, and left
him. Philip went back into his sitting-room, cleared away the
remains of his supper, and sat down to read Walsham's
_Surgery_. He found it difficult. He felt singularly nervous.
When there was a sound on the stairs he jumped, and his heart
beat violently. That thing in the adjoining room, which had been
a man and now was nothing, frightened him. The silence seemed
alive, as if some mysterious movement were taking place within
it; the presence of death weighed upon these rooms, unearthly
and terrifying: Philip felt a sudden horror for what had once
been his friend. He tried to force himself to read, but
presently pushed away his book in despair. What troubled him was
the absolute futility of the life which had just ended. It did
not matter if Cronshaw was alive or dead. It would have been
just as well if he had never lived. Philip thought of Cronshaw
young; and it needed an effort of imagination to picture him
slender, with a springing step, and with hair on his head,
buoyant and hopeful. Philip's rule of life, to follow one's
instincts with due regard to the policeman round the corner, had
not acted very well there: it was because Cronshaw had done this
that he had made such a lamentable failure of existence. It
seemed that the instincts could not be trusted. Philip was
puzzled, and he asked himself what rule of life was there, if
that one was useless, and why people acted in one way rather
than in another. They acted according to their emotions, but
their emotions might be good or bad; it seemed just a chance
whether they led to triumph or disaster. Life seemed an
inextricable confusion. Men hurried hither and thither, urged by
forces they knew not; and the purpose of it all escaped them;
they seemed to hurry just for hurrying's sake.

Next morning Leonard Upjohn appeared with a small wreath of
laurel. He was pleased with his idea of crowning the dead poet
with this; and attempted, notwithstanding Philip's disapproving
silence, to fix it on the bald head; but the wreath fitted
grotesquely. It looked like the brim of a hat worn by a low
comedian in a music-hall.

"I'll put it over his heart instead," said Upjohn.

"You've put it on his stomach," remarked Philip.

Upjohn gave a thin smile.

"Only a poet knows where lies a poet's heart," he answered.

They went back into the sitting-room, and Philip told him what
arrangements he had made for the funeral.

"I hoped you've spared no expense. I should like the hearse to
be followed by a long string of empty coaches, and I should like
the horses to wear tall nodding plumes, and there should be a
vast number of mutes with long streamers on their hats. I like
the thought of all those empty coaches."

"As the cost of the funeral will apparently fall on me and I'm
not over flush just now, I've tried to make it as moderate as
possible."

"But, my dear fellow, in that case, why didn't you get him a
pauper's funeral? There would have been something poetic in
that. You have an unerring instinct for mediocrity."

Philip flushed a little, but did not answer; and next day he and
Upjohn followed the hearse in the one carriage which Philip had
ordered. Lawson, unable to come, had sent a wreath; and Philip,
so that the coffin should not seem too neglected, had bought a
couple. On the way back the coachman whipped up his horses.
Philip was dog-tired and presently went to sleep. He was
awakened by Upjohn's voice.

"It's rather lucky the poems haven't come out yet. I think we'd
better hold them back a bit and I'll write a preface. I began
thinking of it during the drive to the cemetery. I believe I can
do something rather good. Anyhow I'll start with an article in
_The Saturday_."

Philip did not reply, and there was silence between them. At
last Upjohn said:

"I daresay I'd be wiser not to whittle away my copy. I think
I'll do an article for one of the reviews, and then I can just
print it afterwards as a preface."

Philip kept his eye on the monthlies, and a few weeks later it
appeared. The article made something of a stir, and extracts
from it were printed in many of the papers. It was a very good
article, vaguely biographical, for no one knew much of
Cronshaw's early life, but delicate, tender, and picturesque.
Leonard Upjohn in his intricate style drew graceful little
pictures of Cronshaw in the Latin Quarter, talking, writing
poetry: Cronshaw became a picturesque figure, an English
Verlaine; and Leonard Upjohn's coloured phrases took on a
tremulous dignity, a more pathetic grandiloquence, as he
described the sordid end, the shabby little room in Soho; and,
with a reticence which was wholly charming and suggested a much
greater generosity than modesty allowed him to state, the
efforts he made to transport the Poet to some cottage embowered
with honeysuckle amid a flowering orchard. And the lack of
sympathy, well-meaning but so tactless, which had taken the poet
instead to the vulgar respectability of Kennington! Leonard
Upjohn described Kennington with that restrained humour which a
strict adherence to the vocabulary of Sir Thomas Browne
necessitated. With delicate sarcasm he narrated the last weeks,
the patience with which Cronshaw bore the well-meaning
clumsiness of the young student who had appointed himself his
nurse, and the pitifulness of that divine vagabond in those
hopelessly middle-class surroundings. Beauty from ashes, he
quoted from Isaiah. It was a triumph of irony for that outcast
poet to die amid the trappings of vulgar respectability; it
reminded Leonard Upjohn of Christ among the Pharisees, and the
analogy gave him opportunity for an exquisite passage. And then
he told how a friend--his good taste did not suffer him more
than to hint subtly who the friend was with such gracious
fancies--had laid a laurel wreath on the dead poet's heart; and
the beautiful dead hands had seemed to rest with a voluptuous
passion upon Apollo's leaves, fragrant with the fragrance of
art, and more green than jade brought by swart mariners from the
manifold, inexplicable China. And, an admirable contrast, the
article ended with a description of the middle-class, ordinary,
prosaic funeral of him who should have been buried like a prince
or like a pauper. It was the crowning buffet, the final victory
of Philistia over art, beauty, and immaterial things.

Leonard Upjohn had never written anything better. It was a
miracle of charm, grace, and pity. He printed all Cronshaw's
best poems in the course of the article, so that when the volume
appeared much of its point was gone; but he advanced his own
position a good deal. He was thenceforth a critic to be reckoned
with. He had seemed before a little aloof; but there was a warm
humanity about this article which was infinitely attractive.


CHAPTER LXXXVI

IN the spring Philip, having finished his dressing in the
out-patients' department, became an in-patients' clerk. This
appointment lasted six months. The clerk spent every morning in
the wards, first in the men's, then in the women's, with the
house-physician; he wrote up cases, made tests, and passed the
time of day with the nurses. On two afternoons a week the
physician in charge went round with a little knot of students,
examined the cases, and dispensed information. The work had not
the excitement, the constant change, the intimate contact with
reality, of the work in the out-patients' department; but Philip
picked up a good deal of knowledge. He got on very well with the
patients, and he was a little flattered at the pleasure they
showed in his attendance on them. He was not conscious of any
deep sympathy in their sufferings, but he liked them; and
because he put on no airs he was more popular with them than
others of the clerks. He was pleasant, encouraging, and
friendly. Like everyone connected with hospitals he found that
male patients were more easy to get on with than female. The
women were often querulous and ill-tempered. They complained
bitterly of the hard-worked nurses, who did not show them the
attention they thought their right; and they were troublesome,
ungrateful, and rude.

Presently Philip was fortunate enough to make a friend. One
morning the house-physician gave him a new case, a man; and,
seating himself at the bedside, Philip proceeded to write down
particulars on the `letter.' He noticed on looking at this that
the patient was described as a journalist: his name was Thorpe
Athelny, an unusual one for a hospital patient, and his age was
forty-eight. He was suffering from a sharp attack of jaundice,
and had been taken into the ward on account of obscure symptoms
which it seemed necessary to watch. He answered the various
questions which it was Philip's duty to ask him in a pleasant,
educated voice. Since he was lying in bed it was difficult to
tell if he was short or tall, but his small head and small hands
suggested that he was a man of less than average height. Philip
had the habit of looking at people's hands, and Athelny's
astonished him: they were very small, with long, tapering
fingers and beautiful, rosy finger-nails; they were very smooth
and except for the jaundice would have been of a surprising
whiteness. The patient kept them outside the bed-clothes, one of
them slightly spread out, the second and third fingers together,
and, while he spoke to Philip, seemed to contemplate them with
satisfaction. With a twinkle in his eyes Philip glanced at the
man's face. Notwithstanding the yellowness it was distinguished;
he had blue eyes, a nose of an imposing boldness, hooked,
aggressive but not clumsy, and a small beard, pointed and gray:
he was rather bald, but his hair had evidently been quite fine,
curling prettily, and he still wore it long.

"I see you're a journalist," said Philip. "What papers d'you
write for?"

"I write for all the papers. You cannot open a paper without
seeing some of my writing." There was one by the side of the bed
and reaching for it he pointed out an advertisement. In large
letters was the name of a firm well-known to Philip, Lynn and
Sedley, Regent Street, London; and below, in type smaller but
still of some magnitude, was the dogmatic statement:
Procrastination is the Thief of Time. Then a question, startling
because of its reasonableness: Why not order today? There was a
repetition, in large letters, like the hammering of conscience
on a murderer's heart: Why not? Then, boldly: Thousands of pairs
of gloves from the leading markets of the world at astounding
prices. Thousands of pairs of stockings from the most reliable
manufacturers of the universe at sensational reductions. Finally
the question recurred, but flung now like a challenging gauntlet
in the lists: Why not order today?

"I'm the press representative of Lynn and Sedley." He gave a
little wave of his beautiful hand. "To what base uses..."

Philip went on asking the regulation questions, some a mere
matter of routine, others artfully devised to lead the patient
to discover things which he might be expected to desire to
conceal.

"Have you ever lived abroad?" asked Philip.

"I was in Spain for eleven years."

"What were you doing there?"

"I was secretary of the English water company at Toledo."

Philip remembered that Clutton had spent some months in Toledo,
and the journalist's answer made him look at him with more
interest; but he felt it would be improper to show this: it was
necessary to preserve the distance between the hospital patient
and the staff. When he had finished his examination he went on
to other beds.

Thorpe Athelny's illness was not grave, and, though remaining
very yellow, he soon felt much better: he stayed in bed only
because the physician thought he should be kept under
observation till certain reactions became normal. One day, on
entering the ward, Philip noticed that Athelny, pencil in hand,
was reading a book. He put it down when Philip came to his bed.

"May I see what you're reading?" asked Philip, who could never
pass a book without looking at it.

Philip took it up and saw that it was a volume of Spanish verse,
the poems of San Juan de la Cruz, and as he opened it a sheet of
paper fell out. Philip picked it up and noticed that verse was
written upon it.

"You're not going to tell me you've been occupying your leisure
in writing poetry? That's a most improper proceeding in a
hospital patient."

"I was trying to do some translations. D'you know Spanish?"

"No."

"Well, you know all about San Juan de la Cruz, don't you?"

"I don't indeed."

"He was one of the Spanish mystics. He's one of the best poets
they've ever had. I thought it would be worth while translating
him into English."

"May I look at your translation?"

"It's very rough," said Athelny, but he gave it to Philip with
an alacrity which suggested that he was eager for him to read
it.

It was written in pencil, in a fine but very peculiar
handwriting, which was hard to read: it was just like black
letter.

"Doesn't it take you an awful time to write like that? It's
wonderful."

"I don't know why handwriting shouldn't be beautiful." Philip
read the first verse:

             _In an obscure night
             With anxious love inflamed
             O happy lot!
             Forth unobserved I went,
             My house being now at rest_...


Philip looked curiously at Thorpe Athelny. He did not know
whether he felt a little shy with him or was attracted by him.
He was conscious that his manner had been slightly patronising,
and he flushed as it struck him that Athelny might have thought
him ridiculous.

"What an unusual name you've got," he remarked, for something to
say.

"It's a very old Yorkshire name. Once it took the head of my
family a day's hard riding to make the circuit of his estates,
but the mighty are fallen. Fast women and slow horses."

He was short-sighted and when he spoke looked at you with a
peculiar intensity. He took up his volume of poetry.

"You should read Spanish," he said. "It is a noble tongue. It
has not the mellifluousness of Italian, Italian is the language
of tenors and organ-grinders, but it has grandeur: it does not
ripple like a brook in a garden, but it surges tumultuous like
a mighty river in flood."

His grandiloquence amused Philip, but he was sensitive to
rhetoric; and he listened with pleasure while Athelny, with
picturesque expressions and the fire of a real enthusiasm,
described to him the rich delight of reading _Don Quixote_ in
the original and the music, romantic, limpid, passionate, of the
enchanting Calderon.

"I must get on with my work," said Philip presently.

"Oh, forgive me, I forgot. I will tell my wife to bring me a
photograph of Toledo, and I will show it you. Come and talk to
me when you have the chance. You don't know what a pleasure it
gives me."

During the next few days, in moments snatched whenever there was
opportunity, Philip's acquaintance with the journalist
increased. Thorpe Athelny was a good talker. He did not say
brilliant things, but he talked inspiringly, with an eager
vividness which fired the imagination; Philip, living so much in
a world of make-believe, found his fancy teeming with new
pictures. Athelny had very good manners. He knew much more than
Philip, both of the world and of books; he was a much older man;
and the readiness of his conversation gave him a certain
superiority; but he was in the hospital a recipient of charity,
subject to strict rules; and he held himself between the two
positions with ease and humour. Once Philip asked him why he had
come to the hospital.

"Oh, my principle is to profit by all the benefits that society
provides. I take advantage of the age I live in. When I'm ill I
get myself patched up in a hospital and I have no false shame,
and I send my children to be educated at the board-school."

"Do you really?" said Philip.

"And a capital education they get too, much better than I got at
Winchester. How else do you think I could educate them at all?
I've got nine. You must come and see them all when I get home
again. Will you?"

"I'd like to very much," said Philip.


CHAPTER LXXXVII

TEN days later Thorpe Athelny was well enough to leave the
hospital. He gave Philip his address, and Philip promised to
dine with him at one o'clock on the following Sunday. Athelny
had told him that he lived in a house built by Inigo Jones; he
had raved, as he raved over everything, over the balustrade of
old oak; and when he came down to open the door for Philip he
made him at once admire the elegant carving of the lintel. It
was a shabby house, badly needing a coat of paint, but with the
dignity of its period, in a little street between Chancery Lane
and Holborn, which had once been fashionable but was now little
better than a slum: there was a plan to pull it down in order to
put up handsome offices; meanwhile the rents were small, and
Athelny was able to get the two upper floors at a price which
suited his income. Philip had not seen him up before and was
surprised at his small size; he was not more than five feet and
five inches high. He was dressed fantastically in blue linen
trousers of the sort worn by working men in France, and a very
old brown velvet coat; he wore a bright red sash round his
waist, a low collar, and for tie a flowing bow of the kind used
by the comic Frenchman in the pages of _Punch_. He greeted
Philip with enthusiasm. He began talking at once of the house
and passed his hand lovingly over the balusters.

"Look at it, feel it, it's like silk. What a miracle of grace!
And in five years the house-breaker will sell it for firewood."

He insisted on taking Philip into a room on the first floor,
where a man in shirt sleeves, a blousy woman, and three children
were having their Sunday dinner.

"I've just brought this gentleman in to show him your ceiling.
Did you ever see anything so wonderful? How are you, Mrs.
Hodgson? This is Mr. Carey, who looked after me when I was in
the hospital."

"Come in, sir," said the man. "Any friend of Mr. Athelny's is
welcome. Mr. Athelny shows the ceiling to all his friends. And
it don't matter what we're doing, if we're in bed or if I'm
'aving a wash, in 'e comes."

Philip could see that they looked upon Athelny as a little
queer; but they liked him none the less and they listened
open-mouthed while he discoursed with his impetuous fluency on
the beauty of the seventeenth-century ceiling.

"What a crime to pull this down, eh, Hodgson? You're an
influential citizen, why don't you write to the papers and
protest?"

The man in shirt sleeves gave a laugh and said to Philip:

"Mr. Athelny will 'ave his little joke. They do say these 'ouses
are that insanitory, it's not safe to live in them."

"Sanitation be damned, give me art," cried Athelny. "I've got
nine children and they thrive on bad drains. No, no, I'm not
going to take any risk. None of your new-fangled notions for me!
When I move from here I'm going to make sure the drains are bad
before I take anything."

There was a knock at the door, and a little fair-haired girl
opened it.

"Daddy, mummy says, do stop talking and come and eat your
dinner."

"This is my third daughter," said Athelny, pointing to her with
a dramatic forefinger. "She is called Maria del Pilar, but she
answers more willingly to the name of Jane. Jane, your nose
wants blowing."

"I haven't got a hanky, daddy."

"Tut, tut, child," he answered, as he produced a vast, brilliant
bandanna, "what do you suppose the Almighty gave you fingers
for?"

They went upstairs, and Philip was taken into a room with walls
panelled in dark oak. In the middle was a narrow table of teak
on trestle legs, with two supporting bars of iron, of the kind
called in Spain _mesa de hieraje_. They were to dine there,
for two places were laid, and there were two large arm-chairs,
with broad flat arms of oak and leathern backs, and leathern
seats. They were severe, elegant, and uncomfortable. The only
other piece of furniture was a _bargueno_, elaborately
ornamented with gilt iron-work, on a stand of ecclesiastical
design roughly but very finely carved. There stood on this two
or three lustre plates, much broken but rich in colour; and on
the walls were old masters of the Spanish school in beautiful
though dilapidated frames: though gruesome in subject, ruined by
age and bad treatment, and second-rate in their conception, they
had a glow of passion. There was nothing in the room of any
value, but the effect was lovely. It was magnificent and yet
austere. Philip felt that it offered the very spirit of old
Spain. Athelny was in the middle of showing him the inside of
the _bargueno_, with its beautiful ornamentation and secret
drawers, when a tall girl, with two plaits of bright brown hair
hanging down her back, came in.

"Mother says dinner's ready and waiting and I'm to bring it in
as soon as you sit down."

"Come and shake hands with Mr. Carey, Sally." He turned to
Philip. "Isn't she enormous? She's my eldest. How old are you,
Sally?"

"Fifteen, father, come next June."

"I christened her Maria del Sol, because she was my first child
and I dedicated her to the glorious sun of Castile; but her
mother calls her Sally and her brother Pudding-Face."

The girl smiled shyly, she had even, white teeth, and blushed.
She was well set-up, tall for her age, with pleasant gray eyes
and a broad forehead. She had red cheeks.

"Go and tell your mother to come in and shake hands with Mr.
Carey before he sits down."

"Mother says she'll come in after dinner. She hasn't washed
herself yet."

"Then we'll go in and see her ourselves. He mustn't eat the
Yorkshire pudding till he's shaken the hand that made it."

Philip followed his host into the kitchen. It was small and much
overcrowded. There had been a lot of noise, but it stopped as
soon as the stranger entered. There was a large table in the
middle and round it, eager for dinner, were seated Athelny's
children. A woman was standing at the oven, taking out baked
potatoes one by one.

"Here's Mr. Carey, Betty," said Athelny.

"Fancy bringing him in here. What will he think?"

She wore a dirty apron, and the sleeves of her cotton dress were
turned up above her elbows; she had curling pins in her hair.
Mrs. Athelny was a large woman, a good three inches taller than
her husband, fair, with blue eyes and a kindly expression; she
had been a handsome creature, but advancing years and the
bearing of many children had made her fat and blousy; her blue
eyes had become pale, her skin was coarse and red, the colour
had gone out of her hair. She straightened herself, wiped her
hand on her apron, and held it out.

"You're welcome, sir," she said, in a slow voice, with an accent
that seemed oddly familiar to Philip. "Athelny said you was very
kind to him in the 'orspital."

"Now you must be introduced to the live stock," said Athelny.
"That is Thorpe," he pointed to a chubby boy with curly hair,
"he is my eldest son, heir to the title, estates, and
responsibilities of the family. There is Athelstan, Harold,
Edward." He pointed with his forefinger to three smaller boys,
all rosy, healthy, and smiling, though when they felt Philip's
smiling eyes upon them they looked shyly down at their plates.
"Now the girls in order: Maria del Sol..."

"Pudding-Face," said one of the small boys.

"Your sense of humour is rudimentary, my son. Maria de los
Mercedes, Maria del Pilar, Maria de la Concepcion, Maria del
Rosario."

"I call them Sally, Molly, Connie, Rosie, and Jane," said Mrs.
Athelny. "Now, Athelny, you go into your own room and I'll send
you your dinner. I'll let the children come in afterwards for a
bit when I've washed them."

"My dear, if I'd had the naming of you I should have called you
Maria of the Soapsuds. You're always torturing these wretched
brats with soap."

"You go first, Mr. Carey, or I shall never get him to sit down
and eat his dinner."

Athelny and Philip installed themselves in the great monkish
chairs, and Sally brought them in two plates of beef, Yorkshire
pudding, baked potatoes, and cabbage. Athelny took sixpence out
of his pocket and sent her for a jug of beer.

"I hope you didn't have the table laid here on my account," said
Philip. "I should have been quite happy to eat with the
children."

"Oh no, I always have my meals by myself. I like these antique
customs. I don't think that women ought to sit down at table
with men. It ruins conversation and I'm sure it's very bad for
them. It puts ideas in their heads, and women are never at ease
with themselves when they have ideas."

Both host and guest ate with a hearty appetite.

"Did you ever taste such Yorkshire pudding? No one can make it
like my wife. That's the advantage of not marrying a lady. You
noticed she wasn't a lady, didn't you?"

It was an awkward question, and Philip did not know how to
answer it.

"I never thought about it," he said lamely.

Athelny laughed. He had a peculiarly joyous laugh.

"No, she's not a lady, nor anything like it. Her father was a
farmer, and she's never bothered about aitches in her life.
We've had twelve children and nine of them are alive. I tell her
it's about time she stopped, but she's an obstinate woman, she's
got into the habit of it now, and I don't believe she'll be
satisfied till she's had twenty."

At that moment Sally came in with the beer, and, having poured
out a glass for Philip, went to the other side of the table to
pour some out for her father. He put his hand round her waist.

"Did you ever see such a handsome, strapping girl? Only fifteen
and she might be twenty. Look at her cheeks. She's never had a
day's illness in her life. It'll be a lucky man who marries her,
won't it, Sally?"

Sally listened to all this with a slight, slow smile, not much
embarrassed, for she was accustomed to her fathers outbursts,
but with an easy modesty which was very attractive.

"Don't let your dinner get cold, father," she said, drawing
herself away from his arm. "You'll call when you're ready for
your pudding, won't you?"

They were left alone, and Athelny lifted the pewter tankard to
his lips. He drank long and deep.

"My word, is there anything better than English beer?" he said.
"Let us thank God for simple pleasures, roast beef and rice
pudding, a good appetite and beer. I was married to a lady once.
My God! Don't marry a lady, my boy."

Philip laughed. He was exhilarated by the scene, the funny
little man in his odd clothes, the panelled room and the Spanish
furniture, the English fare: the whole thing had an exquisite
incongruity.

"You laugh, my boy, you can't imagine marrying beneath you. You
want a wife who's an intellectual equal. Your head is crammed
full of ideas of comradeship. Stuff and nonsense, my boy! A man
doesn't want to talk politics to his wife, and what do you think
I care for Betty's views upon the Differential Calculus? A man
wants a wife who can cook his dinner and look after his
children. I've tried both and I know. Let's have the pudding
in."

He clapped his hands and presently Sally came. When she took
away the plates, Philip wanted to get up and help her, but
Athelny stopped him.

"Let her alone, my boy. She doesn't want you to fuss about, do
you, Sally? And she won't think it rude of you to sit still
while she waits upon you. She don't care a damn for chivalry, do
you, Sally?"

"No, father," answered Sally demurely.

"Do you know what I'm talking about, Sally?"

"No, father. But you know mother doesn't like you to swear."

Athelny laughed boisterously. Sally brought them plates of rice
pudding, rich, creamy, and luscious. Athelny attacked his with
gusto.

"One of the rules of this house is that Sunday dinner should
never alter. It is a ritual. Roast beef and rice pudding for
fifty Sundays in the year. On Easter Sunday lamb and green peas,
and at Michaelmas roast goose and apple sauce. Thus we preserve
the traditions of our people. When Sally marries she will forget
many of the wise things I have taught her, but she will never
forget that if you want to be good and happy you must eat on
Sundays roast beef and rice pudding."

"You'll call when you're ready for cheese," said Sally
impassively.

"D'you know the legend of the halcyon?" said Athelny: Philip was
growing used to his rapid leaping from one subject to another.
"When the kingfisher, flying over the sea, is exhausted, his
mate places herself beneath him and bears him along upon her
stronger wings. That is what a man wants in a wife, the halcyon.
I lived with my first wife for three years. She was a lady, she
had fifteen hundred a year, and we used to give nice little
dinner parties in our little red brick house in Kensington. She
was a charming woman; they all said so, the barristers and their
wives who dined with us, and the literary stockbrokers, and the
budding politicians; oh, she was a charming woman. She made me
go to church in a silk hat and a frock coat, she took me to
classical concerts, and she was very fond of lectures on Sunday
afternoon; and she sat down to breakfast every morning at
eight-thirty, and if I was late breakfast was cold; and she read
the right books, admired the right pictures, and adored the
right music. My God, how that woman bored me! She is charming
still, and she lives in the little red brick house in
Kensington, with Morris papers and Whistler's etchings on the
walls, and gives the same nice little dinner parties, with veal
creams and ices from Gunter's, as she did twenty years ago."

Philip did not ask by what means the ill-matched couple had
separated, but Athelny told him.

"Betty's not my wife, you know; my wife wouldn't divorce me. The
children are bastards, every jack one of them, and are they any
the worse for that? Betty was one of the maids in the little red
brick house in Kensington. Four or five years ago I was on my
uppers, and I had seven children, and I went to my wife and
asked her to help me. She said she'd make me an allowance if I'd
give Betty up and go abroad. Can you see me giving Betty up? We
starved for a while instead. My wife said I loved the gutter.
I've degenerated; I've come down in the world; I earn three
pounds a week as press agent to a linendraper, and every day I
thank God that I'm not in the little red brick house in
Kensington."

Sally brought in Cheddar cheese, and Athelny went on with his
fluent conversation.

"It's the greatest mistake in the world to think that one needs
money to bring up a family. You need money to make them
gentlemen and ladies, but I don't want my children to be ladies
and gentlemen. Sally's going to earn her living in another year.
She's to be apprenticed to a dressmaker, aren't you, Sally? And
the boys are going to serve their country. I want them all to go
into the Navy; it's a jolly life and a healthy life, good food,
good pay, and a pension to end their days on."

Philip lit his pipe. Athelny smoked cigarettes of Havana
tobacco, which he rolled himself. Sally cleared away. Philip was
reserved, and it embarrassed him to be the recipient of so many
confidences. Athelny, with his powerful voice in the diminutive
body, with his bombast, with his foreign look, with his
emphasis, was an astonishing creature. He reminded Philip a good
deal of Cronshaw. He appeared to have the same independence of
thought, the same bohemianism, but he had an infinitely more
vivacious temperament; his mind was coarser, and he had not that
interest in the abstract which made Cronshaw's conversation so
captivating. Athelny was very proud of the county family to
which he belonged; he showed Philip photographs of an
Elizabethan mansion, and told him:

"The Athelnys have lived there for seven centuries, my boy. Ah,
if you saw the chimney-pieces and the ceilings!"

There was a cupboard in the wainscoting and from this he took a
family tree. He showed it to Philip with child-like
satisfaction. It was indeed imposing.

"You see how the family names recur, Thorpe, Athelstan, Harold,
Edward; I've used the family names for my sons. And the girls,
you see, I've given Spanish names to."

An uneasy feeling came to Philip that possibly the whole story
was an elaborate imposture, not told with any base motive, but
merely from a wish to impress, startle, and amaze. Athelny had
told him that he was at Winchester; but Philip, sensitive to
differences of manner, did not feel that his host had the
characteristics of a man educated at a great public school.
While he pointed out the great alliances which his ancestors had
formed, Philip amused himself by wondering whether Athelny was
not the son of some tradesman in Winchester, auctioneer or
coal-merchant, and whether a similarity of surname was not his
only connection with the ancient family whose tree he was
displaying.


CHAPTER LXXXVIII

THERE was a knock at the door and a troop of children came in.
They were clean and tidy, now. their faces shone with soap, and
their hair was plastered down; they were going to Sunday school
under Sally's charge. Athelny joked with them in his dramatic,
exuberant fashion, and you could see that he was devoted to them
all. His pride in their good health and their good looks was
touching. Philip felt that they were a little shy in his
presence, and when their father sent them off they fled from the
room in evident relief. In a few minutes Mrs. Athelny appeared.
She had taken her hair out of the curling pins and now wore an
elaborate fringe. She had on a plain black dress, a hat with
cheap flowers, and was forcing her hands, red and coarse from
much work, into black kid gloves.

"I'm going to church, Athelny," she said. "There's nothing
you'll be wanting, is there?"

"Only your prayers, my Betty."

"They won't do you much good, you're too far gone for that," she
smiled. Then, turning to Philip, she drawled: "I can't get him
to go to church. He's no better than an atheist."

"Doesn't she look like Rubens' second wife?" cried Athelny.
"Wouldn't she look splendid in a seventeenth-century costume?
That's the sort of wife to marry, my boy. Look at her."

"I believe you'd talk the hind leg off a donkey, Athelny," she
answered calmly.

She succeeded in buttoning her gloves, but before she went she
turned to Philip with a kindly, slightly embarrassed smile.

"You'll stay to tea, won't you? Athelny likes someone to talk
to, and it's not often he gets anybody who's clever enough."

"Of course he'll stay to tea," said Athelny. Then when his wife
had gone: "I make a point of the children going to Sunday
school, and I like Betty to go to church. I think women ought to
be religious. I don't believe myself, but I like women and
children to."

Philip, strait-laced in matters of truth, was a little shocked
by this airy attitude.

"But how can you look on while your children are being taught
things which you don't think are true?"

"If they're beautiful I don't much mind if they're not true.
It's asking a great deal that things should appeal to your
reason as well as to your sense of the aesthetic. I wanted Betty
to become a Roman Catholic, I should have liked to see her
converted in a crown of paper flowers, but she's hopelessly
Protestant. Besides, religion is a matter of temperament; you
will believe anything if you have the religious turn of mind,
and if you haven't it doesn't matter what beliefs were instilled
into you, you will grow out of them. Perhaps religion is the
best school of morality. It is like one of those drugs you
gentlemen use in medicine which carries another in solution: it
is of no efficacy in itself, but enables the other to be
absorbed. You take your morality because it is combined with
religion; you lose the religion and the morality stays behind.
A man is more likely to be a good man if he has learned goodness
through the love of God than through a perusal of Herbert
Spencer."

This was contrary to all Philip's ideas. He still looked upon
Christianity as a degrading bondage that must be cast away at
any cost; it was connected subconsciously in his mind with the
dreary services in the cathedral at Tercanbury, and the long
hours of boredom in the cold church at Blackstable; and the
morality of which Athelny spoke was to him no more than a part
of the religion which a halting intelligence preserved, when it
had laid aside the beliefs which alone made it reasonable. But
while he was meditating a reply Athelny, more interested in
hearing himself speak than in discussion, broke into a tirade
upon Roman Catholicism. For him it was an essential part of
Spain; and Spain meant much to him, because he had escaped to it
from the conventionality which during his married life he had
found so irksome. With large gestures and in the emphatic tone
which made what he said so striking, Athelny described to Philip
the Spanish cathedrals with their vast dark spaces, the massive
gold of the altar-pieces, and the sumptuous iron-work, gilt and
faded, the air laden with incense, the silence: Philip almost
saw the Canons in their short surplices of lawn, the acolytes in
red, passing from the sacristy to the choir; he almost heard the
monotonous chanting of vespers. The names which Athelny
mentioned, Avila, Tarragona, Saragossa, Segovia, Cordova, were
like trumpets in his heart. He seemed to see the great gray
piles of granite set in old Spanish towns amid a landscape
tawny, wild, and windswept.

"I've always thought I should love to go to Seville," he said
casually, when Athelny, with one hand dramatically uplifted,
paused for a moment.

"Seville!" cried Athelny. "No, no, don't go there. Seville: it
brings to the mind girls dancing with castanets, singing in
gardens by the Guadalquivir, bull-fights, orange-blossom,
mantillas, _mantones de Manila_. It is the Spain of comic
opera and Montmartre. Its facile charm can offer permanent
entertainment only to an intelligence which is superficial.
Theophile Gautier got out of Seville all that it has to offer.
We who come after him can only repeat his sensations. He put
large fat hands on the obvious and there is nothing but the
obvious there; and it is all finger-marked and frayed. Murillo
is its painter."

Athelny got up from his chair, walked over to the Spanish
cabinet, let down the front with its great gilt hinges and
gorgeous lock, and displayed a series of little drawers. He took
out a bundle of photographs.

"Do you know El Greco?" he asked.

"Oh, I remember one of the men in Paris was awfully impressed by
him."

"El Greco was the painter of Toledo. Betty couldn't find the
photograph I wanted to show you. It's a picture that El Greco
painted of the city he loved, and it's truer than any
photograph. Come and sit at the table."

Philip dragged his chair forward, and Athelny set the photograph
before him. He looked at it curiously, for a long time, in
silence. He stretched out his hand for other photographs, and
Athelny passed them to him. He had never before seen the work of
that enigmatic master; and at the first glance he was bothered
by the arbitrary drawing: the figures were extraordinarily
elongated; the heads were very small; the attitudes were
extravagant. This was not realism, and yet, and yet even in the
photographs you had the impression of a troubling reality.
Athelny was describing eagerly, with vivid phrases, but Philip
only heard vaguely what he said. He was puzzled. He was
curiously moved. These pictures seemed to offer some meaning to
him, but he did not know what the meaning was. There were
portraits of men with large, melancholy eyes which seemed to say
you knew not what; there were long monks in the Franciscan habit
or in the Dominican, with distraught faces, making gestures
whose sense escaped you; there was an Assumption of the Virgin;
there was a Crucifixion in which the painter by some magic of
feeling had been able to suggest that the flesh of Christ's dead
body was not human flesh only but divine; and there was an
Ascension in which the Saviour seemed to surge up towards the
empyrean and yet to stand upon the air as steadily as though it
were solid ground: the uplifted arms of the Apostles, the sweep
of their draperies, their ecstatic gestures, gave an impression
of exultation and of holy joy. The background of nearly all was
the sky by night, the dark night of the soul, with wild clouds
swept by strange winds of hell and lit luridly by an uneasy
moon.

"I've seen that sky in Toledo over and over again," said
Athelny. "I have an idea that when first El Greco came to the
city it was by such a night, and it made so vehement an
impression upon him that he could never get away from it."

Philip remembered how Clutton had been affected by this strange
master, whose work he now saw for the first time. He thought
that Clutton was the most interesting of all the people he had
known in Paris. His sardonic manner, his hostile aloofness, had
made it difficult to know him; but it seemed to Philip, looking
back, that there had been in him a tragic force, which sought
vainly to express itself in painting. He was a man of unusual
character, mystical after the fashion of a time that had no
leaning to mysticism, who was impatient with life because he
found himself unable to say the things which the obscure
impulses of his heart suggested. His intellect was not fashioned
to the uses of the spirit. It was not surprising that he felt a
deep sympathy with the Greek who had devised a new technique to
express the yearnings of his soul. Philip looked again at the
series of portraits of Spanish gentlemen, with ruffles and
pointed beards, their faces pale against the sober black of
their clothes and the darkness of the background. El Greco was
the painter of the soul; and these gentlemen, wan and wasted,
not by exhaustion but by restraint, with their tortured minds,
seem to walk unaware of the beauty of the world; for their eyes
look only in their hearts, and they are dazzled by the glory of
the unseen. No painter has shown more pitilessly that the world
is but a place of passage. The souls of the men he painted speak
their strange longings through their eyes: their senses are
miraculously acute, not for sounds and odours and colour, but
for the very subtle sensations of the soul. The noble walks with
the monkish heart within him, and his eyes see things which
saints in their cells see too, and he is unastounded. His lips
are not lips that smile.

Philip, silent still, returned to the photograph of Toledo,
which seemed to him the most arresting picture of them all. He
could not take his eyes off it. He felt strangely that he was on
the threshold of some new discovery in life. He was tremulous
with a sense of adventure. He thought for an instant of the love
that had consumed him: love seemed very trivial beside the
excitement which now leaped in his Heart. The picture he looked
at was a long one, with houses crowded upon a hill; in one
corner a boy was holding a large map of the town; in another was
a classical figure representing the river Tagus; and in the sky
was the Virgin surrounded by angels. It was a landscape alien to
all Philip's notion, for he had lived in circles that worshipped
exact realism; and yet here again, strangely to himself, he felt
a reality greater than any achieved by the masters in whose
steps humbly he had sought to walk. He heard Athelny say that
the representation was so precise that when the citizens of
Toledo came to look at the picture they recognised their houses.
The painter had painted exactly what he saw but he had seen with
the eyes of the spirit. There was something unearthly in that
city of pale gray. It was a city of the soul seen by a wan light
that was neither that of night nor day. It stood on a green
hill, but of a green not of this world, and it was surrounded by
massive walls and bastions to be stormed by no machines or
engines of man's invention, but by prayer and fasting, by
contrite sighs and by mortifications of the flesh. It was a
stronghold of God. Those gray houses were made of no stone known
to masons, there was something terrifying in their aspect, and
you did not know what men might live in them. You might walk
through the streets and be unamazed to find them all deserted,
and yet not empty; for you felt a presence invisible and yet
manifest to every inner sense. It was a mystical city in which
the imagination faltered like one who steps out of the light
into darkness; the soul walked naked to and fro, knowing the
unknowable, and conscious strangely of experience, intimate but
inexpressible, of the absolute. And without surprise, in that
blue sky, real with a reality that not the eye but the soul
confesses, with its rack of light clouds driven by strange
breezes, like the cries and the sighs of lost souls, you saw the
Blessed Virgin with a gown of red and a cloak of blue,
surrounded by winged angels. Philip felt that the inhabitants of
that city would have seen the apparition without astonishment,
reverent and thankful, and have gone their ways.

Athelny spoke of the mystical writers of Spain, of Teresa de
Avila, San Juan de la Cruz, Fray Luis de Leon; in all of them
was that passion for the unseen which Philip felt in the
pictures of El Greco: they seemed to have the power to touch the
incorporeal and see the invisible. They were Spaniards of their
age, in whom were tremulous all the mighty exploits of a great
nation: their fancies were rich with the glories of America and
the green islands of the Caribbean Sea; in their veins was the
power that had come from age-long battling with the Moor; they
were proud, for they were masters of the world; and they felt in
themselves the wide distances, the tawny wastes, the snow-capped
mountains of Castile, the sunshine and the blue sky, and the
flowering plains of Andalusia. Life was passionate and manifold,
and because it offered so much they felt a restless yearning for
something more; because they were human they were unsatisfied;
and they threw this eager vitality of theirs into a vehement
striving after the ineffable. Athelny was not displeased to find
someone to whom he could read the translations with which for
some time he had amused his leisure; and in his fine, vibrating
voice he recited the canticle of the Soul and Christ her lover,
the lovely poem which begins with the words _en una noche
oscura_, and the _noche serena_ of Fray Luis de Leon. He had
translated them quite simply, not without skill, and he had
found words which at all events suggested the rough-hewn
grandeur of the original. The pictures of El Greco explained
them, and they explained the pictures.

Philip had cultivated a certain disdain for idealism. He had
always had a passion for life, and the idealism he had come
across seemed to him for the most part a cowardly shrinking from
it. The idealist withdrew himself, because he could not suffer
the jostling of the human crowd; he had not the strength to
fight and so called the battle vulgar; he was vain, and since
his fellows would not take him at his own estimate, consoled
himself with despising his fellows. For Philip his type was
Hayward, fair, languid, too fat now and rather bald, still
cherishing the remains of his good looks and still delicately
proposing to do exquisite things in the uncertain future; and at
the back of this were whiskey and vulgar amours of the street.
It was in reaction from what Hayward represented that Philip
clamoured for life as it stood; sordidness, vice, deformity, did
not offend him; he declared that he wanted man in his nakedness;
and he rubbed his hands when an instance came before him of
meanness, cruelty, selfishness, or lust: that was the real
thing. In Paris he had learned that there was neither ugliness
nor beauty, but only truth: the search after beauty was
sentimental. Had he not painted an advertisement of _chocolat
Menier_ in a landscape in order to escape from the tyranny of
prettiness?

But here he seemed to divine something new. He had been coming
to it, all hesitating, for some time, but only now was conscious
of the fact; he felt himself on the brink of a discovery. He
felt vaguely that here was something better than the realism
which he had adored; but certainly it was not the bloodless
idealism which stepped aside from life in weakness; it was too
strong; it was virile; it accepted life in all its vivacity,
ugliness and beauty, squalor and heroism; it was realism still;
but it was realism carried to some higher pitch, in which facts
were transformed by the more vivid light in which they were
seen. He seemed to see things more profoundly through the grave
eyes of those dead noblemen of Castile; and the gestures of the
saints, which at first had seemed wild and distorted, appeared
to have some mysterious significance. But he could not tell what
that significance was. It was like a message which it was very
important for him to receive, but it was given him in an unknown
tongue, and he could not understand. He was always seeking for
a meaning in life, and here it seemed to him that a meaning was
offered; but it was obscure and vague. He was profoundly
troubled. He saw what looked like the truth as by flashes of
lightning on a dark, stormy night you might see a mountain
range. He seemed to see that a man need not leave his life to
chance, but that his will was powerful; he seemed to see that
self-control might be as passionate and as active as the
surrender to passion; he seemed to see that the inward life
might be as manifold, as varied, as rich with experience, as the
life of one who conquered realms and explored unknown lands.


CHAPTER LXXXIX

THE conversation between Philip and Athelny was broken into by
a clatter up the stairs. Athelny opened the door for the
children coming back from Sunday school, and with laughter and
shouting they came in. Gaily he asked them what they had
learned. Sally appeared for a moment, with instructions from her
mother that father was to amuse the children while she got tea
ready; and Athelny began to tell them one of Hans Andersen's
stories. They were not shy children, and they quickly came to
the conclusion that Philip was not formidable. Jane came and
stood by him and presently settled herself on his knees. It was
the first time that Philip in his lonely life had been present
in a family circle: his eyes smiled as they rested on the fair
children engrossed in the fairy tale. The life of his new
friend, eccentric as it appeared at first glance, seemed now to
have the beauty of perfect naturalness. Sally came in once more.

"Now then, children, tea's ready," she said.

Jane slipped off Philip's knees, and they all went back to the
kitchen. Sally began to lay the cloth on the long Spanish table.

"Mother says, shall she come and have tea with you?" she asked.
"I can give the children their tea."

"Tell your mother that we shall be proud and honoured if she
will favour us with her company," said Athelny.

It seemed to Philip that he could never say anything without an
oratorical flourish.

"Then I'll lay for her," said Sally.

She came back again in a moment with a tray on which were a
cottage loaf, a slab of butter, and a jar of strawberry jam.
While she placed the things on the table her father chaffed her.
He said it was quite time she was walking out; he told Philip
that she was very proud, and would have nothing to do with
aspirants to that honour who lined up at the door, two by two,
outside the Sunday school and craved the honour of escorting her
home.

"You do talk, father," said Sally, with her slow, good-natured
smile.

"You wouldn't think to look at her that a tailor's assistant has
enlisted in the army because she would not say how d'you do to
him and an electrical engineer, an electrical engineer, mind
you, has taken to drink because she refused to share her
hymn-book with him in church. I shudder to think what will
happen when she puts her hair up."

"Mother'll bring the tea along herself," said Sally.

"Sally never pays any attention to me," laughed Athelny, looking
at her with fond, proud eyes. "She goes about her business
indifferent to wars, revolutions, and cataclysms. What a wife
she'll make to an honest man!"

Mrs. Athelny brought in the tea. She sat down and proceeded to
cut bread and butter. It amused Philip to see that she treated
her husband as though he were a child. She spread jam for him
and cut up the bread and butter into convenient slices for him
to eat. She had taken off her hat; and in her Sunday dress,
which seemed a little tight for her, she looked like one of the
farmers' wives whom Philip used to call on sometimes with his
uncle when he was a small boy. Then he knew why the sound of her
voice was familiar to him. She spoke just like the people round
Blackstable.

"What part of the country d'you come from?" he asked her.

"I'm a Kentish woman. I come from Ferne."

"I thought as much. My uncle's Vicar of Blackstable."

"That's a funny thing now," she said. "I was wondering in Church
just now whether you was any connection of Mr. Carey. Many's the
time I've seen 'im. A cousin of mine married Mr. Barker of
Roxley Farm, over by Blackstable Church, and I used to go and
stay there often when I was a girl. Isn't that a funny thing
now?"

She looked at him with a new interest, and a brightness came
into her faded eyes. She asked him whether he knew Ferne. It was
a pretty village about ten miles across country from
Blackstable, and the Vicar had come over sometimes to
Blackstable for the harvest thanksgiving. She mentioned names of
various farmers in the neighbourhood. She was delighted to talk
again of the country in which her youth was spent, and it was a
pleasure to her to recall scenes and people that had remained in
her memory with the tenacity peculiar to her class. It gave
Philip a queer sensation too. A breath of the country-side
seemed to be wafted into that panelled room in the middle of
London. He seemed to see the fat Kentish fields with their
stately elms; and his nostrils dilated with the scent of the
air; it is laden with the salt of the North Sea, and that makes
it keen and sharp.

Philip did not leave the Athelnys' till ten o'clock. The
children came in to say good-night at eight and quite naturally
put up their faces for Philip to kiss. His heart went out to
them. Sally only held out her hand.

"Sally never kisses gentlemen till she's seen them twice," said
her father.

"You must ask me again then," said Philip.

"You mustn't take any notice of what father says," remarked
Sally, with a smile.

"She's a most self-possessed young woman," added her parent.

They had supper of bread and cheese and beer, while Mrs. Athelny
was putting the children to bed; and when Philip went into the
kitchen to bid her good-night (she had been sitting there,
resting herself and reading _The Weekly Despatch_) she invited
him cordially to come again.

"There's always a good dinner on Sundays so long as Athelny's in
work," she said, "and it's a charity to come and talk to him."

On the following Saturday Philip received a postcard from
Athelny saying that they were expecting him to dinner next day;
but fearing their means were not such that Mr. Athelny would
desire him to accept, Philip wrote back that he would only come
to tea. He bought a large plum cake so that his entertainment
should cost nothing. He found the whole family glad to see him,
and the cake completed his conquest of the children. He insisted
that they should all have tea together in the kitchen, and the
meal was noisy and hilarious.

Soon Philip got into the habit of going to Athelny's every
Sunday. He became a great favourite with the children, because
he was simple and unaffected and because it was so plain that he
was fond of them. As soon as they heard his ring at the door one
of them popped a head out of window to make sure it was he, and
then they all rushed downstairs tumultuously to let him in. They
flung themselves into his arms. At tea they fought for the
privilege of sitting next to him. Soon they began to call him
Uncle Philip.

Athelny was very communicative, and little by little Philip
learned the various stages of his life. He had followed many
occupations, and it occurred to Philip that he managed to make
a mess of everything he attempted. He had been on a tea
plantation in Ceylon and a traveller in America for Italian
wines; his secretaryship of the water company in Toledo had
lasted longer than any of his employments; he had been a
journalist and for some time had worked as police-court reporter
for an evening paper; he had been sub-editor of a paper in the
Midlands and editor of another on the Riviera. From all his
occupations he had gathered amusing anecdotes, which he told
with a keen pleasure in his own powers of entertainment. He had
read a great deal, chiefly delighting in books which were
unusual; and he poured forth his stores of abstruse knowledge
with child-like enjoyment of the amazement of his hearers. Three
or four years before abject poverty had driven him to take the
job of press-representative to a large firm of drapers; and
though he felt the work unworthy his abilities, which he rated
highly, the firmness of his wife and the needs of his family had
made him stick to it.


CHAPTER XC

WHEN he left the Athelnys' Philip walked down Chancery Lane and
along the Strand to get a 'bus at the top of Parliament Street.
One Sunday, when he had known them about six weeks, he did this
as usual, but he found the Kennington 'bus full. It was June,
but it had rained during the day and the night was raw and cold.
He walked up to Piccadilly Circus in order to get a seat; the
'bus waited at the fountain, and when it arrived there seldom
had more than two or three people in it. This service ran every
quarter of an hour, and he had some time to wait. He looked idly
at the crowd. The public-houses were closing, and there were
many people about. His mind was busy with the ideas Athelny had
the charming gift of suggesting.

Suddenly his heart stood still. He saw Mildred. He had not
thought of her for weeks. She was crossing over from the corner
of Shaftesbury Avenue and stopped at the shelter till a string
of cabs passed by. She was watching her opportunity and had no
eyes for anything else. She wore a large black straw hat with a
mass of feathers on it and a black silk dress; at that time it
was fashionable for women to wear trains; the road was clear,
and Mildred crossed, her skirt trailing on the ground, and
walked down Piccadilly. Philip, his heart beating excitedly,
followed her. He did not wish to speak to her, but he wondered
where she was going at that hour; he wanted to get a look at her
face. She walked slowly along and turned down Air Street and so
got through into Regent Street. She walked up again towards the
Circus. Philip was puzzled. He could not make out what she was
doing. Perhaps she was waiting for somebody, and he felt a great
curiosity to know who it was. She overtook a short man in a
bowler hat, who was strolling very slowly in the same direction
as herself; she gave him a sidelong glance as she passed. She
walked a few steps more till she came to Swan and Edgar's, then
stopped and waited, facing the road. When the man came up she
smiled. The man stared at her for a moment, turned away his
head, and sauntered on. Then Philip understood.

He was overwhelmed with horror. For a moment he felt such a
weakness in his legs that he could hardly stand; then he walked
after her quickly; he touched her on the arm.

"Mildred."

She turned round with a violent start. He thought that she
reddened, but in the obscurity he could not see very well. For
a while they stood and looked at one another without speaking.
At last she said:

"Fancy seeing you!"

He did not know what to answer; he was horribly shaken; and the
phrases that chased one another through his brain seemed
incredibly melodramatic.

"It's awful," he gasped, almost to himself.

She did not say anything more, she turned away from him, and
looked down at the pavement. He felt that his face was distorted
with misery.

"Isn't there anywhere we can go and talk?"

"I don't want to talk," she said sullenly. "Leave me alone,
can't you?"

The thought struck him that perhaps she was in urgent need of
money and could not afford to go away at that hour.

"I've got a couple of sovereigns on me if you're hard up," he
blurted out.

"I don't know what you mean. I was just walking along here on my
way back to my lodgings. I expected to meet one of the girls
from where I work."

"For God's sake don't lie now," he said.

Then he saw that she was crying, and he repeated his question.

"Can't we go and talk somewhere? Can't I come back to your
rooms?"

"No, you can't do that," she sobbed. "I'm not allowed to take
gentlemen in there. If you like I'll met you tomorrow."

He felt certain that she would not keep an appointment. He was
not going to let her go.

"No. You must take me somewhere now."

"Well, there is a room I know, but they'll charge six shillings
for it."

"I don't mind that. Where is it?"

She gave him the address, and he called a cab. They drove to a
shabby street beyond the British Museum in the neighbourhood of
the Gray's Inn Road, and she stopped the cab at the corner.

"They don't like you to drive up to the door," she said.

They were the first words either of them had spoken since
getting into the cab. They walked a few yards and Mildred
knocked three times, sharply, at a door. Philip noticed in the
fanlight a cardboard on which was an announcement that
apartments were to let. The door was opened quietly, and an
elderly, tall woman let them in. She gave Philip a stare and
then spoke to Mildred in an undertone. Mildred led Philip along
a passage to a room at the back. It was quite dark; she asked
him for a match, and lit the gas; there was no globe, and the
gas flared shrilly. Philip saw that he was in a dingy little
bed-room with a suite of furniture, painted to look like pine
much too large for it; the lace curtains were very dirty; the
grate was hidden by a large paper fan. Mildred sank on the chair
which stood by the side of the chimney-piece. Philip sat on the
edge of the bed. He felt ashamed. He saw now that Mildred's
cheeks were thick with rouge, her eyebrows were blackened; but
she looked thin and ill, and the red on her cheeks exaggerated
the greenish pallor of her skin. She stared at the paper fan in
a listless fashion. Philip could not think what to say, and he
had a choking in his throat as if he were going to cry. He
covered his eyes with his hands.

"My God, it is awful," he groaned.

"I don't know what you've got to fuss about. I should have
thought you'd have been rather pleased."

Philip did not answer, and in a moment she broke into a sob.

"You don't think I do it because I like it, do you?"

"Oh, my dear," he cried. "I'm so sorry, I'm so awfully sorry."

"That'll do me a fat lot of good."

Again Philip found nothing to say. He was desperately afraid of
saying anything which she might take for a reproach or a sneer.

"Where's the baby?" he asked at last.

"I've got her with me in London. I hadn't got the money to keep
her on at Brighton, so I had to take her. I've got a room up
Highbury way. I told them I was on the stage. It's a long way to
have to come down to the West End every day, but it's a rare job
to find anyone who'll let to ladies at all."

"Wouldn't they take you back at the shop?"

"I couldn't get any work to do anywhere. I walked my legs off
looking for work. I did get a job once, but I was off for a week
because I was queer, and when I went back they said they didn't
want me any more. You can't blame them either, can you? Them
places, they can't afford to have girls that aren't strong."

"You don't look very well now," said Philip.

"I wasn't fit to come out tonight, but I couldn't help myself,
I wanted the money. I wrote to Emil and told him I was broke,
but he never even answered the letter."

"You might have written to me."

"I didn't like to, not after what happened, and I didn't want
you to know I was in difficulties. I shouldn't have been
surprised if you'd just told me I'd only got what I deserved."

"You don't know me very well, do you, even now?"

For a moment he remembered all the anguish he had suffered on
her account, and he was sick with the recollection of his pain.
But it was no more than recollection. When he looked at her he
knew that he no longer loved her. He was very sorry for her, but
he was glad to be free. Watching her gravely, he asked himself
why he had been so besotted with passion for her.

"You're a gentleman in every sense of the word," she said.
"You're the only one I've ever met." She paused for a minute and
then flushed. "I hate asking you, Philip, but can you spare me
anything?"

"It's lucky I've got some money on me. I'm afraid I've only got
two pounds."

He gave her the sovereigns.

"I'll pay you back, Philip."

"Oh, that's all right," he smiled. "You needn't worry."

He had said nothing that he wanted to say. They had talked as if
the whole thing were natural; and it looked as though she would
go now, back to the horror of her life, and he would be able to
do nothing to prevent it. She had got up to take the money, and
they were both standing.

"Am I keeping you?" she asked. "I suppose you want to be getting
home."

"No, I'm in no hurry," he answered.

"I'm glad to have a chance of sitting down."

Those words, with all they implied, tore his heart, and it was
dreadfully painful to see the weary way in which she sank back
into the chair. The silence lasted so long that Philip in his
embarrassment lit a cigarette.

"It's very good of you not to have said anything disagreeable to
me, Philip. I thought you might say I didn't know what all."

He saw that she was crying again. He remembered how she had come
to him when Emil Miller had deserted her and how she had wept.
The recollection of her suffering and of his own humiliation
seemed to render more overwhelming the compassion he felt now.

"If I could only get out of it!" she moaned. "I hate it so. I'm
unfit for the life, I'm not the sort of girl for that. I'd do
anything to get away from it, I'd be a servant if I could. Oh,
I wish I was dead."

And in pity for herself she broke down now completely. She
sobbed hysterically, and her thin body was shaken.

"Oh, you don't know what it is. Nobody knows till they've done
it."

Philip could not bear to see her cry. He was tortured by the
horror of her position.

"Poor child," he whispered. "Poor child."

He was deeply moved. Suddenly he had an inspiration. It filled
him with a perfect ecstasy of happiness.

"Look here, if you want to get away from it, I've got an idea.
I'm frightfully hard up just now, I've got to be as economical
as I can; but I've got a sort of little flat now in Kennington
and I've got a spare room. If you like you and the baby can come
and live there. I pay a woman three and sixpence a week to keep
the place clean and to do a little cooking for me. You could do
that and your food wouldn't come to much more than the money I
should save on her. It doesn't cost any more to feed two than
one, and I don't suppose the baby eats much."

She stopped crying and looked at him.

"D'you mean to say that you could take me back after all that's
happened?"

Philip flushed a little in embarrassment at what he had to say.

"I don't want you to mistake me. I'm just giving you a room
which doesn't cost me anything and your food. I don't expect
anything more from you than that you should do exactly the same
as the woman I have in does. Except for that I don't want
anything from you at all. I daresay you can cook well enough for
that."

She sprang to her feet and was about to come towards him.

"You are good to me, Philip."

"No, please stop where you are," he said hurriedly, putting out
his hand as though to push her away.

He did not know why it was, but he could not bear the thought
that she should touch him.

"I don't want to be anything more than a friend to you."

"You are good to me," she repeated. "You are good to me."

"Does that mean you'll come?"

"Oh, yes, I'd do anything to get away from this. You'll never
regret what you've done, Philip, never. When can I come,
Philip?"

"You'd better come tomorrow."

Suddenly she burst into tears again.

"What on earth are you crying for now?" he smiled.

"I'm so grateful to you. I don't know how I can ever make it up
to you?"

"Oh, that's all right. You'd better go home now."

He wrote out the address and told her that if she came at half
past five he would be ready for her. It was so late that he had
to walk home, but it did not seem a long way, for he was
intoxicated with delight; he seemed to walk on air.


CHAPTER XCI

NEXT day he got up early to make the room ready for Mildred. He
told the woman who had looked after him that he would not want
her any more. Mildred came about six, and Philip, who was
watching from the window, went down to let her in and help her
to bring up the luggage: it consisted now of no more than three
large parcels wrapped in brown paper, for she had been obliged
to sell everything that was not absolutely needful. She wore the
same black silk dress she had worn the night before, and, though
she had now no rouge on her cheeks, there was still about her
eyes the black which remained after a perfunctory wash in the
morning: it made her look very ill. She was a pathetic figure as
she stepped out of the cab with the baby in her arms. She seemed
a little shy, and they found nothing but commonplace things to
say to one another.

"So you've got here all right."

"I've never lived in this part of London before."

Philip showed her the room. It was that in which Cronshaw had
died. Philip, though he thought it absurd, had never liked the
idea of going back to it; and since Cronshaw's death he had
remained in the little room, sleeping on a fold-up bed, into
which he had first moved in order to make his friend
comfortable. The baby was sleeping placidly.

"You don't recognise her, I expect," said Mildred.

"I've not seen her since we took her down to Brighton."

"Where shall I put her? She's so heavy I can't carry her very
long."

"I'm afraid I haven't got a cradle," said Philip, with a nervous
laugh.

"Oh, she'll sleep with me. She always does."

Mildred put the baby in an arm-chair and looked round the room.
She recognised most of the things which she had known in his old
diggings. Only one thing was new, a head and shoulders of Philip
which Lawson had painted at the end of the preceding summer; it
hung over the chimney-piece; Mildred looked at it critically.

"In some ways I like it and in some ways I don't. I think you're
better looking than that."

"Things are looking up," laughed Philip. "You've never told me
I was good-looking before."

"I'm not one to worry myself about a man's looks. I don't like
good-looking men. They're too conceited for me."

Her eyes travelled round the room in an instinctive search for
a looking-glass, but there was none; she put up her hand and
patted her large fringe.

"What'll the other people in the house say to my being here?"
she asked suddenly.

"Oh, there's only a man and his wife living here. He's out all
day, and I never see her except on Saturday to pay my rent. They
keep entirely to themselves. I've not spoken two words to either
of them since I came."

Mildred went into the bedroom to undo her things and put them
away. Philip tried to read, but his spirits were too high: he
leaned back in his chair, smoking a cigarette, and with smiling
eyes looked at the sleeping child. He felt very happy. He was
quite sure that he was not at all in love with Mildred. He was
surprised that the old feeling had left him so completely; he
discerned in himself a faint physical repulsion from her; and he
thought that if he touched her it would give him goose-flesh. He
could not understand himself. Presently, knocking at the door,
she came in again.

"I say, you needn't knock," he said. "Have you made the tour of
the mansion?"

"It's the smallest kitchen I've ever seen."

"You'll find it large enough to cook our sumptuous repasts," he
retorted lightly.

"I see there's nothing in. I'd better go out and get something."

"Yes, but I venture to remind you that we must be devilish
economical."

"What shall I get for supper?"

"You'd better get what you think you can cook," laughed Philip.

He gave her some money and she went out. She came in half an
hour later and put her purchases on the table. She was out of
breath from climbing the stairs.

"I say, you are anaemic," said Philip. "I'll have to dose you
with Blaud's Pills."

"It took me some time to find the shops. I bought some liver.
That's tasty, isn't it? And you can't eat much of it, so it's
more economical than butcher's meat."

There was a gas stove in the kitchen, and when she had put the
liver on, Mildred came into the sitting-room to lay the cloth.

"Why are you only laying one place?" asked Philip. "Aren't you
going to eat anything?"

Mildred flushed.

"I thought you mightn't like me to have my meals with you."

"Why on earth not?"

"Well, I'm only a servant, aren't I?"

"Don't be an ass. How can you be so silly?"

He smiled, but her humility gave him a curious twist in his
heart. Poor thing! He remembered what she had been when first he
knew her. He hesitated for an instant.

"Don't think I'm conferring any benefit on you," he said. "It's
simply a business arrangement, I'm giving you board and lodging
in return for your work. You don't owe me anything. And there's
nothing humiliating to you in it."

She did not answer, but tears rolled heavily down her cheeks.
Philip knew from his experience at the hospital that women of
her class looked upon service as degrading: he could not help
feeling a little impatient with her; but he blamed himself, for
it was clear that she was tired and ill. He got up and helped
her to lay another place at the table. The baby was awake now,
and Mildred had prepared some Mellin's Food for it. The liver
and bacon were ready and they sat down. For economy's sake
Philip had given up drinking anything but water, but he had in
the house a half a bottle of whiskey, and he thought a little
would do Mildred good. He did his best to make the supper pass
cheerfully, but Mildred was subdued and exhausted. When they had
finished she got up to put the baby to bed.

"I think you'll do well to turn in early yourself," said Philip.
"You look absolute done up."

"I think I will after I've washed up."

Philip lit his pipe and began to read. It was pleasant to hear
somebody moving about in the next room. Sometimes his loneliness
had oppressed him. Mildred came in to clear the table, and he
heard the clatter of plates as she washed up. Philip smiled as
he thought how characteristic it was of her that she should do
all that in a black silk dress. But he had work to do, and he
brought his book up to the table. He was reading Osler's
_Medicine_, which had recently taken the place in the students'
favour of Taylor's work, for many years the text-book most in
use. Presently Mildred came in, rolling down her sleeves. Philip
gave her a casual glance, but did not move; the occasion was
curious, and he felt a little nervous. He feared that Mildred
might imagine he was going to make a nuisance of himself, and he
did not quite know how without brutality to reassure her.

"By the way, I've got a lecture at nine, so I should want
breakfast at a quarter past eight. Can you manage that?"

"Oh, yes. Why, when I was in Parliament Street I used to catch
the eight-twelve from Herne Hill every morning."

"I hope you'll find your room comfortable. You'll be a different
woman tomorrow after a long night in bed."

"I suppose you work till late?"

"I generally work till about eleven or half-past."

"I'll say good-night then."

"Good-night."

The table was between them. He did not offer to shake hands with
her. She shut the door quietly. He heard her moving about in the
bed-room, and in a little while he heard the creaking of the bed
as she got in.


CHAPTER XCII

THE following day was Tuesday. Philip as usual hurried through
his breakfast and dashed off to get to his lecture at nine. He
had only time to exchange a few words with Mildred. When he came
back in the evening he found her seated at the window, darning
his socks.

"I say, you are industrious," he smiled. "What have you been
doing with yourself all day?"

"Oh, I gave the place a good cleaning and then I took baby out
for a little."

She was wearing an old black dress, the same as she had worn as
uniform when she served in the tea-shop; it was shabby, but she
looked better in it than in the silk of the day before. The baby
was sitting on the floor. She looked up at Philip with large,
mysterious eyes and broke into a laugh when he sat down beside
her and began playing with her bare toes. The afternoon sun came
into the room and shed a mellow light.

"It's rather jolly to come back and find someone about the
place. A woman and a baby make very good decoration in a room."

He had gone to the hospital dispensary and got a bottle of
Blaud's Pills, He gave them to Mildred and told her she must
take them after each meal. It was a remedy she was used to, for
she had taken it off and on ever since she was sixteen.

"I'm sure Lawson would love that green skin of yours," said
Philip. "He'd say it was so paintable, but I'm terribly matter
of fact nowadays, and I shan't be happy till you're as pink and
white as a milkmaid."

"I feel better already."

After a frugal supper Philip filled his pouch with tobacco and
put on his hat. It was on Tuesdays that he generally went to the
tavern in Beak Street, and he was glad that this day came so
soon after Mildred's arrival, for he wanted to make his
relations with her perfectly clear.

"Are you going out?" she said.

"Yes, on Tuesdays I give myself a night off. I shall see you
tomorrow. Good-night."

Philip always went to the tavern with a sense of pleasure.
Macalister, the philosophic stockbroker, was generally there and
glad to argue upon any subject under the sun; Hayward came
regularly when he was in London; and though he and Macalister
disliked one another they continued out of habit to meet on that
one evening in the week. Macalister thought Hayward a poor
creature, and sneered at his delicacies of sentiment: he asked
satirically about Hayward's literary work and received with
scornful smiles his vague suggestions of future masterpieces;
their arguments were often heated; but the punch was good, and
they were both fond of it; towards the end of the evening they
generally composed their differences and thought each other
capital fellows. This evening Philip found them both there, and
Lawson also; Lawson came more seldom now that he was beginning
to know people in London and went out to dinner a good deal.
They were all on excellent terms with themselves, for Macalister
had given them a good thing on the Stock Exchange, and Hayward
and Lawson had made fifty pounds apiece. It was a great thing
for Lawson, who was extravagant and earned little money: he had
arrived at that stage of the portrait-painter's career when he
was noticed a good deal by the critics and found a number of
aristocratic ladies who were willing to allow him to paint them
for nothing (it advertised them both, and gave the great ladies
quite an air of patronesses of the arts); but he very seldom got
hold of the solid philistine who was ready to pay good money for
a portrait of his wife. Lawson was brimming over with
satisfaction.

"It's the most ripping way of making money that I've ever
struck," he cried. "I didn't have to put my hand in my pocket
for sixpence."

"You lost something by not being here last Tuesday, young man,"
said Macalister to Philip.

"My God, why didn't you write to me?" said Philip. "If you only
knew how useful a hundred pounds would be to me."

"Oh, there wasn't time for that. One has to be on the spot. I
heard of a good thing last Tuesday, and I asked these fellows if
they'd like to have a flutter, I bought them a thousand shares
on Wednesday morning, and there was a rise in the afternoon so
I sold them at once. I made fifty pounds for each of them and a
couple of hundred for myself."

Philip was sick with envy. He had recently sold the last
mortgage in which his small fortune had been invested and now
had only six hundred pounds left. He was panic-stricken
sometimes when he thought of the future. He had still to keep
himself for two years before he could be qualified, and then he
meant to try for hospital appointments, so that he could not
expect to earn anything for three years at least. With the most
rigid economy he would not have more than a hundred pounds left
then. It was very little to have as a stand-by in case he was
ill and could not earn money or found himself at any time
without work. A lucky gamble would make all the difference to
him.

"Oh, well, it doesn't matter," said Macalister. "Something is
sure to turn up soon. There'll be a boom in South Africans again
one of these days, and then I'll see what I can do for you."

Macalister was in the Kaffir market and often told them stories
of the sudden fortunes that had been made in the great boom of
a year or two back.

"Well, don't forget next time."

They sat on talking till nearly midnight, and Philip, who lived
furthest off, was the first to go. If he did not catch the last
tram he had to walk, and that made him very late. As it was he
did not reach home till nearly half past twelve. When he got
upstairs he was surprised to find Mildred still sitting in his
arm-chair.

"Why on earth aren't you in bed?" he cried.

"I wasn't sleepy."

"You ought to go to bed all the same. It would rest you."

She did not move. He noticed that since supper she had changed
into her black silk dress.

"I thought I'd rather wait up for you in case you wanted
anything."

 She looked at him, and the shadow of a smile played upon her
thin pale lips. Philip was not sure whether he understood or
not. He was slightly embarrassed, but assumed a cheerful,
matter-of-fact air.

"It's very nice of you, but it's very naughty also. Run off to
bed as fast as you can, or you won't be able to get up tomorrow
morning."

"I don't feel like going to bed."

"Nonsense," he said coldly.

She got up, a little sulkily, and went into her room. He smiled
when he heard her lock the door loudly.

The next few days passed without incident. Mildred settled down
in her new surroundings. When Philip hurried off after breakfast
she had the whole morning to do the housework. They ate very
simply, but she liked to take a long time to buy the few things
they needed; she could not be bothered to cook anything for her
dinner, hut made herself some cocoa and ate bread and butter;
then she took the baby out in the gocart, and when she came in
spent the rest of the afternoon in idleness. She was tired out,
and it suited her to do so little. She made friends with
Philip's forbidding landlady over the rent, which he left with
Mildred to pay, and within a week was able to tell him more
about his neighbours than he had learned in a year.

"She's a very nice woman," said Mildred. "Quite the lady. I told
her we was married."

"D'you think that was necessary?"

"Well, I had to tell her something. It looks so funny me being
here and not married to you. I didn't know what she'd think of
me."

"I don't suppose she believed you for a moment."

"That she did, I lay. I told her we'd been married two years--I
had to say that, you know, because of baby--only your people
wouldn't hear of it, because you was only a student"--she
pronounced it stoodent--"and so we had to keep it a secret, but
they'd given way now and we were all going down to stay with
them in the summer."

"You're a past mistress of the cock-and-bull story," said
Philip.

He was vaguely irritated that Mildred still had this passion for
telling fibs. In the last two years she had learnt nothing. But
he shrugged his shoulders.

"When all's said and done," he reflected, "she hasn't had much
chance."

It was a beautiful evening, warm and cloudless, and the people
of South London seemed to have poured out into the streets.
There was that restlessness in the air which seizes the cockney
sometimes when a turn in the weather calls him into the open.
After Mildred had cleared away the supper she went and stood at
the window. The street noises came up to them, noises of people
calling to one another, of the passing traffic, of a
barrel-organ in the distance.

"I suppose you must work tonight, Philip?" she asked him, with
a wistful expression.

"I ought, but I don't know that I must. Why, d'you want me to do
anything else?"

"I'd like to go out for a bit. Couldn't we take a ride on the
top of a tram?"

"If you like."

"I'll just go and put on my hat," she said joyfully.

The night made it almost impossible to stay indoors. The baby
was asleep and could be safely left; Mildred said she had always
left it alone at night when she went out; it never woke. She was
in high spirits when she came back with her hat on. She had
taken the opportunity to put on a little rouge. Philip thought
it was excitement which had brought a faint colour to her pale
cheeks; he was touched by her child-like delight, and reproached
himself for the austerity with which he had treated her. She
laughed when she got out into the air. The first tram they saw
was going towards Westminster Bridge and they got on it. Philip
smoked his pipe, and they looked at the crowded street. The
shops were open, gaily lit, and people were doing their shopping
for the next day. They passed a music-hall called the Canterbury
and Mildred cried out:

"Oh, Philip, do let's go there. I haven't been to a music-hall
for months."

"We can't afford stalls, you know."

"Oh, I don't mind, I shall be quite happy in the gallery."

They got down and walked back a hundred yards till they came to
the doors. They got capital seats for sixpence each, high up but
not in the gallery, and the night was so fine that there was
plenty of room. Mildred's eyes glistened. She enjoyed herself
thoroughly. There was a simple-mindedness in her which touched
Philip. She was a puzzle to him. Certain things in her still
pleased him, and he thought that there was a lot in her which
was very good: she had been badly brought up, and her life was
hard; he had blamed her for much that she could not help; and it
was his own fault if he had asked virtues from her which it was
not in her power to give. Under different circumstances she
might have been a charming girl. She was extraordinarily unfit
for the battle of life. As he watched her now in profile, her
mouth slightly open and that delicate flush on her cheeks, he
thought she looked strangely virginal. He felt an overwhelming
compassion for her, and with all his heart he forgave her for
the misery she had caused him. The smoky atmosphere made
Philip's eyes ache, but when he suggested going she turned to
him with beseeching face and asked him to stay till the end. He
smiled and consented. She took his hand and held it for the rest
of the performance. When they streamed out with the audience
into the crowded street she did not want to go home; they
wandered up the Westminster Bridge Road, looking at the people.

"I've not had such a good time as this for months," she said.

Philip's heart was full, and he was thankful to the fates
because he had carried out his sudden impulse to take Mildred
and her baby into his flat. It was very pleasant to see her
happy gratitude. At last she grew tired and they jumped on a
tram to go home; it was late now, and when they got down and
turned into their own street there was no one about. Mildred
slipped her arm through his.

"It's just like old times, Phil," she said.

She had never called him Phil before, that was what Griffiths
called him; and even now it gave him a curious pang. He
remembered how much he had wanted to die then; his pain had been
so great that he had thought quite seriously of committing
suicide. It all seemed very long ago. He smiled at his past
self. Now he felt nothing for Mildred but infinite pity. They
reached the house, and when they got into the sitting-room
Philip lit the gas.

"Is the baby all right?" he asked.

"I'll just go in and see."

When she came back it was to say that it had not stirred since
she left it. It was a wonderful child. Philip held out his hand.

"Well, good-night."

"D'you want to go to bed already?"

"It's nearly one. I'm not used to late hours these days," said
Philip.

She took his hand and holding it looked into his eyes with a
little smile.

"Phil, the other night in that room, when you asked me to come
and stay here, I didn't mean what you thought I meant, when you
said you didn't want me to be anything to you except just to
cook and that sort of thing."

"Didn't you?" answered Philip, withdrawing his hand. "I did."

"Don't be such an old silly," she laughed.

He shook his head.

"I meant it quite seriously. I shouldn't have asked you to stay
here on any other condition."

"Why not?"

"I feel I couldn't. I can't explain it, but it would spoil it
all."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Oh, very well, it's just as you choose. I'm not one to go down
on my hands and knees for that, and chance it."

She went out, slamming the door behind her.


CHAPTER XCIII

NEXT morning Mildred was sulky and taciturn. She remained in her
room till it was time to get the dinner ready. She was a bad
cook and could do little more than chops and steaks; and she did
not know how to use up odds and ends, so that Philip was obliged
to spend more money than he had expected. When she served up she
sat down opposite Philip, but would eat nothing; he remarked on
it; she said she had a bad headache and was not hungry. He was
glad that he had somewhere to spend the rest of the day; the
Athelnys were cheerful and friendly. It was a delightful and an
unexpected thing to realise that everyone in that household
looked forward with pleasure to his visit. Mildred had gone to
bed when he came back, but next day she was still silent. At
supper she sat with a haughty expression on her face and a
little frown between her eyes. It made Philip impatient, but he
told himself that he must be considerate to her; he was bound to
make allowance.

"You're very silent," he said, with a pleasant smile.

"I'm paid to cook and clean, I didn't know I was expected to
talk as well."

He thought it an ungracious answer, but if they were going to
live together he must do all he could to make things go easily.

"I'm afraid you're cross with me about the other night," he
said.

It was an awkward thing to speak about, but apparently it was
necessary to discuss it.

"I don't know what you mean," she answered.

"Please don't be angry with me. I should never have asked you to
come and live here if I'd not meant our relations to be merely
friendly. I suggested it because I thought you wanted a home and
you would have a chance of looking about for something to do."

"Oh, don't think I care."

"I don't for a moment," he hastened to say. "You mustn't think
I'm ungrateful. I realise that you only proposed it for my sake.
It's just a feeling I have, and I can't help it, it would make
the whole thing ugly and horrid."

"You are funny" she said, looking at him curiously. "I can't
make you out."

She was not angry with him now, but puzzled; she had no idea
what he meant: she accepted the situation, she had indeed a
vague feeling that he was behaving in a very noble fashion and
that she ought to admire it; but also she felt inclined to laugh
at him and perhaps even to despise him a little.

"He's a rum customer," she thought.

Life went smoothly enough with them. Philip spent all day at the
hospital and worked at home in the evening except when he went
to the Athelnys' or to the tavern in Beak Street. Once the
physician for whom he clerked asked him to a solemn dinner, and
two or three times he went to parties given by fellow-students.
Mildred accepted the monotony of her life. If she minded that
Philip left her sometimes by herself in the evening she never
mentioned it. Occasionally he took her to a music hall. He
carried out his intention that the only tie between them should
be the domestic service she did in return for board and lodging.
She had made up her mind that it was no use trying to get work
that summer, and with Philip's approval determined to stay where
she was till the autumn. She thought it would be easy to get
something to do then.

As far as I'm concerned you can stay on here when you've got a
job if it's convenient. The room's there, and the woman who did
for me before can come in to look after the baby."

He grew very much attached to Mildred's child. He had a
naturally affectionate disposition, which had had little
opportunity to display itself. Mildred was not unkind to the
little girl. She looked after her very well and once when she
had a bad cold proved herself a devoted nurse; but the child
bored her, and she spoke to her sharply when she bothered; she
was fond of her, but had not the maternal passion which might
have induced her to forget herself. Mildred had no
demonstrativeness, and she found the manifestations of affection
ridiculous. When Philip sat with the baby on his knees, playing
with it and kissing it, she laughed at him.

"You couldn't make more fuss of her if you was her father," she
said. "You're perfectly silly with the child."

Philip flushed, for he hated to be laughed at. It was absurd to
be so devoted to another man's baby, and he was a little ashamed
of the overflowing of his heart. But the child, feeling Philip's
attachment, would put her face against his or nestle in his
arms.

"It's all very fine for you," said Mildred. "You don't have any
of the disagreeable part of it. How would you like being kept
awake for an hour in the middle of the night because her
ladyship wouldn't go to sleep?"

Philip remembered all sorts of things of his childhood which he
thought he had long forgotten. He took hold of the baby's toes.

"This little pig went to market, this little pig stayed at
home."

When he came home in the evening and entered the sitting-room
his first glance was for the baby sprawling on the floor, and it
gave him a little thrill of delight to hear the child's crow of
pleasure at seeing him. Mildred taught her to call him daddy,
and when the child did this for the first time of her own
accord, laughed immoderately.

"I wonder if you're that stuck on baby because she's mine,"
asked Mildred, "or if you'd be the same with anybody's baby."

"I've never known anybody else's baby, so I can't say," said
Philip.

Towards the end of his second term as in-patients' clerk a piece
of good fortune befell Philip. It was the middle of July. He
went one Tuesday evening to the tavern in Beak Street and found
nobody there but Macalister. They sat together, chatting about
their absent friends, and after a while Macalister said to him:

"Oh, by the way, I heard of a rather good thing today, New
Kleinfonteins; it's a gold mine in Rhodesia. If you'd like to
have a flutter you might make a bit."

Philip had been waiting anxiously for such an opportunity, but
now that it came he hesitated. He was desperately afraid of
losing money. He had little of the gambler's spirit.

"I'd love to, but I don't know if I dare risk it. How much could
I lose if things went wrong?"

"I shouldn't have spoken of it, only you seemed so keen about
it," Macalister answered coldly.

Philip felt that Macalister looked upon him as rather a donkey.

"I'm awfully keen on making a bit," he laughed.

"You can't make money unless you're prepared to risk money."

Macalister began to talk of other things and Philip, while he
was answering him, kept thinking that if the venture turned out
well the stockbroker would be very facetious at his expense next
time they met. Macalister had a sarcastic tongue.

"I think I will have a flutter if you don't mind," said Philip
anxiously.

"All right. I'll buy you two hundred and fifty shares and if I
see a half-crown rise I'll sell them at once."

Philip quickly reckoned out how much that would amount to, and
his mouth watered; thirty pounds would be a godsend just then,
and he thought the fates owed him something. He told Mildred
what he had done when he saw her at breakfast next morning. She
thought him very silly.

"I never knew anyone who made money on the Stock Exchange," she
said. "That's what Emil always said, you can't expect to make
money on the Stock Exchange, he said."

Philip bought an evening paper on his way home and turned at
once to the money columns. He knew nothing about these things
and had difficulty in finding the stock which Macalister had
spoken of. He saw they had advanced a quarter. His heart leaped,
and then he felt sick with apprehension in case Macalister had
forgotten or for some reason had not bought. Macalister had
promised to telegraph. Philip could not wait to take a tram
home. He jumped into a cab. It was an unwonted extravagance.

"Is there a telegram for me?" he said, as he burst in.

"No," said Mildred.

His face fell, and in bitter disappointment he sank heavily into
a chair.

"Then he didn't buy them for me after all. Curse him," he added
violently. "What cruel luck! And I've been thinking all day of
what I'd do with the money."

"Why, what were you going to do?" she asked.

"What's the good of thinking about that now? Oh, I wanted the
money so badly."

She gave a laugh and handed him a telegram.

"I was only having a joke with you. I opened it."

He tore it out of her hands. Macalister had bought him two
hundred and fifty shares and sold them at the half-crown profit
he had suggested. The commission note was to follow next day.
For one moment Philip was furious with Mildred for her cruel
jest, but then he could only think of his joy.

"It makes such a difference to me," he cried. "I'll stand you a
new dress if you like."

"I want it badly enough," she answered.

"I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to be operated
upon at the end of July."

"Why, have you got something the matter with you?" she
interrupted.

It struck her that an illness she did not know might explain
what had so much puzzled her. He flushed, for he hated to refer
to his deformity.

"No, but they think they can do something to my foot. I couldn't
spare the time before, but now it doesn't matter so much. I
shall start my dressing in October instead of next month. I
shall only be in hospital a few weeks and then we can go away to
the seaside for the rest of the Summer. It'll do us all good,
you and the baby and me."

"Oh, let's go to Brighton, Philip, I like Brighton, you get such
a nice class of people there." Philip had vaguely thought of
some little fishing village in Cornwall, but as she spoke it
occurred to him that Mildred would be bored to death there.

"I don't mind where we go as long as I get the sea."

He did not know why, but he had suddenly an irresistible longing
for the sea. He wanted to bathe, and he thought with delight of
splashing about in the salt water. He was a good swimmer, and
nothing exhilarated him like a rough sea.

"I say, it will be jolly," he cried.

"It'll be like a honeymoon, won't it?" she said. "How much can
I have for my new dress, Phil?"


CHAPTER XCIV

PHILIP asked Mr. Jacobs, the assistant-surgeon for whom he had
dressed, to do the operation. Jacobs accepted with pleasure,
since he was interested just then in neglected talipes and was
getting together materials for a paper. He warned Philip that he
could not make his foot like the other, but he thought he could
do a good deal; and though he would always limp he would be able
to wear a boot less unsightly than that which he had been
accustomed to. Philip remembered how he had prayed to a God who
was able to remove mountains for him who had faith, and he
smiled bitterly.

"I don't expect a miracle," he answered.

"I think you're wise to let me try what I can do. You'll find a
club-foot rather a handicap in practice. The layman is full of
fads, and he doesn't like his doctor to have anything the matter
with him."

Philip went into a `small ward', which was a room on the
landing, outside each ward, reserved for special cases. He
remained there a month, for the surgeon would not let him go
till he could walk; and, bearing the operation very well, he had
a pleasant enough time. Lawson and Athelny came to see him, and
one day Mrs. Athelny brought two of her children; students whom
he knew looked in now and again to have a chat; Mildred came
twice a week. Everyone was very kind to him, and Philip, always
surprised when anyone took trouble with him, was touched and
grateful. He enjoyed the relief from care; he need not worry
there about the future, neither whether his money would last out
nor whether he would pass his final examinations; and he could
read to his heart's content. He had not been able to read much
of late, since Mildred disturbed him: she would make an aimless
remark when he was trying to concentrate his attention, and
would not be satisfied unless he answered; whenever he was
comfortably settled down with a book she would want something
done and would come to him with a cork she could not draw or a
hammer to drive in a nail.

They settled to go to Brighton in August. Philip wanted to take
lodgings, but Mildred said that she would have to do
housekeeping, and it would only be a holiday for her if they
went to a boarding-house.

"I have to see about the food every day at home, I get that sick
of it I want a thorough change."

Philip agreed, and it happened that Mildred knew of a
boarding-house at Kemp Town where they would not be charged more
than twenty-five shillings a week each. She arranged with Philip
to write about rooms, but when he got back to Kennington he
found that she had done nothing. He was irritated.

"I shouldn't have thought you had so much to do as all that," he
said.

"Well, I can't think of everything. It's not my fault if I
forget, is it?"

Philip was so anxious to get to the sea that he would not wait
to communicate with the mistress of the boarding-house.

"We'll leave the luggage at the station and go to the house and
see if they've got rooms, and if they have we can just send an
outside porter for our traps."

"You can please yourself," said Mildred stiffly.

She did not like being reproached, and, retiring huffily into a
haughty silence, she sat by listlessly while Philip made the
preparations for their departure. The little flat was hot and
stuffy under the August sun, and from the road beat up a
malodorous sultriness. As he lay in his bed in the small ward
with its red, distempered walls he had longed for fresh air and
the splashing of the sea against his breast. He felt he would go
mad if he had to spend another night in London. Mildred
recovered her good temper when she saw the streets of Brighton
crowded with people making holiday, and they were both in high
spirits as they drove out to Kemp Town. Philip stroked the
baby's cheek.

"We shall get a very different colour into them when we've been
down here a few days," he said, smiling.

They arrived at the boarding-house and dismissed the cab. An
untidy maid opened the door and, when Philip asked if they had
rooms, said she would inquire. She fetched her mistress. A
middle-aged woman, stout and business-like, came downstairs,
gave them the scrutinising glance of her profession, and asked
what accommodation they required.

"Two single rooms, and if you've got such a thing we'd rather
like a cot in one of them."

"I'm afraid I haven't got that. I've got one nice large double
room, and I could let you have a cot."

"I don't think that would do," said Philip.

"I could give you another room next week. Brighton's very full
just now, and people have to take what they can get."

"If it were only for a few days, Philip, I think we might be
able to manage," said Mildred.

"I think two rooms would be more convenient. Can you recommend
any other place where they take boarders?"

"I can, but I don't suppose they'd have room any more than I
have."

"Perhaps you wouldn't mind giving me the address."

The house the stout woman suggested was in the next street, and
they walked towards it. Philip could walk quite well, though he
had to lean on a stick, and he was rather weak. Mildred carried
the baby. They went for a little in silence, and then he saw she
was crying. It annoyed him, and he took no notice, but she
forced his attention.

"Lend me a hanky, will you? I can't get at mine with baby," she
said in a voice strangled with sobs, turning her head away from
him.

He gave her his handkerchief, but said nothing. She dried her
eyes, and as he did not speak, went on.

"I might be poisonous."

"Please don't make a scene in the street," he said.

"It'll look so funny insisting on separate rooms like that.
What'll they think of us?"

"If they knew the circumstances I imagine they'd think us
surprisingly moral," said Philip.

She gave him a sidelong glance.

"You're not going to give it away that we're not married?" she
asked quickly.

"No."

"Why won't you live with me as if we were married then?"

"My dear, I can't explain. I don't want to humiliate you, but I
simply can't. I daresay it's very silly and unreasonable, but
it's stronger than I am. I loved you so much that now..." he
broke off. "After all, there's no accounting for that sort of
thing."

"A fat lot you must have loved me!" she exclaimed.

The boarding-house to which they had been directed was kept by
a bustling maiden lady, with shrewd eyes and voluble speech.
They could have one double room for twenty-five shillings a week
each, and five shillings extra for the baby, or they could have
two single rooms for a pound a week more.

"I have to charge that much more," the woman explained
apologetically, "because if I'm pushed to it I can put two beds
even in the single rooms."

"I daresay that won't ruin us. What do you think, Mildred?"

"Oh, I don't mind. Anything's good enough for me," she answered.

Philip passed off her sulky reply with a laugh, and, the
landlady having arranged to send for their luggage, they sat
down to rest themselves. Philip's foot was hurting him a little,
and he was glad to put it up on a chair.

"I suppose you don't mind my sitting in the same room with you,"
said Mildred aggressively.

"Don't let's quarrel, Mildred," he said gently.

"I didn't know you was so well off you could afford to throw
away a pound a week."

"Don't be angry with me. I assure you it's the only way we can
live together at all."

"I suppose you despise me, that's it."

"Of course I don't. Why should I?"

"It's so unnatural."

"Is it? You're not in love with me, are you?"

"Me? Who d'you take me for?"

"It's not as if you were a very passionate woman, you're not
that."

"It's so humiliating," she said sulkily.

"Oh, I wouldn't fuss about that if I were you."

There were about a dozen people in the boarding-house. They ate
in a narrow, dark room at a long table, at the head of which the
landlady sat and carved. The food was bad. The landlady called
it French cooking, by which she meant that the poor quality of
the materials was disguised by ill-made sauces: plaice
masqueraded as sole and New Zealand mutton as lamb. The kitchen
was small and inconvenient, so that everything was served up
lukewarm. The people were dull and pretentious; old ladies with
elderly maiden daughters; funny old bachelors with mincing ways;
pale-faced, middle-aged clerks with wives, who talked of their
married daughters and their sons who were in a very good
position in the Colonies. At table they discussed Miss Corell's
latest novel; some of them liked Lord Leighton better than Mr.
Alma-Tadema, and some of them liked Mr. Alma-Tadema better than
Lord Leighton. Mildred soon told the ladies of her romantic
marriage with Philip; and he found himself an object of interest
because his family, county people in a very good position, had
cut him off with a shilling because he married while he was only
a stoodent; and Mildred's father, who had a large place down
Devonshire way, wouldn't do anything for them because she had
married Philip. That was why they had come to a boarding-house
and had not a nurse for the baby; but they had to have two rooms
because they were both used to a good deal of accommodation and
they didn't care to be cramped. The other visitors also had
explanations of their presence: one of the single gentlemen
generally went to the Metropole for his holiday, but he liked
cheerful company and you couldn't get that at one of those
expensive hotels; and the old lady with the middle-aged daughter
was having her beautiful house in London done up and she said to
her daughter: "Gwennie, my dear, we must have a cheap holiday
this year," and so they had come there, though of course it
wasn't at all the kind of thing they were used to. Mildred found
them all very superior, and she hated a lot of common, rough
people. She liked gentlemen to be gentlemen in every sense of
the word.

"When people are gentlemen and ladies," she said, "I like them
to be gentlemen and ladies."

The remark seemed cryptic to Philip, but when he heard her say
it two or three times to different persons, and found that it
aroused hearty agreement, he came to the conclusion that it was
only obscure to his own intelligence. It was the first time that
Philip and Mildred had been thrown entirely together. In London
he did not see her all day, and when he came home the household
affairs, the baby, the neighbours, gave them something to talk
about till he settled down to work. Now he spent the whole day
with her. After breakfast they went down to the beach; the
morning went easily enough with a bathe and a stroll along the
front; the evening, which they spent on the pier, having put the
baby to bed, was tolerable, for there was music to listen to and
a constant stream of people to look at; (Philip amused himself
by imagining who they were and weaving little stories about
them; he had got into the habit of answering Mildred's remarks
with his mouth only so that his thoughts remained undisturbed;)
but the afternoons were long and dreary. They sat on the beach.
Mildred said they must get all the benefit they could out of
Doctor Brighton, and he could not read because Mildred made
observations frequently about things in general. If he paid no
attention she complained.

"Oh, leave that silly old book alone. It can't be good for you
always reading. You'll addle your brain, that's what you'll do,
Philip."

"Oh, rot!" he answered.

"Besides, it's so unsociable."

He discovered that it was difficult to talk to her. She had not
even the power of attending to what she was herself saying, so
that a dog running in front of her or the passing of a man in a
loud blazer would call forth a remark and then she would forget
what she had been speaking of. She had a bad memory for names,
and it irritated her not to be able to think of them, so that
she would pause in the middle of some story to rack her brains.
Sometimes she had to give it up, but it often occurred to her
afterwards, and when Philip was talking of something she would
interrupt him.

"Collins, that was it. I knew it would come back to me some
time. Collins, that's the name I couldn't remember."

It exasperated him because it showed that she was not listening
to anything he said, and yet, if he was silent, she reproached
him for sulkiness. Her mind was of an order that could not deal
for five minutes with the abstract, and when Philip gave way to
his taste for generalising she very quickly showed that she was
bored. Mildred dreamt a great deal, and she had an accurate
memory for her dreams, which she would relate every day with
prolixity.

One morning he received a long letter from Thorpe Athelny. He
was taking his holiday in the theatrical way, in which there was
much sound sense, which characterised him. He had done the same
thing for ten years. He took his whole family to a hop-field in
Kent, not far from Mrs. Athelny's home, and they spent three
weeks hopping. It kept them in the open air, earned them money,
much to Mrs. Athelny's satisfaction, and renewed their contact
with mother earth. It was upon this that Athelny laid stress.
The sojourn in the fields gave them a new strength; it was like
a magic ceremony, by which they renewed their youth and the
power of their limbs and the sweetness of the spirit: Philip had
heard him say many fantastic, rhetorical, and picturesque things
on the subject. Now Athelny invited him to come over for a day,
he had certain meditations on Shakespeare and the musical
glasses which he desired to impart, and the children were
clamouring for a sight of Uncle Philip. Philip read the letter
again in the afternoon when he was sitting with Mildred on the
beach. He thought of Mrs. Athelny, cheerful mother of many
children, with her kindly hospitality and her good humour; of
Sally, grave for her years, with funny little maternal ways and
an air of authority, with her long plait of fair hair and her
broad forehead; and then in a bunch of all the others, merry,
boisterous, healthy, and handsome. His heart went out to them.
There was one quality which they had that he did not remember to
have noticed in people before, and that was goodness. It had not
occurred to him till now, but it was evidently the beauty of
their goodness which attracted him. In theory he did not believe
in it: if morality were no more than a matter of convenience
good and evil had no meaning. He did not like to be illogical,
but here was simple goodness, natural and without effort, and he
thought it beautiful. Meditating, he slowly tore the letter into
little pieces; he did not see how he could go without Mildred,
and he did not want to go with her.

It was very hot, the sky was cloudless, and they had been driven
to a shady corner. The baby was gravely playing with stones on
the beach, and now and then she crawled up to Philip and gave
him one to hold, then took it away again and placed it carefully
down. She was playing a mysterious and complicated game known
only to herself. Mildred was asleep. She lay with her head
thrown back and her mouth slightly open; her legs were stretched
out, and her boots protruded from her petticoats in a grotesque
fashion. His eyes had been resting on her vaguely, but now he
looked at her with peculiar attention. He remembered how
passionately he had loved her, and he wondered why now he was
entirely indifferent to her. The change in him filled him with
dull pain. It seemed to him that all he had suffered had been
sheer waste. The touch of her hand had filled him with ecstasy;
he had desired to enter into her soul so that he could share
every thought with her and every feeling; he had suffered
acutely because, when silence had fallen between them, a remark
of hers showed how far their thoughts had travelled apart, and
he had rebelled against the unsurmountable wall which seemed to
divide every personality from every other. He found it strangely
tragic that he had loved her so madly and now loved her not at
all. Sometimes he hated her. She was incapable of learning, and
the experience of life had taught her nothing. She was as
unmannerly as she had always been. It revolted Philip to hear
the insolence with which she treated the hard-worked servant at
the boarding-house.

Presently he considered his own plans. At the end of his fourth
year he would be able to take his examination in midwifery, and
a year more would see him qualified. Then he might manage a
journey to Spain. He wanted to see the pictures which he knew
only from photographs; he felt deeply that El Greco held a
secret of peculiar moment to him; and he fancied that in Toledo
he would surely find it out. He did not wish to do things
grandly, and on a hundred pounds he might live for six months in
Spain: if Macalister put him on to another good thing he could
make that easily. His heart warmed at the thought of those old
beautiful cities, and the tawny plains of Castile. He was
convinced that more might be got out of life than offered itself
at present, and he thought that in Spain he could live with
greater intensity: it might be possible to practise in one of
those old cities, there were a good many foreigners, passing or
resident, and he should be able to pick up a living. But that
would be much later; first he must get one or two hospital
appointments; they gave experience and made it easy to get jobs
afterwards. He wished to get a berth as ship's doctor on one of
the large tramps that took things leisurely enough for a man to
see something of the places at which they stopped. He wanted to
go to the East; and his fancy was rich with pictures of Bangkok
and Shanghai, and the ports of Japan: he pictured to himself
palm-trees and skies blue and hot, dark-skinned people, pagodas;
the scents of the Orient intoxicated his nostrils. His heart but
with passionate desire for the beauty and the strangeness of the
world.

Mildred awoke.

"I do believe I've been asleep," she said. "Now then, you
naughty girl, what have you been doing to yourself? Her dress
was clean yesterday and just look at it now, Philip."


CHAPTER XCV

WHEN they returned to London Philip began his dressing in the
surgical wards. He was not so much interested in surgery as in
medicine, which, a more empirical science, offered greater scope
to the imagination. The work was a little harder than the
corresponding work on the medical side. There was a lecture from
nine till ten, when he went into the wards; there wounds had to
be dressed, stitches taken out, bandages renewed: Philip prided
himself a little on his skill in bandaging, and it amused him to
wring a word of approval from a nurse. On certain afternoons in
the week there were operations; and he stood in the well of the
theatre, in a white jacket, ready to hand the operating surgeon
any instrument he wanted or to sponge the blood away so that he
could see what he was about. When some rare operation was to be
performed the theatre would fill up, but generally there were
not more than half a dozen students present, and then the
proceedings had a cosiness which Philip enjoyed. At that time
the world at large seemed to have a passion for appendicitis,
and a good many cases came to the operating theatre for this
complaint: the surgeon for whom Philip dressed was in friendly
rivalry with a colleague as to which could remove an appendix in
the shortest time and with the smallest incision.

In due course Philip was put on accident duty. The dressers took
this in turn; it lasted three days, during which they lived in
hospital and ate their meals in the common-room; they had a room
on the ground floor near the casualty ward, with a bed that shut
up during the day into a cupboard. The dresser on duty had to be
at hand day and night to see to any casualty that came in. You
were on the move all the time, and not more than an hour or two
passed during the night without the clanging of the bell just
above your head which made you leap out of bed instinctively.
Saturday night was of course the busiest time and the closing of
the public-houses the busiest hour. Men would be brought in by
the police dead drunk and it would be necessary to administer a
stomach-pump; women, rather the worse for liquor themselves,
would come in with a wound on the head or a bleeding nose which
their husbands had given them: some would vow to have the law on
him, and others, ashamed, would declare that it had been an
accident. What the dresser could manage himself he did, but if
there was anything important he sent for the house-surgeon: he
did this with care, since the house-surgeon was not vastly
pleased to be dragged down five flights of stairs for nothing.
The cases ranged from a cut finger to a cut throat. Boys came in
with hands mangled by some machine, men were brought who had
been knocked down by a cab, and children who had broken a limb
while playing: now and then attempted suicides were carried in
by the police: Philip saw a ghastly, wild-eyed man with a great
gash from ear to ear, and he was in the ward for weeks
afterwards in charge of a constable, silent, angry because he
was alive, and sullen; he made no secret of the fact that he
would try again to kill himself as soon as he was released. The
wards were crowded, and the house-surgeon was faced with a
dilemma when patients were brought in by the police: if they
were sent on to the station and died there disagreeable things
were said in the papers; and it was very difficult sometimes to
tell if a man was dying or drunk. Philip did not go to bed till
he was tired out, so that he should not have the bother of
getting up again in an hour; and he sat in the casualty ward
talking in the intervals of work with the night-nurse. She was
a gray-haired woman of masculine appearance, who had been
night-nurse in the casualty department for twenty years. She
liked the work because she was her own mistress and had no
sister to bother her. Her movements were slow, but she was
immensely capable and she never failed in an emergency. The
dressers, often inexperienced or nervous, found her a tower of
strength. She had seen thousands of them, and they made no
impression upon her: she always called them Mr. Brown; and when
they expostulated and told her their real names, she merely
nodded and went on calling them Mr. Brown. It interested Philip
to sit with her in the bare room, with its two horse-hair
couches and the flaring gas, and listen to her. She had long
ceased to look upon the people who came in as human beings; they
were drunks, or broken arms, or cut throats. She took the vice
and misery and cruelty of the world as a matter of course; she
found nothing to praise or blame in human actions: she accepted.
She had a certain grim humour.

"I remember one suicide," she said to Philip, "who threw himself
into the Thames. They fished him out and brought him here, and
ten days later he developed typhoid fever from swallowing Thames
water."

"Did he die?"

"Yes, he did all right. I could never make up my mind if it was
suicide or not.... They're a funny lot, suicides. I remember one
man who couldn't get any work to do and his wife died, so he
pawed his clothes and bought a revolver; but he made a mess of
it, he only shot out an eye and he got all right. And then, if
you please, with an eye gone and a piece of his face blow away,
he came to the conclusion that the world wasn't such a bad place
after all, and he lived happily ever afterwards. Thing I've
always noticed, people don't commit suicide for love, as you'd
expect, that's just a fancy of novelists; they commit suicide
because they haven't got any money. I wonder why that is."

"I suppose money's more important than love," suggested Philip.

Money was in any case occupying Philip's thoughts a good deal
just then. He discovered the little truth there was in the airy
saying which himself had repeated, that two could live as
cheaply as one, and his expenses were beginning to worry him.
Mildred was not a good manager, and it cost them as much to live
as if they had eaten in restaurants; the child needed clothes,
and Mildred boots, an umbrella, and other small things which it
was impossible for her to do without. When they returned from
Brighton she had announced her intention of getting a job, but
she took no definite steps, and presently a bad cold laid her up
for a fortnight. When she was well she answered one or two
advertisements, but nothing came of it: either she arrived too
late and the vacant place was filled, or the work was more than
she felt strong enough to do. Once she got an offer, but the
wages were only fourteen shillings a week, and she thought she
was worth more than that.

"It's no good letting oneself be put upon," she remarked.
"People don't respect you if you let yourself go too cheap."

"I don't think fourteen shillings is so bad," answered Philip,
drily.

He could not help thinking how useful it would be towards the
expenses of the household, and Mildred was already beginning to
hint that she did not get a place because she had not got a
decent dress to interview employers in. He gave her the dress,
and she made one or two more attempts, but Philip came to the
conclusion that they were not serious. She did not want to work.
The only way he knew to make money was on the Stock Exchange,
and he was very anxious to repeat the lucky experiment of the
summer; but war had broken out with the Transvaal and nothing
was doing in South Africans. Macalister told him that Redvers
Buller would march into Pretoria in a month and then everything
would boom. The only thing was to wait patiently. What they
wanted was a British reverse to knock things down a bit, and
then it might be worth while buying. Philip began reading
assiduously the `city chat' of his favourite newspaper. He was
worried and irritable. Once or twice he spoke sharply to
Mildred, and since she was neither tactful nor patient she
answered with temper, and they quarrelled. Philip always
expressed his regret for what he had said, but Mildred had not
a forgiving nature, and she would sulk for a couple of days. She
got on his nerves in all sorts of ways; by the manner in which
she ate, and by the untidiness which made her leave articles of
clothing about their sitting-room: Philip was excited by the war
and devoured the papers, morning and evening; but she took no
interest in anything that happened. She had made the
acquaintance of two or three people who lived in the street, and
one of them had asked if she would like the curate to call on
her. She wore a wedding-ring and called herself Mrs. Carey. On
Philip's walls were two or three of the drawings which he had
made in Paris, nudes, two of women and one of Miguel Ajuria,
standing very square on his feet, with clenched fists. Philip
kept them because they were the best things he had done, and
they reminded him of happy days. Mildred had long looked at them
with disfavour.

"I wish you'd take those drawings down, Philip," she said to him
at last. "Mrs. Foreman, of number thirteen, came in yesterday
afternoon, and I didn't know which way to look. I saw her
staring at them."

"What's the matter with them?"

"They're indecent. Disgusting, that's what I call it, to have
drawings of naked people about. And it isn't nice for baby
either. She's beginning to notice things now."

"How can you be so vulgar?"

"Vulgar? Modest, I call it. I've never said anything, but d'you
think I like having to look at those naked people all day long."

"Have you no sense of humour at all, Mildred?" he asked
frigidly.

"I don't know what sense of humour's got to do with it. I've got
a good mind to take them down myself. If you want to know what
I think about them, I think they're disgusting."

"I don't want to know what you think about them, and I forbid
you to touch them."

When Mildred was cross with him she punished him through the
baby. The little girl was as fond of Philip as he was of her,
and it was her great pleasure every morning to crawl into his
room (she was getting on for two now and could walk pretty
well), and be taken up into his bed. When Mildred stopped this
the poor child would cry bitterly. To Philip's remonstrances she
replied:

"I don't want her to get into habits."

And if then he said anything more she said:

"It's nothing to do with you what I do with my child. To hear
you talk one would think you was her father. I'm her mother, and
I ought to know what's good for her, oughtn't I?"

Philip was exasperated by Mildred's stupidity; but he was so
indifferent to her now that it was only at times she made him
angry. He grew used to having her about. Christmas came, and
with it a couple of days holiday for Philip. He brought some
holly in and decorated the flat, and on Christmas Day he gave
small presents to Mildred and the baby. There were only two of
them so they could not have a turkey, but Mildred roasted a
chicken and boiled a Christmas pudding which she had bought at
a local grocer's. They stood themselves a bottle of wine. When
they had dined Philip sat in his arm-chair by the fire, smoking
his pipe; and the unaccustomed wine had made him forget for a
while the anxiety about money which was so constantly with him.
He felt happy and comfortable. Presently Mildred came in to tell
him that the baby wanted him to kiss her good-night, and with a
smile he went into Mildred's bed-room. Then, telling the child
to go to sleep, he turned down the gas and, leaving the door
open in case she cried, went back into the sitting-room.

"Where are you going to sit?" he asked Mildred.

"You sit in your chair. I'm going to sit on the floor."

When he sat down she settled herself in front of the fire and
leaned against his knees. He could not help remembering that
this was how they had sat together in her rooms in the Vauxhall
Bridge Road, but the positions had been reversed; it was he who
had sat on the floor and leaned his head against her knee. How
passionately he had loved her then! Now he felt for her a
tenderness he had not known for a long time. He seemed still to
feel twined round his neck the baby's soft little arms.

"Are you comfy?" he asked.

She looked up at him, gave a slight smile, and nodded. They
gazed into the fire dreamily, without speaking to one another.
At last she turned round and stared at him curiously.

"D'you know that you haven't kissed me once since I came here?"
she said suddenly.

"D'you want me to?" he smiled.

"I suppose you don't care for me in that way any more?"

"I'm very fond of you."

"You're much fonder of baby."

He did not answer, and she laid her cheek against his hand.

"You're not angry with me any more?" she asked presently, with
her eyes cast down.

"Why on earth should I be?"

"I've never cared for you as I do now. It's only since I passed
through the fire that I've learnt to love you." It chilled
Philip to hear her make use of the sort of phrase she read in
the penny novelettes which she devoured. Then he wondered
whether what she said had any meaning for her: perhaps she knew
no other way to express her genuine feelings than the stilted
language of _The Family Herald_.

"It seems so funny our living together like this."

He did not reply for quite a long time, and silence fell upon
them again; but at last he spoke and seemed conscious of no
interval.

"You mustn't be angry with me. One can't help these things. I
remember that I thought you wicked and cruel because you did
this, that, and the other; but it was very silly of me. You
didn't love me, and it was absurd to blame you for that. I
thought I could make you love me, but I know now that was
impossible. I don't know what it is that makes someone love you,
but whatever it is, it's the only thing that matters, and if it
isn't there you won't create it by kindness, or generosity, or
anything of that sort."

"I should have thought if you'd loved me really you'd have loved
me still."

"I should have thought so too. I remember how I used to think
that it would last for ever, I felt I would rather die than be
without you, and I used to long for the time when you would be
faded and wrinkled so that nobody cared for you any more and I
should have you all to myself."

She did not answer, and presently she got up and said she was
going to bed. She gave a timid little smile.

"It's Christmas Day, Philip, won't you kiss me good-night?"

He gave a laugh, blushed slightly, and kissed her. She went to
her bed-room and he began to read.


CHAPTER XCVI

THE climax came two or three weeks later. Mildred was driven by
Philip's behaviour to a pitch of strange exasperation. There
were many different emotions in her soul, and she passed from
mood to mood with facility. She spent a great deal of time alone
and brooded over her position. She did not put all her feelings
into words, she did not even know what they were, but certain
things stood out in her mind, and she thought of them over and
over again. She had never understood Philip, nor had very much
liked him; but she was pleased to have him about her because she
thought he was a gentleman. She was impressed because his father
had been a doctor and his uncle was a clergyman. She despised
him a little because she had made such a fool of him, and at the
same time was never quite comfortable in his presence; she could
not let herself go, and she felt that he was criticising her
manners.

When she first came to live in the little rooms in Kennington
she was tired out and ashamed. She was glad to be left alone. It
was a comfort to think that there was no rent to pay; she need
not go out in all weathers, and she could lie quietly in bed if
she did not feel well. She had hated the life she led. It was
horrible to have to be affable and subservient; and even now
when it crossed her mind she cried with pity for herself as she
thought of the roughness of men and their brutal language. But
it crossed her mind very seldom. She was grateful to Philip for
coming to her rescue, and when she remembered how honestly he
had loved her and how badly she had treated him, she felt a pang
of remorse. It was easy to make it up to him. It meant very
little to her. She was surprised when he refused her suggestion,
but she shrugged her shoulders: let him put on airs if he liked,
she did not care, he would be anxious enough in a little while,
and then it would be her turn to refuse; if he thought it was
any deprivation to her he was very much mistaken. She had no
doubt of her power over him. He was peculiar, but she knew him
through and through. He had so often quarrelled with her and
sworn he would never see her again, and then in a little while
he had come on his knees begging to be forgiven. It gave her a
thrill to think how he had cringed before her. He would have
been glad to lie down on the ground for her to walk on him. She
had seen him cry. She knew exactly how to treat him, pay no
attention to him, just pretend you didn't notice his tempers,
leave him severely alone, and in a little while he was sure to
grovel. She laughed a little to herself, good-humouredly, when
she thought how he had come and eaten dirt before her. She had
had her fling now. She knew what men were and did not want to
have anything more to do with them. She was quite ready to
settle down with Philip. When all was said, he was a gentleman
in every sense of the word, and that was something not to be
sneezed at, wasn't it? Anyhow she was in no hurry, and she was
not going to take the first step. She was glad to see how fond
he was growing of the baby, though it tickled her a good deal;
it was comic that he should set so much store on another man's
child. He was peculiar and no mistake.

But one or two things surprised her. She had been used to his
subservience: he was only too glad to do anything for her in the
old days, she was accustomed to see him cast down by a cross
word and in ecstasy at a kind one; he was different now, and she
said to herself that he had not improved in the last year. It
never struck her for a moment that there could be any change in
his feelings, and she thought it was only acting when he paid no
heed to her bad temper. He wanted to read sometimes and told her
to stop talking: she did not know whether to flare up or to
sulk, and was so puzzled that she did neither. Then came the
conversation in which he told her that he intended their
relations to be platonic, and, remembering an incident of their
common past, it occurred to her that he dreaded the possibility
of her being pregnant. She took pains to reassure him. It made
no difference. She was the sort of woman who was unable to
realise that a man might not have her own obsession with sex;
her relations with men had been purely on those lines; and she
could not understand that they ever had other interests. The
thought struck her that Philip was in love with somebody else,
and she watched him, suspecting nurses at the hospital or people
he met out; but artful questions led her to the conclusion that
there was no one dangerous in the Athelny household; and it
forced itself upon her also that Philip, like most medical
students, was unconscious of the sex of the nurses with whom his
work threw him in contact. They were associated in his mind with
a faint odour of iodoform. Philip received no letters, and there
was no girl's photograph among his belongings. If he was in love
with someone, he was very clever at hiding it; and he answered
all Mildred's questions with frankness and apparently without
suspicion that there was any motive in them.

"I don't believe he's in love with anybody else," she said to
herself at last.

It was a relief, for in that case he was certainly still in love
with her; but it made his behaviour very puzzling. If he was
going to treat her like that why did he ask her to come and live
at the flat? It was unnatural. Mildred was not a woman who
conceived the possibility of compassion, generosity, or
kindness. Her only conclusion was that Philip was queer. She
took it into her head that the reasons for his conduct were
chivalrous; and, her imagination filled with the extravagances
of cheap fiction, she pictured to herself all sorts of romantic
explanations for his delicacy. Her fancy ran riot with bitter
misunderstandings, purifications by fire, snow-white souls, and
death in the cruel cold of a Christmas night. She made up her
mind that when they went to Brighton she would put an end to all
his nonsense; they would be alone there, everyone would think
them husband and wife, and there would be the pier and the band.
When she found that nothing would induce Philip to share the
same room with her, when he spoke to her about it with a tone in
his voice she had never heard before, she suddenly realised that
he did not want her. She was astounded. She remembered all he
had said in the past and how desperately he had loved her. She
felt humiliated and angry, but she had a sort of native
insolence which carried her through. He needn't think she was in
love with him, because she wasn't. She hated him sometimes, and
she longed to humble him; but she found herself singularly
powerless; she did not know which way to handle him. She began
to be a little nervous with him. Once or twice she cried. Once
or twice she set herself to be particularly nice to him; but
when she took his arm while they walked along the front at night
he made some excuse in a while to release himself, as though it
were unpleasant for him to be touched by her. She could not make
it out. The only hold she had over him was through the baby, of
whom he seemed to grow fonder and fonder: she could make him
white with anger by giving the child a slap Or a push; and the
only time the old, tender smile came back into his eyes was when
she stood with the baby in her arms. She noticed it when she was
being photographed like that by a man on the beach, and
afterwards she often stood in the same way for Philip to look at
her.

When they got back to London Mildred began looking for the work
she had asserted was so easy to find; she wanted now to be
independent of Philip; and she thought of the satisfaction with
which she would announce to him that she was going into rooms
and would take the child with her. But her heart failed her when
she came into closer contact with the possibility. She had grown
unused to the long hours, she did not want to be at the beck and
call of a manageress, and her dignity revolted at the thought of
wearing once more a uniform. She had made out to such of the
neighbours as she knew that they were comfortably off: it would
be a come-down if they heard that she had to go out and work.
Her natural indolence asserted itself. She did not want to leave
Philip, and so long as he was willing to provide for her, she
did not see why she should. There was no money to throw away,
but she got her board and lodging, and he might get better off.
His uncle was an old man and might die any day, he would come
into a little then, and even as things were, it was better than
slaving from morning till night for a few shillings a week. Her
efforts relaxed; she kept on reading the advertisement columns
of the daily paper merely to show that she wanted to do
something if anything that was worth her while presented itself.
But panic seized her, and she was afraid that Philip would grow
tired of supporting her. She had no hold over him at all now,
and she fancied that he only allowed her to stay there because
he was fond of the baby. She brooded over it all, and she
thought to herself angrily that she would make him pay for all
this some day. She could not reconcile herself to the fact that
he no longer cared for her. She would make him. She suffered
from pique, and sometimes in a curious fashion she desired
Philip. He was so cold now that it exasperated her. She thought
of him in that way incessantly. She thought that he was treating
her very badly, and she did not know what she had done to
deserve it. She kept on saying to herself that it was unnatural
they should live like that. Then she thought that if things were
different and she were going to have a baby, he would be sure to
marry her. He was funny, but he was a gentleman in every sense
of the word, no one could deny that. At last it became an
obsession with her, and she made up her mind to force a change
in their relations. He never even kissed her now, and she wanted
him to: she remembered how ardently he had been used to press
her lips. It gave her a curious feeling to think of it. She
often looked at his mouth.

One evening, at the beginning of February, Philip told her that
he was dining with Lawson, who was giving a party in his studio
to celebrate his birthday; and he would not be in till late;
Lawson had bought a couple of bottles of the punch they favoured
from the tavern in Beak Street, and they proposed to have a
merry evening. Mildred asked if there were going to be women
there, but Philip told her there were not; only men had been
invited; and they were just going to sit and talk and smoke:
Mildred did not think it sounded very amusing; if she were a
painter she would have half a dozen models about. She went to
bed, but could not sleep, and presently an idea struck her; she
got up and fixed the catch on the wicket at the landing, so that
Philip could not get in. He came back about one, and she heard
him curse when he found that the wicket was closed. She got out
of bed and opened.

"Why on earth did you shut yourself in? I'm sorry I've dragged
you out of bed."

"I left it open on purpose, I can't think how it came to be
shut."

"Hurry up and get back to bed, or you'll catch cold."

He walked into the sitting-room and turned up the gas. She
followed him in. She went up to the fire.

"I want to warm my feet a bit. They're like ice."

He sat down and began to take off his boots. His eyes were
shining and his cheeks were flushed. She thought he had been
drinking.

"Have you been enjoying yourself?" she asked, with a smile.

"Yes, I've had a ripping time."

Philip was quite sober, but he had been talking and laughing,
and he was excited still. An evening of that sort reminded him
of the old days in Paris. He was in high spirits. He took his
pipe out of his pocket and filled it.

"Aren't you going to bed?" she asked.

"Not yet, I'm not a bit sleepy. Lawson was in great form. He
talked sixteen to the dozen from the moment I got there till the
moment I left."

"What did you talk about?"

"Heaven knows! Of every subject under the sun. You should have
seen us all shouting at the tops of our voices and nobody
listening."

Philip laughed with pleasure at the recollection, and Mildred
laughed too. She was pretty sure he had drunk more than was good
for him. That was exactly what she had expected. She knew men.

"Can I sit down?" she said.

Before he could answer she settled herself on his knees.

"If you're not going to bed you'd better go and put on a
dressing-gown."

"Oh, I'm all right as I am." Then putting her arms round his
neck, she placed her face against his and said: "Why are you so
horrid to me, Phil?"

He tried to get up, but she would not let him.

"I do love you, Philip," she said.

"Don't talk damned rot."

"It isn't, it's true. I can't live without you. I want you."

He released himself from her arms.

"Please get up. You're making a fool of yourself and you're
making me feel a perfect idiot."

"I love you, Philip. I want to make up for all the harm I did
you. I can't go on like this, it's not in human nature."

He slipped out of the chair and left her in it.

"I'm very sorry, but it's too late."

She gave a heart-rending sob.

"But why? How can you be so cruel?"

"I suppose it's because I loved you too much. I wore the passion
out. The thought of anything of that sort horrifies me. I can't
look at you now without thinking of Emil and Griffiths. One
can't help those things, I suppose it's just nerves."

She seized his hand and covered it with kisses.

"Don't," he cried.

She sank back into the chair.

"I can't go on like this. If you won't love me, I'd rather go
away."

"Don't be foolish, you haven't anywhere to go. You can stay here
as long as you like, but it must be on the definite
understanding that we're friends and nothing more."

Then she dropped suddenly the vehemence of passion and gave a
soft, insinuating laugh. She sidled up to Philip and put her
arms round him. She made her voice low and wheedling.

"Don't be such an old silly. I believe you're nervous. You don't
know how nice I can be."

She put her face against his and rubbed his cheek with hers. To
Philip her smile was an abominable leer, and the suggestive
glitter of her eyes filled him with horror. He drew back
instinctively.

"I won't," he said.

But she would not let him go. She sought his mouth with her
lips. He took her hands and tore them roughly apart and pushed
her away.

"You disgust me," he said.

"Me?"

She steadied herself with one hand on the chimney-piece. She
looked at him for an instant, and two red spots suddenly
appeared on her cheeks. She gave a shrill, angry laugh.

"I disgust _you_."

She paused and drew in her breath sharply. Then she burst into
a furious torrent of abuse. She shouted at the top of her voice.
She called him every foul name she could think of. She used
language so obscene that Philip was astounded; she was always so
anxious to be refined, so shocked by coarseness, that it had
never occurred to him that she knew the words she used now. She
came up to him and thrust her face in his. It was distorted with
passion, and in her tumultuous speech the spittle dribbled over
her lips.

"I never cared for you, not once, I was making a fool of you
always, you bored me, you bored me stiff, and I hated you, I
would never have let you touch me only for the money, and it
used to make me sick when I had to let you kiss me. We laughed
at you, Griffiths and me, we laughed because you was such a mug.
A mug! A mug!"

Then she burst again into abominable invective. She accused him
of every mean fault; she said he was stingy, she said he was
dull, she said he was vain, selfish; she cast virulent ridicule
on everything upon which he was most sensitive. Aud at last she
turned to go. She kept on, with hysterical violence, shouting at
him an opprobrious, filthy epithet. She seized the handle of the
door and flung it open. Then she turned round and hurled at him
the injury which she knew was the only one that really touched
him. She threw into the word all the malice and all the venom of
which she was capable. She flung it at him as though it were a
blow.

"Cripple!"


CHAPTER XCVII

PHILIP awoke with a start next morning, conscious that it was
late, and looking at his watch found it was nine o'clock. He
jumped out of bed and went into the kitchen to get himself some
hot water to shave with. There was no sign of Mildred, and the
things which she had used for her supper the night before still
lay in the sink unwashed. He knocked at her door.

"Wake up, Mildred. It's awfully late."

She did not answer, even after a second louder knocking, and he
concluded that she was sulking. He was in too great a hurry to
bother about that. He put some water on to boil and jumped into
his bath which was always poured out the night before in order
to take the chill off. He presumed that Mildred would cook his
breakfast while he was dressing and leave it in the
sitting-room. She had done that two or three times when she was
out of temper. But he heard no sound of her moving, and realised
that if he wanted anything to eat he would have to get it
himself. He was irritated that she should play him such a trick
on a morning when he had over-slept himself. There was still no
sign of her when he was ready, but he heard her moving about her
room. She was evidently getting up. He made himself some tea and
cut himself a couple of pieces of bread and butter, which he ate
while he was putting on his boots, then bolted downstairs and
along the street into the main road to catch his tram. While his
eyes sought out the newspaper shops to see the war news on the
placards, he thought of the scene of the night before: now that
it was over and he had slept on it, he could not help thinking
it grotesque; he supposed he had been ridiculous, but he was not
master of his feelings; at the time they had been overwhelming.
He was angry with Mildred because she had forced him into that
absurd position, and then with renewed astonishment he thought
of her outburst and the filthy language she had used. He could
not help flushing when he remembered her final jibe; but he
shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. He had long known that
when his fellows were angry with him they never failed to taunt
him with his deformity. He had seen men at the hospital imitate
his walk, not before him as they used at school, but when they
thought he was not looking. He knew now that they did it from no
wilful unkindness, but because man is naturally an imitative
animal, and because it was an easy way to make people laugh: he
knew it, but he could never resign himself to it.

He was glad to throw himself into his work. The ward seemed
pleasant and friendly when he entered it. The sister greeted him
with a quick, business-like smile.

"You're very late, Mr. Carey."

"I was out on the loose last night."

"You look it."

"Thank you."

Laughing, he went to the first of his cases, a boy with
tuberculous ulcers, and removed his bandages. The boy was
pleased to see him, and Philip chaffed him as he put a clean
dressing on the wound. Philip was a favourite with the patients;
he treated them good-humouredly; and he had gentle, sensitive
hands which did not hurt them: some of the dressers were a
little rough and happy-go-lucky in their methods. He lunched
with his friends in the club-room, a frugal meal consisting of
a scone and butter, with a cup of cocoa, and they talked of the
war. Several men were going out, but the authorities were
particular and refused everyone who had not had a hospital
appointment. Someone suggested that, if the war went on, in a
while they would be glad to take anyone who was qualified; but
the general opinion was that it would be over in a month. Now
that Roberts was there things would get all right in no time.
This was Macalister's opinion too, and he had told Philip that
they must watch their chance and buy just before peace was
declared. There would be a boom then, and they might all make a
bit of money. Philip had left with Macalister instructions to
buy him stock whenever the opportunity presented itself. His
appetite had been whetted by the thirty pounds he had made in
the summer, and he wanted now to make a couple of hundred.

He finished his day's work and got on a tram to go back to
Kennington. He wondered how Mildred would behave that evening.
It was a nuisance to think that she would probably be surly and
refuse to answer his questions. It was a warm evening for the
time of year, and even in those gray streets of South London
there was the languor of February; nature is restless then after
the long winter months, growing things awake from their sleep,
and there is a rustle in the earth, a forerunner of spring, as
it resumes its eternal activities. Philip would have liked to
drive on further, it was distasteful to him to go back to his
rooms, and he wanted the air; but the desire to see the child
clutched suddenly at his heartstrings, and he smiled to himself
as he thought of her toddling towards him with a crow of
delight. He was surprised, when he reached the house and looked
up mechanically at the windows, to see that there was no light.
He went upstairs and knocked, but got no answer. When Mildred
went out she left the key under the mat and he found it there
now. He let himself in and going into the sitting-room struck a
match. Something had happened, he did not at once know what; he
turned the gas on full and lit it; the room was suddenly filled
with the glare and he looked round. He gasped. The whole place
was wrecked. Everything in it had been wilfully destroyed. Anger
seized him, and he rushed into Mildred's room. It was dark and
empty. When he had got a light he saw that she had taken away
all her things and the baby's (he had noticed on entering that
the go-cart was not in its usual place on the landing, but
thought Mildred had taken the baby out;) and all the things on
the washing-stand had been broken, a knife had been drawn
cross-ways through the seats of the two chairs, the pillow had
been slit open, there were large gashes in the sheets and the
counterpane, the looking-glass appeared to have been broken with
a hammer. Philip was bewildered. He went into his own room, and
here too everything was in confusion. The basin and the ewer had
been smashed, the looking-glass was in fragments, and the sheets
were in ribands. Mildred had made a slit large enough to put her
hand into the pillow and had scattered the feathers about the
room. She had jabbed a knife into the blankets. On the
dressing-table were photographs of Philip's mother, the frames
had been smashed and the glass shivered. Philip went into the
tiny kitchen. Everything that was breakable was broken, glasses,
pudding-basins, plates, dishes.

It took Philip's breath away. Mildred had left no letter,
nothing but this ruin to mark her anger, and he could imagine
the set face with which she had gone about her work. He went
back into the sitting-room and looked about him. He was so
astonished that he no longer felt angry. He looked curiously at
the kitchen-knife and the coal-hammer, which were lying on the
table where she had left them. Then his eye caught a large
carving-knife in the fireplace which had been broken. It must
have taken her a long time to do so much damage. Lawson's
portrait of him had been cut cross-ways and gaped hideously. His
own drawings had been ripped in pieces; and the photographs,
Manet's _Olympia_ and the _Odalisque_ of Ingres, the
portrait of Philip IV, had been smashed with great blows of the
coal-hammer. There were gashes in the table-cloth and in the
curtains and in the two arm-chairs. They were quite ruined. On
one wall over the table which Philip used as his desk was the
little bit of Persian rug which Cronshaw had given him. Mildred
had always hated it.

"If it's a rug it ought to go on the floor," she said, "and it's
a dirty stinking bit of stuff, that's all it is."

It made her furious because Philip told her it contained the
answer to a great riddle. She thought he was making fun of her.
She had drawn the knife right through it three times, it must
have required some strength, and it hung now in tatters. Philip
had two or three blue and white plates, of no value, but he had
bought them one by one for very small sums and liked them for
their associations. They littered the floor in fragments. There
were long gashes on the backs of his books, and she had taken
the trouble to tear pages out of the unbound French ones. The
little ornaments on the chimney-piece lay on the hearth in bits.
Everything that it had been possible to destroy with a knife or
a hammer was destroyed.

The whole of Philip's belongings would not have sold for thirty
pounds, but most of them were old friends, and he was a domestic
creature, attached to all those odds and ends because they were
his; he had been proud of his little home, and on so little
money had made it pretty and characteristic. He sank down now in
despair. He asked himself how she could have been so cruel. A
sudden fear got him on his feet again and into the passage,
where stood a cupboard in which he kept his clothes. He opened
it and gave a sigh of relief. She had apparently forgotten it
and none of his things was touched.

He went back into the sitting-room and, surveying the scene,
wondered what to do; he had not the heart to begin trying to set
things straight; besides there was no food in the house, and he
was hungry. He went out and got himself something to eat. When
he came in he was cooler. A little pang seized him as he thought
of the child, and he wondered whether she would miss him, at
first perhaps, but in a week she would have forgotten him; and
he was thankful to be rid of Mildred. He did not think of her
with wrath, but with an overwhelming sense of boredom.

"I hope to God I never see her again," he said aloud.

The only thing now was to leave the rooms, and he made up his
mind to give notice the next morning. He could not afford to
make good the damage done, and he had so little money left that
he must find cheaper lodgings still. He would be glad to get out
of them. The expense had worried him, and now the recollection
of Mildred would be in them always. Philip was impatient and
could never rest till he had put in action the plan which he had
in mind; so on the following afternoon he got in a dealer in
second-hand furniture who offered him three pounds for all his
goods damaged and undamaged; and two days later he moved into
the house opposite the hospital in which he had had rooms when
first he became a medical student. The landlady was a very
decent woman. He took a bed-room at the top, which she let him
have for six shillings a week; it was small and shabby and
looked on the yard of the house that backed on to it, but he had
nothing now except his clothes and a box of books, and he was
glad to lodge so cheaply.


CHAPTER XCVIII

AND now it happened that the fortunes of Philip Carey, of no
consequence to any but himself, were affected by the events
through which his country was passing. History was being made,
and the process was so significant that it seemed absurd it
should touch the life of an obscure medical student. Battle
after battle, Magersfontein, Colenso, Spion Kop, lost on the
playing fields of Eton, had humiliated the nation and dealt the
death-blow to the prestige of the aristocracy and gentry who
till then had found no one seriously to oppose their assertion
that they possessed a natural instinct of government. The old
order was being swept away: history was being made indeed. Then
the colossus put forth his strength, and, blundering again, at
last blundered into the semblance of victory. Cronje surrendered
at Paardeberg, Ladysmith was relieved, and at the beginning of
March Lord Roberts marched into Bloemfontein.

It was two or three days after the news of this reached London
that Macalister came into the tavern in Beak Street and
announced joyfully that things were looking brighter on the
Stock Exchange. Peace was in sight, Roberts would march into
Pretoria within a few weeks, and shares were going up already.
There was bound to be a boom.

"Now's the time to come in," he told Philip. "It's no good
waiting till the public gets on to it. It's now or never."

He had inside information. The manager of a mine in South Africa
had cabled to the senior partner of his firm that the plant was
uninjured. They would start working again as soon as possible.
It wasn't a speculation, it was an investment. To show how good
a thing the senior partner thought it Macalister told Philip
that he had bought five hundred shares for both his sisters: he
never put them into anything that wasn't as safe as the Bank of
England.

"I'm going to put my shirt on it myself," he said.

The shares were two and an eighth to a quarter. He advised
Philip not to be greedy, but to be satisfied with a ten-shilling
rise. He was buying three hundred for himself and suggested that
Philip should do the same. He would hold them and sell when he
thought fit. Philip had great faith in him, partly because he
was a Scotsman and therefore by nature cautious, and partly
because he had been right before. He jumped at the suggestion.

"I daresay we shall be able to sell before the account," said
Macalister, "but if not, I'll arrange to carry them over for
you."

It seemed a capital system to Philip. You held on till you got
your profit, and you never even had to put your hand in your
pocket. He began to watch the Stock Exchange columns of the
paper with new interest. Next day everything was up a little,
and Macalister wrote to say that he had had to pay two and a
quarter for the shares. He said that the market was firm. But in
a day or two there was a set-back. The news that came from South
Africa was less reassuring, and Philip with anxiety saw that his
shares had fallen to two; but Macalister was optimistic, the
Boers couldn't hold out much longer, and he was willing to bet
a top-hat that Roberts would march into Johannesburg before the
middle of April. At the account Philip had to pay out nearly
forty pounds. It worried him considerably, but he felt that the
only course was to hold on: in his circumstances the loss was
too great for him to pocket. For two or three weeks nothing
happened; the Boers would not understand that they were beaten
and nothing remained for them but to surrender: in fact they had
one or two small successes, and Philip's shares fell half a
crown more. It became evident that the war was not finished.
There was a lot of selling. When Macalister saw Philip he was
pessimistic.

"I'm not sure if the best thing wouldn't be to cut the loss.
I've been paying out about as much as I want to in differences."

Philip was sick with anxiety. He could not sleep at night; he
bolted his breakfast, reduced now to tea and bread and butter,
in order to get over to the club reading-room and see the paper;
sometimes the news was bad, and sometimes there was no news at
all, but when the shares moved it was to go down. He did not
know what to do. If he sold now he would lose altogether hard on
three hundred and fifty pounds; and that would leave him only
eighty pounds to go on with. He wished with all his heart that
he had never been such a fool as to dabble on the Stock
Exchange, but the only thing was to hold on; something decisive
might happen any day and the shares would go up; he did not hope
now for a profit, but he wanted to make good his loss. It was
his only chance of finishing his course at the hospital. The
Summer session was beginning in May, and at the end of it he
meant to take the examination in midwifery. Then he would only
have a year more; he reckoned it out carefully and came to the
conclusion that he could manage it, fees and all, on a hundred
and fifty pounds; but that was the least it could possibly be
done on.

Early in April he went to the tavern in Beak Street anxious to
see Macalister. It eased him a little to discuss the situation
with him; and to realise that numerous people beside himself
were suffering from loss of money made his own trouble a little
less intolerable. But when Philip arrived no one was there but
Hayward, and no sooner had Philip seated himself than he said:

"I'm sailing for the Cape on Sunday."

"Are you!" exclaimed Philip.

Hayward was the last person he would have expected to do
anything of the kind. At the hospital men were going out now in
numbers; the Government was glad to get anyone who was
qualified; and others, going out as troopers, wrote home that
they had been put on hospital work as soon as it was learned
that they were medical students. A wave of patriotic feeling had
swept over the country, and volunteers were coming from all
ranks of society.

"What are you going as?" asked Philip.

"Oh, in the Dorset Yeomanry. I'm going as a trooper."

Philip had known Hayward for eight years. The youthful intimacy
which had come from Philip's enthusiastic admiration for the man
who could tell him of art and literature had long since
vanished; but habit had taken its place; and when Hayward was in
London they saw one another once or twice a week. He still
talked about books with a delicate appreciation. Philip was not
yet tolerant, and sometimes Hayward's conversation irritated
him. He no longer believed implicitly that nothing in the world
was of consequence but art. He resented Hayward's contempt for
action and success. Philip, stirring his punch, thought of his
early friendship and his ardent expectation that Hayward would
do great things; it was long since he had lost all such
illusions, and he knew now that Hayward would never do anything
but talk. He found his three hundred a year more difficult to
live on now that he was thirty-five than he had when he was a
young man; and his clothes, though still made by a good tailor,
were worn a good deal longer than at one time he would have
thought possible. He was too stout and no artful arrangement of
his fair hair could conceal the fact that he was bald. His blue
eyes were dull and pale. It was not hard to guess that he drank
too much.

"What on earth made you think of going out to the Cape?" asked
Philip.

"Oh, I don't know, I thought I ought to."

Philip was silent. He felt rather silly. He understood that
Hayward was being driven by an uneasiness in his soul which he
could not account for. Some power within him made it seem
necessary to go and fight for his country. It was strange, since
he considered patriotism no more than a prejudice, and,
flattering himself on his cosmopolitanism, he had looked upon
England as a place of exile. His countrymen in the mass wounded
his susceptibilities. Philip wondered what it was that made
people do things which were so contrary to all their theories of
life. It would have been reasonable for Hayward to stand aside
and watch with a smile while the barbarians slaughtered one
another. It looked as though men were puppets in the hands of an
unknown force, which drove them to do this and that; and
sometimes they used their reason to justify their actions; and
when this was impossible they did the actions in despite of
reason.

"People are very extraordinary," said Philip. "I should never
have expected you to go out as a trooper."

Hayward smiled, slightly embarrassed, and said nothing.

"I was examined yesterday," he remarked at last. "It was worth
while undergoing the _gene_ of it to know that one was
perfectly fit."

Philip noticed that he still used a French word in an affected
way when an English one would have served. But just then
Macalister came in.

"I wanted to see you, Carey," he said. "My people don't feel
inclined to hold those shares any more, the market's in such an
awful state, and they want you to take them up."

Philip's heart sank. He knew that was impossible. It meant that
he must accept the loss. His pride made him answer calmly.

"I don't know that I think that's worth while. You'd better sell
them."

"It's all very fine to say that, I'm not sure if I can. The
market's stagnant, there are no buyers."

"But they're marked down at one and an eighth."

"Oh yes, but that doesn't mean anything. You can't get that for
them."

Philip did not say anything for a moment. He was trying to
collect himself.

"D'you mean to say they're worth nothing at all?"

"Oh, I don't say that. Of course they're worth something, but
you see, nobody's buying them now."

"Then you must just sell them for what you can get."

Macalister looked at Philip narrowly. He wondered whether he was
very hard hit.

"I'm awfully sorry, old man, but we're all in the same boat. No
one thought the war was going to hang on this way. I put you
into them, but I was in myself too."

"It doesn't matter at all," said Philip. "One has to take one's
chance."

He moved back to the table from which he had got up to talk to
Macalister. He was dumfounded; his head suddenly began to ache
furiously; but he did not want them to think him unmanly. He sat
on for an hour. He laughed feverishly at everything they said.
At last he got up to go.

"You take it pretty coolly," said Macalister, shaking hands with
him. "I don't suppose anyone likes losing between three and four
hundred pounds."

When Philip got back to his shabby little room he flung himself
on his bed, and gave himself over to his despair. He kept on
regretting his folly bitterly; and though he told himself that
it was absurd to regret for what had happened was inevitable
just because it had happened, he could not help himself. He was
utterly miserable. He could not sleep. He remembered all the
ways he had wasted money during the last few years. His head
ached dreadfully.

The following evening there came by the last post the statement
of his account. He examined his pass-book. He found that when he
had paid everything he would have seven pounds left. Seven
pounds! He was thankful he had been able to pay. It would have
been horrible to be obliged to confess to Macalister that he had
not the money. He was dressing in the eye-department during the
summer session, and he had bought an ophthalmoscope off a
student who had one to sell. He had not paid for this, but he
lacked the courage to tell the student that he wanted to go back
on his bargain. Also he had to buy certain books. He had about
five pounds to go on with. It lasted him six weeks; then he
wrote to his uncle a letter which he thought very business-like;
he said that owing to the war he had had grave losses and could
not go on with his studies unless his uncle came to his help. He
suggested that the Vicar should lend him a hundred and fifty
pounds paid over the next eighteen months in monthly
instalments; he would pay interest on this and promised to
refund the capital by degrees when he began to earn money. He
would be qualified in a year and a half at the latest, and he
could be pretty sure then of getting an assistantship at three
pounds a week. His uncle wrote back that he could do nothing. It
was not fair to ask him to sell out when everything was at its
worst, and the little he had he felt that his duty to himself
made it necessary for him to keep in case of illness. He ended
the letter with a little homily. He had warned Philip time after
time, and Philip had never paid any attention to him; he could
not honestly say he was surprised; he had long expected that
this would be the end of Philip's extravagance and want of
balance. Philip grew hot and cold when he read this. It had
never occurred to him that his uncle would refuse, and he burst
into furious anger; but this was succeeded by utter blankness:
if his uncle would not help him he could not go on at the
hospital. Panic seized him and, putting aside his pride, he
wrote again to the Vicar of Blackstable, placing the case before
him more urgently; but perhaps he did not explain himself
properly and his uncle did not realise in what desperate straits
he was, for he answered that he could not change his mind;
Philip was twenty-five and really ought to be earning his
living. When he died Philip would come into a little, but till
then he refused to give him a penny. Philip felt in the letter
the satisfaction of a man who for many years had disapproved of
his courses and now saw himself justified.


CHAPTER XCIX

PHILIP began to pawn his clothes. He reduced his expenses by
eating only one meal a day beside his breakfast; and he ate it,
bread and butter and cocoa, at four so that it should last him
till next morning. He was so hungry by nine o'clock that he had
to go to bed. He thought of borrowing money from Lawson, but the
fear of a refusal held him back; at last he asked him for five
pounds. Lawson lent it with pleasure, but, as he did so, said:

"You'll let me have it back in a week or so, won't you? I've got
to pay my framer, and I'm awfully broke just now."

Philip knew he would not be able to return it, and the thought
of what Lawson would think made him so ashamed that in a couple
of days he took the money back untouched. Lawson was just going
out to luncheon and asked Philip to come too. Philip could
hardly eat, he was so glad to get some solid food. On Sunday he
was sure of a good dinner from Athelny. He hesitated to tell the
Athelnys what had happened to him: they had always looked upon
him as comparatively well-to-do, and he had a dread that they
would think less well of him if they knew he was penniless.

Though he had always been poor, the possibility of not having
enough to eat had never occurred to him; it was not the sort of
thing that happened to the people among whom he lived; and he
was as ashamed as if he had some disgraceful disease. The
situation in which he found himself was quite outside the range
of his experience. He was so taken aback that he did not know
what else to do than to go on at the hospital; he had a vague
hope that something would turn up; he could not quite believe
that what was happening to him was true; and he remembered how
during his first term at school he had often thought his life
was a dream from which he would awake to find himself once more
at home. But very soon he foresaw that in a week or so he would
have no money at all. He must set about trying to earn something
at once. If he had been qualified, even with a club-foot, he
could have gone out to the Cape, since the demand for medical
men was now great. Except for his deformity he might have
enlisted in one of the yeomanry regiments which were constantly
being sent out. He went to the secretary of the Medical School
and asked if he could give him the coaching of some backward
student; but the secretary held out no hope of getting him
anything of the sort. Philip read the advertisement columns of
the medical papers, and he applied for the post of unqualified
assistant to a man who had a dispensary in the Fulham Road. When
he went to see him, he saw the doctor glance at his club-foot;
and on hearing that Philip was only in his fourth year at the
hospital he said at once that his experience was insufficient:
Philip understood that this was only an excuse; the man would
not have an assistant who might not be as active as he wanted.
Philip turned his attention to other means of earning money. He
knew French and German and thought there might be some chance of
finding a job as correspondence clerk; it made his heart sink,
but he set his teeth; there was nothing else to do. Though too
shy to answer the advertisements which demanded a personal
application, he replied to those which asked for letters; but he
had no experience to state and no recommendations: he was
conscious that neither his German nor his French was commercial;
he was ignorant of the terms used in business; he knew neither
shorthand nor typewriting. He could not help recognising that
his case was hopeless. He thought of writing to the solicitor
who had been his father's executor, but he could not bring
himself to, for it was contrary to his express advice that he
had sold the mortgages in which his money had been invested. He
knew from his uncle that Mr. Nixon thoroughly disapproved of
him. He had gathered from Philip's year in the accountant's
office that he was idle and incompetent.

"I'd sooner starve," Philip muttered to himself.

Once or twice the possibility of suicide presented itself to
him; it would be easy to get something from the hospital
dispensary, and it was a comfort to think that if the worst came
to the worst he had at hand means of making a painless end of
himself; but it was not a course that he considered seriously.
When Mildred had left him to go with Griffiths his anguish had
been so great that he wanted to die in order to get rid of the
pain. He did not feel like that now. He remembered that the
Casualty Sister had told him how people oftener did away with
themselves for want of money than for want of love; and he
chuckled when he thought that he was an exception. He wished
only that he could talk his worries over with somebody, but he
could not bring himself to confess them. He was ashamed. He went
on looking for work. He left his rent unpaid for three weeks,
explaining to his landlady that he would get money at the end of
the month; she did not say anything, but pursed her lips and
looked grim. When the end of the month came and she asked if it
would be convenient for him to pay something on account, it made
him feel very sick to say that he could not; he told her he
would write to his uncle and was sure to be able to settle his
bill on the following Saturday.

"Well, I 'ope you will, Mr. Carey, because I 'ave my rent to
pay, and I can't afford to let accounts run on." She did not
speak with anger, but with determination that was rather
frightening. She paused for a moment and then said: "If you
don't pay next Saturday, I shall 'ave to complain to the
secretary of the 'ospital."

"Oh yes, that'll be all right."

She looked at him for a little and glanced round the bare room.
When she spoke it was without any emphasis, as though it were
quite a natural thing to say.

"I've got a nice 'ot joint downstairs, and if you like to come
down to the kitchen you're welcome to a bit of dinner."

Philip felt himself redden to the soles of his feet, and a sob
caught at his throat.

"Thank you very much, Mrs. Higgins, but I'm not at all hungry."

"Very good, sir."

When she left the room Philip threw himself on his bed. He had
to clench his fists in order to prevent himself from crying.


CHAPTER C

SATURDAY. It was the day on which he had promised to pay his
landlady. He had been expecting something to turn up all through
the week. He had found no work. He had never been driven to
extremities before, and he was so dazed that he did not know
what to do. He had at the back of his mind a feeling that the
whole thing was a preposterous joke. He had no more than a few
coppers left, he had sold all the clothes he could do without;
he had some books and one or two odds and ends upon which he
might have got a shilling or two, but the landlady was keeping
an eye on his comings and goings: he was afraid she would stop
him if he took anything more from his room. The only thing was
to tell her that he could not pay his bill. He had not the
courage. It was the middle of June. The night was fine and warm.
He made up his mind to stay out. He walked slowly along the
Chelsea Embankment, because the river was restful and quiet,
till he was tired, and then sat on a bench and dozed. He did not
know how long he slept; he awoke with a start, dreaming that he
was being shaken by a policeman and told to move on; but when he
opened his eyes he found himself alone. He walked on, he did not
know why, and at last came to Chiswick, where he slept again.
Presently the hardness of the bench roused him. The night seemed
very long. He shivered. He was seized with a sense of his
misery; and he did not know what on earth to do: he was ashamed
at having slept on the Embankment; it seemed peculiarly
humiliating, and he felt his cheeks flush in the darkness. He
remembered stories he had heard of those who did and how among
them were officers, clergymen, and men who had been to
universities: he wondered if he would become one of them,
standing in a line to get soup from a charitable institution. It
would be much better to commit suicide. He could not go on like
that: Lawson would help him when he knew what straits he was in;
it was absurd to let his pride prevent him from asking for
assistance. He wondered why he had come such a cropper. He had
always tried to do what he thought best, and everything had gone
wrong. He had helped people when he could, he did not think he
had been more selfish than anyone else, it seemed horribly
unjust that he should be reduced to such a pass.

But it was no good thinking about it. He walked on. It was now
light: the river was beautiful in the silence, and there was
something mysterious in the early day; it was going to be very
fine, and the sky, pale in the dawn, was cloudless. He felt very
tired, and hunger was gnawing at his entrails, but he could not
sit still; he was constantly afraid of being spoken to by a
policeman. He dreaded the mortification of that. He felt dirty
and wished he could have a wash. At last he found himself at
Hampton Court. He felt that if he did not have something to eat
he would cry. He chose a cheap eating-house and went in; there
was a smell of hot things, and it made him feel slightly sick:
he meant to eat something nourishing enough to keep up for the
rest of the day, but his stomach revolted at the sight of food.
He had a cup of tea and some bread and butter. He remembered
then that it was Sunday and he could go to the Athelnys; he
thought of the roast beef and the Yorkshire pudding they would
eat; but he was fearfully tired and could not face the happy,
noisy family. He was feeling morose and wretched. He wanted to
be left alone. He made up his mind that he would go into the
gardens of the palace and lie down. His bones ached. Perhaps he
would find a pump so that he could wash his hands and face and
drink something; he was very thirsty; and now that he was no
longer hungry he thought with pleasure of the flowers and the
lawns and the great leafy trees. He felt that there he could
think out better what he must do. He lay on the grass, in the
shade, and lit his pipe. For economy's sake he had for a long
time confined himself to two pipes a day; he was thankful now
that his pouch was full. He did not know what people did when
they had no money. Presently he fell asleep. When he awoke it
was nearly mid-day, and he thought that soon he must be setting
out for London so as to be there in the early morning and answer
any advertisements which seemed to promise. He thought of his
uncle, who had told him that he would leave him at his death the
little he had; Philip did not in the least know how much this
was: it could not be more than a few hundred pounds. He wondered
whether he could raise money on the reversion. Not without the
old man's consent, and that he would never give.

"The only thing I can do is to hang on somehow till he dies."

Philip reckoned his age. The Vicar of Blackstable was well over
seventy. He had chronic bronchitis, but many old men had that
and lived on indefinitely. Meanwhile something must turn up;
Philip could not get away from the feeling that his position was
altogether abnormal; people in his particular station did not
starve. It was because he could not bring himself to believe in
the reality of his experience that he did not give way to utter
despair. He made up his mind to borrow half a sovereign from
Lawson. He stayed in the garden all day and smoked when he felt
very hungry; he did not mean to eat anything until he was
setting out again for London: it was a long way and he must keep
up his strength for that. He started when the day began to grow
cooler, and slept on benches when he was tired. No one disturbed
him. He had a wash and brush up, and a shave at Victoria, some
tea and bread and butter, and while he was eating this read the
advertisement columns of the morning paper. As he looked down
them his eye fell upon an announcement asking for a salesman in
the `furnishing drapery' department of some well-known stores.
He had a curious little sinking of the heart, for with his
middle-class prejudices it seemed dreadful to go into a shop;
but he shrugged his shoulders, after all what did it matter? and
he made up his mind to have a shot at it. He had a queer feeling
that by accepting every humiliation, by going out to meet it
even, he was forcing the hand of fate. When he presented
himself, feeling horribly shy, in the department at nine o'clock
he found that many others were there before him. They were of
all ages, from boys of sixteen to men of forty; some were
talking to one another in undertones, but most were silent; and
when he took up his place those around him gave him a look of
hostility. He heard one man say:

"The only thing I look forward to is getting my refusal soon
enough to give me time to look elsewhere."

The man, standing next him, glanced at Philip and asked:

"Had any experience?"

"No," said Philip.

He paused a moment and then made a remark: "Even the smaller
houses won't see you without appointment after lunch."

Philip looked at the assistants. Some were draping chintzes and
cretonnes, and others, his neighbour told him were preparing
country orders that had come in by post. At about a quarter past
nine the buyer arrived. He heard one of the men who were waiting
say to another that it was Mr. Gibbons. He was middle-aged,
short and corpulent, with a black beard and dark, greasy hair.
He had brisk movements and a clever face. He wore a silk hat and
a frock coat, the lapel of which was adorned with a white
geranium surrounded by leaves. He went into his office, leaving
the door open; it was very small and contained only an American
roll-desk in the corner, a bookcase, and a cupboard. The men
standing outside watched him mechanically take the geranium out
of his coat and put it in an ink-pot filled with water. It was
against the rules to wear flowers in business.

[During the day the department men who wanted to keep in with
the governor admired the flower.

"I've never seen better," they said, "you didn't grow it
yourself?"

"Yes I did," he smiled, and a gleam of pride filled his
intelligent eyes.]

He took off his hat and changed his coat, glanced at the letters
and then at the men who were waiting to see him. He made a
slight sign with one finger, and the first in the queue stepped
into the office. They filed past him one by one and answered his
questions. He put them very briefly, keeping his eyes fixed on
the applicant's face.

"Age? Experience? Why did you leave your job?"

He listened to the replies without expression. When it came to
Philip's turn he fancied that Mr. Gibbons stared at him
curiously. Philip's clothes were neat and tolerably cut. He
looked a little different from the others.

"Experience?"

"I'm afraid I haven't any," said Philip.

"No good."

Philip walked out of the office. The ordeal had been so much
less painful than he expected that he felt no particular
disappointment. He could hardly hope to succeed in getting a
place the first time he tried. He had kept the newspaper and now
looked at the advertisements again: a shop in Holborn needed a
salesman too, and he went there; but when he arrived he found
that someone had already been engaged. If he wanted to get
anything to eat that day he must go to Lawson's studio before he
went out to luncheon, so he made his way along the Brompton Road
to Yeoman's Row.

"I say, I'm rather broke till the end of the month," he said as
soon as he found an opportunity. "I wish you'd lend me half a
sovereign, will you?"

It was incredible the difficulty he found in asking for money;
and he remembered the casual way, as though almost they were
conferring a favour, men at the hospital had extracted small
sums out of him which they had no intention of repaying.

"Like a shot," said Lawson.

But when he put his hand in his pocket he found that he had only
eight shillings. Philip's heart sank.

"Oh well, lend me five bob, will you?" he said lightly.

"Here you are."

Philip went to the public baths in Westminster and spent
sixpence on a bath. Then he got himself something to eat. He did
not know what to do with himself in the afternoon. He would not
go back to the hospital in case anyone should ask him questions,
and besides, he had nothing to do there now; they would wonder
in the two or three departments he had worked in why he did not
come, but they must think what they chose, it did not matter: he
would not be the first student who had dropped out without
warning. He went to the free library, and looked at the papers
till they wearied him, then he took out Stevenson's _New
Arabian Nights_; but he found he could not read: the words meant
nothing to him, and he continued to brood over his helplessness.
He kept on thinking the same things all the time, and the fixity
of his thoughts made his head ache. At last, craving for fresh
air, he went into the Green Park and lay down on the grass. He
thought miserably of his deformity, which made it impossible for
him to go to the war. He went to sleep and dreamt that he was
suddenly sound of foot and out at the Cape in a regiment of
Yeomanry; the pictures he had looked at in the illustrated
papers gave materials for his fancy; and he saw himself on the
Veldt, in khaki, sitting with other men round a fire at night.
When he awoke he found that it was still quite light, and
presently he heard Big Ben strike seven. He had twelve hours to
get through with nothing to do. He dreaded the interminable
night. The sky was overcast and he feared it would rain; he
would have to go to a lodging-house where he could get a bed; he
had seen them advertised on lamps outside houses in Lambeth:
Good Beds sixpence; he had never been inside one, and dreaded
the foul smell and the vermin. He made up his mind to stay in
the open air if he possibly could. He remained in the park till
it was closed and then began to walk about. He was very tired.
The thought came to him that an accident would be a piece of
luck, so that he could be taken to a hospital and lie there, in
a clean bed, for weeks. At midnight he was so hungry that he
could not go without food any more, so he went to a coffee stall
at Hyde Park Corner and ate a couple of potatoes and had a cup
of coffee. Then he walked again. He felt too restless to sleep,
and he had a horrible dread of being moved on by the police. He
noted that he was beginning to look upon the constable from
quite a new angle. This was the third night he had spent out.
Now and then he sat on the benches in Piccadilly and towards
morning he strolled down to The Embankment. He listened to the
striking of Big Ben, marking every quarter of an hour, and
reckoned out how long it left till the city woke again. In the
morning he spent a few coppers on making himself neat and clean,
bought a paper to read the advertisements, and set out once more
on the search for work.

He went on in this way for several days. He had very little food
and began to feel weak and ill, so that he had hardly enough
energy to go on looking for the work which seemed so desperately
hard to find. He was growing used now to the long waiting at the
back of a shop on the chance that he would be taken on, and the
curt dismissal. He walked to all parts of London in answer to
the advertisements, and he came to know by sight men who applied
as fruitlessly as himself. One or two tried to make friends with
him, but he was too tired and too wretched to accept their
advances. He did not go any more to Lawson, because he owed him
five shillings. He began to be too dazed to think clearly and
ceased very much to care what would happen to him. He cried a
good deal. At first he was very angry with himself for this and
ashamed, but he found it relieved him, and somehow made him feel
less hungry. In the very early morning he suffered a good deal
from cold. One night he went into his room to change his linen;
he slipped in about three, when he was quite sure everyone would
be asleep, and out again at five; he lay on the bed and its
softness was enchanting; all his bones ached, and as he lay he
revelled in the pleasure of it; it was so delicious that he did
not want to go to sleep. He was growing used to want of food and
did not feel very hungry, but only weak. Constantly now at the
back of his mind was the thought of doing away with himself, but
he used all the strength he had not to dwell on it, because he
was afraid the temptation would get hold of him so that he would
not be able to help himself. He kept on saying to himself that
it would be absurd to commit suicide, since something must
happen soon; he could not get over the impression that his
situation was too preposterous to be taken quite seriously; it
was like an illness which must be endured but from which he was
bound to recover. Every night he swore that nothing would induce
him to put up with such another and determined next morning to
write to his uncle, or to Mr. Nixon, the solicitor, or to
Lawson; but when the time came he could not bring himself to
make the humiliating confession of his utter failure. He did not
know how Lawson would take it. In their friendship Lawson had
been scatter-brained and he had prided himself on his common
sense. He would have to tell the whole history of his folly. He
had an uneasy feeling that Lawson, after helping him, would turn
the cold shoulder on him. His uncle and the solicitor would of
course do something for him, but he dreaded their reproaches. He
did not want anyone to reproach him: he clenched his teeth and
repeated that what had happened was inevitable just because it
had happened. Regret was absurd.

The days were unending, and the five shillings Lawson had lent
him would not last much longer. Philip longed for Sunday to come
so that he could go to Athelny's. He did not know what prevented
him from going there sooner, except perhaps that he wanted so
badly to get through on his own; for Athelny, who had been in
straits as desperate, was the only person who could do anything
for him. Perhaps after dinner he could bring himself to tell
Athelny that he was in difficulties. Philip repeated to himself
over and over again what he should say to him. He was dreadfully
afraid that Athelny would put him off with airy phrases: that
would be so horrible that he wanted to delay as long as possible
the putting of him to the test. Philip had lost all confidence
in his fellows.

Saturday night was cold and raw. Philip suffered horribly. From
midday on Saturday till he dragged himself wearily to Athelny's
house he ate nothing. He spent his last twopence on Sunday
morning on a wash and a brush up in the lavatory at Charing
Cross.