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W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

Since "Or HUMAN BONDAGE" ap-
peared quietly on the London
book stalls eighteen years ago,
Maugham has been established
in the literary consciousness of
England and America. He num-
bers among his works three at
least of the outstanding novels
and as many of the suave, sophis-
ticated dramatic successes of the
past decade. "THE PAINTED
VEIL," "THE MOON AND SIX-
PENCE," "CAKES AND ALE" made
literary history while such plays
as "RAIN,'" "OuR BETTERS,"
"THE LETTER" and "THE CIR-
CLE" are landmarks in the the-
atre.

OF HUMAN

BONDAGE

has become a classic of our time.
When it was first published in
1915, it appeared quietly on the
London book stalls. England was
busy with the war. There were no

i r i • • i

huzzas from the critics, but year
after year the book has found an
ever wider public until it is now
ranked with "TnE WAY OF ALL
FLESH" as one of the two great-
est autobiographical novels of
our day.

The story is that of the first
thirty years of Philip Carey's
life. Through Philip's eyes one
sees an English school, a German
university, a colony of artistic

failures in Paris, a London hos-

. , , ' .„ . ,

pital; and one suiters with the

sensitive boy the bitter realiza-
tion of his physical handicap.
And through Philip's vivid and
very real experience Maugham
leads to the conclusion that life

has a meaning and pattern as
• 11,
rich though as unsymmetncal

as those formed by the colors of

an Oriental rug.
r» t i*f*s s5 ' ' iyyityyxx

£&&?'-
SfeSSzil

OF HUMAN BONDAGE

X

W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

GARDEN CITY NEW YORK

GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING COMPANY, Inc.

PRINTED AT THE Country Lift Press GARDEN CITY, N. v.. u. s. A.

PR

(oO
P\ SI*

. Sf

COPYRIGHT, J9IS

BY DOUBLEDAY, DORAN ft COMPANY, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

OF HUMAN BONDAGE

THE day broke gray and dull. The clouds hung heavily,
and there was a rawness in the air that suggested snow. A
woman servant came into a room in which a child was
sleeping and drew the curtains. She glanced mechanically
at the house opposite, a stucco house with a portico, and
went to the child's bed.

"Wake up, Philip," she said.

She pulled down the bed-clothes, took him in her arms,
and carried him downstairs. He was only half awake.

"Your mother wants you," she said.

She opened the door of a room on the floor below and
took the child over to a bed in which a woman was lying.
It was his mother. She stretched out her arms, and the
child nestled by her side. He did not ask why he had been
awakened. The woman kissed his eyes, and with thin,
small hands felt the warm body through his white flannel
nightgown. She pressed him closer to herself.

"Are you sleepy, darling?" she said.

Her voice was so weak that it seemed to come already
from a great distance. The child did not answer, but smiled
comfortably. He was very happy in the large, warm bed,
with those soft arms about him. He tried to make himself
smaller still as he cuddled up against his mother, and he
kissed her sleepily. In a moment he closed his eyes and was
fast asleep. The doctor came forwards and stood by the
bed-side.

"Oh, don't take him away yet," she moaned.

The doctor, without answering, looked at her gravely.
Knowing she would not be allowed to keep the child much
longer, the woman kissed him again; and she passed her
hand down his body till she came to his feet ; she held the
right foot in her hand and felt the five small toes; and
then slowly passed her hand over the left one. She gave a
sob.

"What's the matter?" said the doctor. "You're tired."

a OFHUMANBONDAGE

She shook her head, unable to speak, and the tears rolled
down her cheeks. The doctor bent down.

"Let me take him."

She was too weak to resist his wish, and she gave the
child up. The doctor handed him back to his nurse.

"You'd better put him back in his own bed."

"Very well, sir."

The little boy, still sleeping, was taken away. His mother
sobbed now broken-heartedly.

'What will happen to him, poor child?"

The monthly nurse tried to quiet her, and presently,
from exhaustion, the crying ceased. The doctor walked to
a table on the other side of the room, upon which, under a
towel, lay the body of a still-born child. He lifted the
towel and looked. He was hidden from the bed by a screen,
but the woman guessed what he was doing.

"Was it a girl or a boy?" she whispered to the nurse.

"Another boy."

The woman did not answer. In a moment the child's
nurse came back. She approached the bed.

"Master Philip never woke up," she said.

There was a pause. Then the doctor felt his patient's
pulse once more.

"I don't think there's anything I can do just now," he
said. "I'll call again after breakfast."

"I'll show you out, sir," said the child's nurse.

They walked downstairs in silence. In the hall the doc-
tor stopped.

"You've sent for Mrs. Carey's brother-in-law, haven't
you?"

"Yes, sir."

"D'you know at what time he'll be here?"

"No, sir, I'm expecting a telegram."

"What about the little boy? I should think he'd be bet-
ter out of the way."

"Miss Watkin said she'd take him, sir."

"Who's she?"

"She's his godmother, sir. D'you think Mrs. Carey will
get over it, sir ?"

The doctor shook his head.

II

IT was a week later. Philip was sitting on the floor in the
drawing-room at Miss Watkin's house in Onslow Gardens.
He was an only child and used to amusing himself. The
room was filled with massive furniture, and on each of the
sofas were three big cushions. There was a cushion too
in each arm-chair. All these he had taken and, with the
help of the gilt rout chairs, light and easy to move, had
made an elaborate cave in which he could hide himself
from the Red Indians who were lurking behind the cur-
tains. He put his ear to the floor and listened to the herd
of buffaloes that raced across the prairie. Presently, hear-
ing the door open, he held his breath so that he might not
be discovered ; but a violent hand pulled away a chair and
the cushions fell down.

"You naughty boy, Miss Watkin will be cross with
you."

"Hulloa, Emma!" he said.

The nurse bent down and kissed him, then began to
shake out the cushions, and put them back .in their places.

"Am I to come home?" he asked.

"Yes, I've come to fetch you."

"You've got a new dress on."

It was in eighteen-eighty-five, and she wore a bustle.
Her gown was of black velvet, with tight sleeves and slop-
ing shoulders, and the skirt had three large flounces. She
wore a black bonnet with velvet strings. She hesitated. The
question she -had expected did not come, and so she could
not give the answer she had prepared.

"Aren't you going to ask how your mamma is ?" she said
at length.

"Oh, I forgot. How is mamma?"

Now she was ready. j

"Your mamma is quite well and happy."

"Oh, I am glad."

4 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

"Your mamma's gone away. You won't ever see her any
more."

Philip did not know what she meant.

"Why not?"

"Your mamma's in heaven."

She bep^n to cry, and Philip, though he did not quite
understand, cried too. Emma was a tall, big-boned woman,
with fair hair and large features. She came from Devon-
shire and, notwithstanding her many years of service in
London, had never lost the breadth of her accent. Her
tears increased her emotion, and she pressed the little boy
to her heart. She felt vaguely the pity of that child de-
prived of the only love in the world that is quite unselfish.
It seemed dreadful that he must be handed over to
strangers. But in a little while she pulled herself together.

"Your Uncle William is waiting in to see you," she said.
"Go and say good-bye to Miss Watkin, and we'll go
home."

"I don't want to say good-bye," he answered, instinc-
tively anxious to hide his tears.

"Very well, run upstairs and get your hat."

He fetched it, and when he came down Emma was wait-
ing for him in the hall. He heard the sound of voices in
the study behind the dining-room. He paused. He knew
that Miss Watkin and her sister were talking to friends,
and it seemed to him — he was nine years old — that if he
went in they would be sorry for him.

"I think I'll go and say good-bye to Miss Watkin."

"I think you'd better," said Emma.

"Go in and tell them I'm coming," he said.

He wished to make the most of his opportunity. Emma
knocked at the doo^ and walked in. He heard her speak.

"Master Philip wants to say good-bye to you, miss."

There was a sudden hush of the conversation, and
Philip limped in. Henrietta Watkin was a stout woman,
with a red face and dyed hair. In those days to dye the
hair excited comment, and Philip had heard much gossip
at home when his godmother's changed colour. She lived
with an elder sister, who had resigned herself contentedly
to old age. Two ladies, whom Philip did not .enow, were

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 5

calling, and they looked at him curiously.

"My poor child," said Miss Watkin, opening her arms.

She began to cry. Philip understood now why she had
not been in to luncheon and why she wore a black dress.
She could not speak.

"I've got to go home," said Philip, at last.

He disengaged himself from Miss Watkin's arms, and
?he kissed him again. Then he went to her sister and bade
her good-bye too. One of the strange ladies asked if she
might kiss him. and he gravely gave her permission.
Though crying, he keenly enjoyed the sensation he was
causing ; he would have been glad to stay a little longer to
be made much of, but felt they expected him to go, so he
said that Emma was waiting for him. He went out of the
room. Emma had gone downstairs to speak with a friend
in the basement, and he waited for her on the landing. He
heard Henrietta Watkin's voice.

"His mother was my greatest friend. I can't bear to
think that she's dead."

"You oughtn't to have gone to the funeral, Henrietta,"
said her sister. "I knew it would upset you."

Then one of the strangers spoke.

"Poor little boy, it's dreadful to think of him quite alone
in the world. I see he limps."

"Yes. he's got a club-foot. It was such a grief to his
mother."

Then Emma came back. They called a hansom, and she
told the driver where to go.

Ill

WHEN they reached the house Mrs. Carey had died in —
it was in a dreary, respectable street between Netting Hill
Gate and High Street, Kensington — Emma led Philip into
the drawing-room. His uncle was writing letters of thanks
for the wreaths which had been sent. One of them, which
had arrived too late for the funeral, lay in its cardboard
box on the hall-table.

"Here's Master Philip," said Emma.

Mr. Carey stood up slowly and shook hands with the
little boy. Then on second thoughts he bent down and
kissed his forehead. He was a man of somewhat less than
average height, inclined to corpulence, with his hair, worn
long, arranged over the scalp so as to conceal his baldness.
He was clean-shaven. His features were regular, and it
was possible to imagine that in his youth he had been
good-looking. On his watch-chain he wore a gold cross.

"You're going to live with me now, Philip," said Mr.
Carey. "Shall you like that?"

Two years before Philip had been sent down to stay at
the vicarage after an attack of chicken-pox ; but there
remained with him a recollection of an attic and a large
garden rather than of his uncle and aunt.

"Yes."

"You must look upon me and your Aunt Louisa as your
father and mother."

The child's mouth trembled a little, he reddened, but
did not answer.

''Your dear mother left you in my charge."

Mr. Carey had no great ease in expressing himself.
When the news came that his sister-in-law was dying, he
set off at once for London, but on the way thought of
nothing but the disturbance in his life that would be
caused if her death forced him to undertake the care of her
son. He was well over fifty, and his wife, to whom he had
been married for thirty years, was childless; he did not

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 3

look forward with any pleasure to the presence of a small
boy who might be noisy and rough. He had never much
liked his sister-in-law.

"I'm going to take you down to Blackstable tomorrow,"
he said.

"With Emma?"

The child put his hand in hers, and she pressed it.

"I'm afraid Emma must go away," said Mr. Carey.

"But I want Emma to come with me."

Philip began to cry, and the nurse could not help crying
too. Mr. Carey looked at them helplessly.

"I think you'd better leave me alone with Master Philip
for a moment."

"Very good, sir."

Though Philip clung to her, she released herself gently.
Mr. Carey took the boy on his knee and put his arm round
him.

"You mustn't cry," he said. "You're too old to have a
nurse now. We must see about sending you to school."

"I want Emma to come with me," the child repeated.

"It costs too much money, Philip. Your father didn't,
leave very much, and I don't know what's become of it.
You must look at every penny you spend."

Mr. Carey had called the day before on the family solici-
tor. Philip's father was a surgeon in good practice, and his
hospital appointments suggested an established position;
so that it was a surprise on his sudden death from blood-
poisoning to find that he had left his widow little more
than his life insurance and what could be got for the lease
of their house in Bruton Street. This was six months ago ;
and Mrs. Carey, already in delicate health, finding herself
with child, had lost her head and accepted for the lease the
first offer that was made. She stored her furniture, and,
at a rent which the parson thought outrageous, took a fur-
nished house for a year, so that she might suffer from no
inconvenience till her child was born. But she had never
been used to the management of money, and was unable to
adapt her expenditure to her altered circumstances. The
little she had slipped through her fingers in one way and
another, so that now, when all expenses were paid, not

8 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

much more than two thousand pounds remained to sup-
port the boy till he was able to earn his own living. It was
impossible to explain all this to Philip and he was sobbing
still.

"You'd better go to Emma," Mr. Carey said, feeling
that she could console the child better than anyone.

Without a word Philip slipped off his uncle's knee, but
Mr. Carey stopped him.

"We must go tomorrow, because on Saturday I've got
to prepare my sermon, and you must tell Emma to get
your things ready today. You can bring all your toys. And
if you want anything to remember your father and mother
by you can take one thing for each of them. Everything
else is going to be sold."

The boy slipped out of the room. Mr. Carey was unused
to work, and he turned to his correspondence with resent-
ment. On one side of the desk was a bundle of bills, and
these filled him with irritation. One especially seemed pre-
posterous. Immediately after Mrs. Carey's death Emma
had ordered from the florist masses of white flowers for
the room in which the dead woman lay. It was sheer waste
of money. Emma took far too much upon herself. Even
if there had been no financial necessity, he would have dis"
missed her.

But Philip went to her, and hid his face in her bosom,
and wept as though his heart would break. And she, feel-
ing that he was almost her own son — she had taken him
when he was a month old — consoled him with soft words.
She promised that she would come and see him sometimes,
and that she would never forget him ; and she told him
about the country he was going to and about her own home
in Devonshire — her father kept a turnpike on the high-
road that led to Exeter, and there were pigs in the sty,
and there was a cow, and the cow had just had a calf —
till Philip forgot his tears and grew excited at the thought
of his approaching journey. Presently she put him down,
for there was much to be done, and he helped her to lay
out his clothes on the bed. She sent him into the nursery to
gather up his toys, and in a little while he was playing
happily.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 9

But at last he grew tired of being alone and went back to
the bed-room, in which Emma was now putting his things
into a big tin box ; he remembered then that his uncle had
said he might take something to remember his father and
mother by. He told Emma and asked her what he should
take.

"You'd better go into the drawing-room and see what
you fancy."

"Uncle William's there."

"Never mind that. They're your own things now."

Philip went downstairs slowly and found the door open.
Mr. Carey had left the room. Philip walked slowly round.
They had been in the house so short a time that there was
little in it that had a particular interest to him. It was a
stranger's room, and Philip saw nothing that struck his
fancy. But he knew which were his mother's things and
which belonged to the landlord, and presently fixed on a
little clock that he had once heard his mother say she
liked. With this he walked again rather disconsolately up-
stairs. Outside the door of his mother's bed-room he
stopped and listened. Though no one had told him not to
go in, he had a feeling that it would be wrong to do so ; he
was a little frightened, and his heart beat uncomfortably ;
but at the same time something impelled him to turn the
handle. He turned it very gently, as if to prevent anyone
within from hearing, and then slowly pushed the door
open. He stood on the threshold for a moment before he
had the courage to enter^He was not frightened now, but
it seemed strange. He closed the door behind him. The
blinds were drawn, and the room, in the cold light of a
January afternoon, was dark. On the dressing-table were
Mrs. Carey's brushes and the hand mirror. In a little tray
were hairpins. There was a photograph of himself on the
chimney-piece and one of his father. He had often been
in the room when his mother was not in it, but now it
seemed different. There was something curious in the look
of the chairs. The bed was made as though someone were
going to sleep in it that night, and in a case on the pillow
was a night-dress.

Philip opened a large cupboard filled with dresses and

io OF HUMAN BONDAGE

stepping in, took as many of them as he could in his arms
and buried his face in them. They smelt of the scent his
mother used. Then he pulled open the drawers, filled with
his mother's things, and looked at them : there were lav-
ender bags among the linen, and their scent was fresh and
pleasant. The strangeness of the room left it, and it seemed
to him that his mother had just gone out for a walk. She
would be in presently and would come upstairs to have
nursery tea with him. And he seemed to feel her kiss on
his lips.

It was not true that he would never see her again. It was
not true simply because it was impossible. He climbed up
on the bed and put his head on the pillow. He lay there
nuite still.

IV

PHILIP parted from Emma with tears, but the journey
to Blackstable amused him, and, when they arrived, he was
resigned and cheerful. Blackstable was sixty miles from
London. Giving their luggage to a porter, Mr. Carey set
out to walk with Philip to the vicarage ; it took them little
more than five minutes, and, when they reached it, Philip
suddenly remembered the gate. It was red and five-barred :
it swung both ways on easy hinges ; and it was possible,
though forbidden, to swing backwards and forwards on
it. They walked through the garden to the front-door.
This was only used by visitors and on Sundays, and on
special occasions, as when the Vicar went up to London
or came back. The traffic of the house took place through
a side-door, and there was a back door as well for the
gardener and for beggars and tramps. It was a fairly large
house of yellow brick, with a red roof, built about five and
twenty years before in an ecclesiastical style. The front-
door was like a church porch, and the drawing-room win-
dows were gothic.

Mrs. Carey, knowing by what train they were coming,
waited in the drawing-room and listened for the click of
the gate. When she heard it she went to the door.

"There's Aunt Louisa," said Mr. Carey, when he saw
her. "Run and give her a kiss."

Philip started to run, awkwardly, trailing his club-foot,
and then stopped. Mrs. Carey was a little, shrivelled
woman of the same age as her husband, with a face ex-
traordinarily filled with deep wrinkles, and pale blue eyes.
Her gray hair was arranged in ringlets according to the
fashion of her youth. She wore a black dress, and her only
ornament was a gold chain, from which hung a cross. She
had a shy manner and a gentle voice.

"Did you walk, William?" she said, almost reproach-
fully, as she kissed her husband.

ii

12 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

"I didn't think of it," he answered, with a glance at his
nephew.

"It didn't hurt you to walk, Philip, did it ?" she asked the
child.

"No. I always walk."

He was a little surprised at their conversation. Aunt
Louisa told him to come in, and they entered the hall. It
was paved with red and yellow tiles, on which alternately
were a Greek Cross and the Lamb of God. An imposing
staircase led out of the hall. It was of polished pine, with
a peculiar smell, and had been put in because fortunately,
Khen the church was reseated, enough wood remained
over. The balusters were decorated with emblems of the
Four Evangelists.

"I've had the stove lighted as I thought you'd be cold
after your journey," said Mrs. Carey.

It was a large black stove that stood in the hall and was
only lighted if the weather was very bad and the Vicar had
a cold. It was not lighted if Mrs. Carey had a cold. Coal
was expensive. Besides, Mary Ann, the maid, didn't like
fires all over the place. If they wanted all them fires they
must keep a second girl. In the winter Mr. and Mrs. Carey
lived in the dining-room so that one fire should do, and in
the summer they could not get out of the habit, so the
drawing-room was used only by Mr. Carey on Sunday
afternoons for his nap. But every Saturday he had a fire
in the study so that he could write his sermon.

Aunt Louisa took Philip upstairs and showed him into a

tiny bed-room that looked out on the drive. Immediately

in front of the window was a large tree, which Philip

, remembered now because the branches were so low that it

was possible to climb quite high up it.

"A small room for a small boy," said Mrs. Carey. "You
won't be frightened at sleeping alone?"

"Oh, no."

On his first visit to the vicarage he had come with his
nurse, and Mrs. Carey had had little to do with him. She
looked at him now with some uncertainty.

"Can you wash vour own hands, or shall I wash them
ior you?"

O F H U M A N B O N D A G E 13

"I can wash myself,' he answered firmly.

"Well, I shall look at them when you come down to
tea," said Mrs. Care-
She knew nothing bout children. After it was settled
that Philip should ion'ie down to Blackstable, Mrs. Carey
had thought niin.ii liow she should treat him; she was
anxious to do her duty ; but now he was there she found
herself just as shy of him as he was of her. She hoped he
would not be noisy and rough, because her husband did
not like rough and noisy boys. Mrs. Carey made an excuse
to leave Philip alone, but in a moment came back and
knocked at the door; she asked him, without coming in,
if he could pour out the water himself. Then she went
downstairs and rang the bell for tea.

The dining-room, large and well-proportioned, had
windows on two sides of it, with heavy curtains of red
rep : there was a big table in the middle ; and at one end
an imposing mahogany sideboard with a looking-glass in
it. In one corner stood a harmonium. On each side of the
fireplace were chairs covered in stamped leather, each
with an antimacassar; one had arms and was called the
husband, and the other had none and was called the wife.
Mrs. Carey never sat in the arm-chair: she said she pre^
f erred a chair that was not too comfortable; there was
always a lot to do, and if her chair had had arms she
might not be so ready to leave it.

Mr. Carey was making up the fire when Philip came in,
and he pointed out to his nephew that there were two
pekers. One was large and bright and polished and unused,
and was called the Vicar; and the other, which was much
smaller and had evidently passed through many fires, was
called the Curate.

"What are we waiting for?" said Mr; Carey.

"I told Mary Ann to make you an egg. I thought you'd
be hungry after your journey."

Mrs. Carey thought the journey from London to Black-
stable very tiring. She seldom travelled herself, for the
living was only three hundred a year, and, when her hus-
band wanted a holiday, since there was not money for two,
he went by himself. He was very fond of Church Con-

u OFHUMAN BONDAGE

;id usually managed to go up to London once a
year; and once he had been to Pifis for the exhibition,
and two or three times to Switzerland. Mary Ann brought
in the egg, and they sat down. T ^ chair was much too
'ow for Philip, and for a moment nei her Mr. Carey nor
his wife knew what to do.

"I'll put some books under him," said Mary Ann.

She took from the top of the harmonium the large Dibit
and the prayer-book from which the Vicar was accustomed
to read prayers, and put them on Philip's chair.

"Oh, William, he can't sit on the Bible," said M:-
Carey, in a shocked tone. "Couldn't you get him some
books out of the study ?"

Mr. Carey considered the question for an instant.

"I don't think it matters this once if you put the prayer-
book on the top, Mary Ann," he said. "The book of Com-
mon Prayer is the composition of men like ourselves. It
has no claim to divine authorship."

"I hadn't thought of that, William," said Aunt Louisa.

Philip perched himself on the books, and the Vicar,
having said grace, cut the top off his egg.

"There," he said, handing it to Philip, "you can eat my
top if you like."

Philip would have liked an egg to himself, but he
not offered one, so took what he could.

"How have the chickens been laying since I went
away ?" asked the Vicar.

"Oh, they've been dreadful, only one or two a day."

"How did you like that top, Philip?" asked his uncle.

"Very much, thank you."

"You shall have another one on Sunday afternoon."

Mr. Carey always had a boiled egg at tea on Sunday
so that he might be fortified for the evening service.

V

PHILIP came gradually to know the people he was to
live with, and by fragments of conversation, some of it
not meant for his ears, learned a good deal both about
himself and about his dead parents. Philip's father had
been much younger than the Vicar of Blackstable. After
a brilliant career at St. Luke's Hospital he was put on the
staff, and presently began to earn money in considerable
sums. He spent it freely. When the parson set about
restoring his church and asked his brother for a subscrip-
tion, he was surprised by receiving a couple of hundred
pounds : Mr. Carey, thrifty by inclination and economical
by necessity, accepted it with mingled feelings ; he was
envious of his brother because he could afford to give so
much, pleased for the sake of his church, and vaguely irri-
tated by a generosity which seemed almost ostentatious.
Then Henry Carey married a patient, a beautiful girl but
oenniless, an orphan with no near relations, but of good
family ; and there was an array of fine friends at the wed-
ding. The parson, on his visits to her when he came to
London, held himself with reserve. He felt shy with her
and in his heart he resented her great beauty : she dressed
more magnificently than became the wife of a hardworking
surgeon ; and the charming furniture of her house, the
flowers among which she lived even in winter, suggested
an extravagance which he deplored. He heard her talk of
entertainments she was going to ; and. as he told his wife
on getting home again, it was impossible to accept hospi-
tality without making some return. He had seen grapes
in the dining-room that must have cost at least eight shil-
lings a pound ; and at luncheon he had been given aspara-
gus two months before it was ready in the vicarage garden.
Now all he had anticipated was come to pass: the Vicar
felt the satisfaction of the prophet who saw fire and brirn-
5Tone consume the city which would not mend its way to

i6 OF HUMAN* BONDAGE

his warning. Poor Philip was practically penniless, and
what was the good of his mother's fine friends now? He
heard that his father's extravagance was really criminal,
and it was a mercy that Providence had seen fit to take
his dear mother to itself : she had no more idea of money
than a child.

When Philip had been a week at Blackstable an incident
happened which seemed to irritate his uncle very much.
One morning he found on the breakfast table a small
packet which had been sent on by post from the late Mrs.
Carey's house in London. It was addressed to her. When
the parson opened it he found a dozen photographs of
Mrs. Carey. They showed the head and shoulders only,
and her hair was more plainly done than usual, low on the
forehead, which gave her an unusual look; the face was
thin and worn, but no illness could impair the beauty of
her features. There was in the large dark eyes a sadness
which Philip did not remember. The first sight of the dead
woman gave Mr. Carey a little shock, but this was quickly
followed by perplexity. The photographs seemed quite
recent, and he could not imagine who had ordered them.

"D'you know anything about these, Philip?" he asked.

"I remember mamma said she'd been taken," he an-
swered. "Miss Watkin scolded her. . . . She said : I wanted
the boy to have something to remember me by when he
grows up."

Mr. Carey looked at Philip for an instant. The child
spoke in a clear treble. He recalled the words, but they
meant nothing to him.

" You'd better take one of the photographs and keep it
in your room," said Mr. Carey. "I'll put the others away."

He sent one to Miss Watkin. and she wrote and ex-
plained how they came to be taken.

One day Mrs. Carey was lying in bed, but she was feel-
ing a little better than usual, and the doctor in the morn-
ing had seemed hopeful ; Emma had taken the child out,
and the maids were downstairs in the basement : suddenly
Mrs. Carey felt desperately alone in the world. A great
fear seized her that she would not recover from the con-
finement which she was expecting in a fortnight. Her son

OF HUMAN BOND AGE 17

was nine years old. How could he be expected to remember
her? She could not bear to think that he would grow up
and forget, forget her utterly; and she had loved him so
passionately, because he was weakly and deformed, and
because he was her child. She had no photographs of her-
self taken since her marriage, and that was ten years be-
fore. She wanted her son to know what she looked like at
the end. He could not forget her then, not forget utterly.
She knew that if she called her maid and told her she
wanted to get up, the maid would prevent her, and per-
haps send for the doctor, and she had not the strength
now to struggle or argue. She got out of bed and began
to dress herself. She had been on her back so long that
her legs gave way beneath her, and then the soles of her
feet tingled so that she could hardly bear to put them to
the ground. But she went on. She was unused to doing her
own hair and, when she raised her arms and began to
brush it, she felt faint. She could never do it as her maid
did. It was beautiful hair, very fine, and of a deep rich
gold. Her eyebrows were straight and dark. She put on
a black skirt, but chose the bodice of the evening dress
which she liked best : it was of a white damask which was
fashionable in those days. She looked at herself in the
glass. Her face was very pale, but her skin was clear : she
had never had much colour, and this had always made the
redness of her beautiful mouth emphatic. She could not
restrain a sob. But she could not afford to be sorry for
herself ; she was feeling already desperately tired ; and she
put on the furs which Henry had given her the Christmas
before — she had been so proud of them and so happy then
— and slipped downstairs with beating heart. She got
safely out of the house and drove to a photographer. She
paid for a dozen photographs. She was obliged to ask for a
glass of water in the middle of the sitting; and the assist-
ant, seeing she was ill, suggested that she should come an-
other day, but she insisted on staying till the end. At last
it was finished, and she drove back again to the dingy lit-
tle house in Kensington which she hated with all her heart.
It was a horrible house to die in.

She found the front door open, and when she drove up

iR OF HUMAN BONDAGE

the maid and Emma ran down the steps to help her. They
had been frightened when they found her room empty. At
first they thought she must have gone to Miss Watkin. and
the cook was sent round. Miss Watkin came back with
her and was waiting anxiously in the drawing-room. She
came downstairs now full of anxiety and reproaches : but
the exertion had been more than Mrs. Carey was fit for.
and when the occasion for firmness no longer existed she
gave way. She fell heavily into Emma's arms and was car-
ried upstairs. She remained unconscious for a time that
seemed incredibly long to those that watched her, and the
doctor, hurriedly sent for, did not come. It was next day,
when she was a little better, that Miss Watkin got some
explanation out of her. Philip was playing on the floor of
his mother's bed-room, and neither of the ladies paid atten-
tion to him. He only understood vaguely what they were
talking about, and he could not have said why those words
remained in his memory.

"I wanted the boy to have something to remember me by
when he grows up."

"I can't make out why she ordered a dozen/' said Mr.
Carey. "Two would have done."

ONE day was very like another at the vicarage.

Soon after breakfast Mary Ann brought in The Times.
Mr. Carey shared it with two neighbours. He had it from
ten till one, when the gardener took it over to Mr. Ellis
at the Limes, with whom it remained till seven ; then it was
taken to Miss Brooks at the Manor House, who, since she
got it late, had the advantage of keeping it. In summer
Mrs. Carey, when she was making jam, often asked her
for a copy to cover the pots with. When the Vicar settled
down to his paper his wife put on her bonnet and went
ottt to do the shopping. Philip accompanied her. Black-
stable was a fishing village. It consisted of a high street in
which were the shops, the bank, the doctor's house, and the
houses of two or three coalship owners ; round the little
harbour were shabby streets in which lived fishermen and
poor people ; but since they went to chapel they were of no
account. When Mrs. Carey passed the dissenting ministers
in the street she stepped over to the other side to avoid
meeting them, but if there was not time for this fixed her
eyes on the pavement. It was a scandal to which the Vicar
had never resigned himself that there were three chapels
in the High Street : he could not help feeling that the law
should have stepped in to prevent their erection. Shop-
ping in Blackstable was not a simple matter ; for dissent,
helped by the fact that the parish church was two miles
from the town, was very common ; and it was necessary to
deal only with churchgoers ; Mrs. Carey knew perfectly
that the vicarage custom might make all the difference to
a tradesman's faith. There were two butchers who went
<:o church, and they would not understand that the Vicar
could not deal with both of them at once ; nor were they
satisfied with his simple plan of going for six months to
one and for six months to the other. The butcher who was
not sending meat to the vicarage constantly threatened not

19

so OF HUMAN BONDAGE

to come to church, and the Vicar was sometimes obliged
to make a threat : it was very wrong of him not to come to
church, but if he carried iniquity further and actually went
to chapel, then of course, excellent as his meat was, Mr.
Carey would be forced to leave him for ever. Mrs. Carey
often stopped at the bank to deliver a message to Josiah
Graves, the manager, who was choir-master, treasurer, and
churchwarden. He was a tall, thin man with a sallow face
and a long nose ; his hair was very white, and to Philip he
seemed extremely old. He kept the parish accounts, ar-
ranged the treats for the choir and the schools; though
there was no organ in the parish church, it was generally
considered (in Blackstable) that the choir he led was the
best in Kent ; and when there was any ceremony, such as a
visit from the bishop for confirmation or from the Rural
Dean to preach at the Harvest Thanksgiving, he made the
necessary preparations. But he had no hesitation in doing
all manner of things without more than a perfunctory con-
sultation with the Vicar, and the Vicar, though always
ready to be saved trouble, much resented the church-
warden's managing ways. He really seemed to look upon
himself as the most important person in the parish. Mr.
Carey constantly told his wife that if Josiah Graves did
not take care he would give him a good rap over the
knuckles one day; but Mrs. Carey advised him to bear
with Josiah Graves: he meant well, and it was not his
fault if he was not quite a gentleman. The Vicar, finding
his comfort in the practice of a Christian virtue, exercised
forbearance; but he revenged himself by calling the
churchwarden Bismarck behind his back.

Once there had been a serious quarrel between the pair,
and Mrs. Carey still thought of that anxious time with dis-
may. The Conservative candidate had announced his in-
tention of addressing a meeting at Blackstable ; and Josiah
Graves, having arranged that it should take place in the
Mission Hall, went to Mr. Carey and told him that he
hoped he would say a few words. It appeared that the
candidate had asked Josiah Graves to take the chair. This
was more than Mr. Carey could put up with. He had firm
views upon the respect which was due to the cloth, and it

OF HUM AN BONDAGE ai

was ridiculous for a churchwarden to take the chair at a
meeting when the Vicar was there. He reminded Josiah
Graves that parson meant person, that is, the vicar was the
person of the parish. Josiah Graves answered that he was
the first to recognise the dignity of the church, but this
was a matter of politics, and in his turn he reminded the
Vicar that their Blessed Saviour had enjoined upon them
to render unto Csesar the things that were Caesar's. To this
Mr. Carey replied that the devil could quote scripture to
his purpose, himself had sole authority over the Mission
Hall, and if he were not asked to be chairman he would
refuse the use of it for a political meeting. Josiah Graves
told Mr. Carey that he might do as he chose, and for his
part he thought the Wesleyan Chapel would be an equally
suitable place. Then Mr. Carey said that if Josiah Graves
set foot in what was little better than a heathen temple he
was not fit to be churchwarden in a Christian parish.
Josiah Graves thereupon resigned all his offices, and that
very evening sent to the church for his cassock and sur-
plice. His sister, Miss Graves, who kept house for him,
gave up her secretaryship of the Maternity Club, which
provided the pregnant poor with flannel, baby linen, coals,
and five shillings. Mr. Carey said he was at last master in
his own house. But soon he found that he was obliged to
see to all sorts of things that he knew nothing about ; and
Josiah Graves, after the first moment of irritation, dis-
covered that he had lost his chief interest in life. Mrs.
Carey and Miss Graves were much distressed by the quar-
rel ; they met after a discreet exchange of letters, and made
up their minds to put the matter right : they talked, one to
her husband, the other to her brother, from morning till
night ; and since they were persuading these gentlemen to
do what in their hearts they wanted, after three weeks of
anxiety a reconciliation was effected. It was to both their
interests, but they ascribed it to a common love for their
Redeemer. The meeting was held at the Mission Hall, and
the doctor was asked to be chairman. Mr. Carey and Josiah
Graves both made speeches.

When Mrs. Carey had finished her business with the
banker, she generally went upstairs to have a little chat

22 OF HUMAN BONDACK

with his sister; and while the ladies talked of parish mat-
ters, the curate or the new bonnet of Mrs. Wilson — Mr.
Wilson was the richest man in Blackstable, he was thought
to have at least five hundred a year, and he had married his
cook — Philip sat demurely in the stiff parlour, used only
to receive visitors, and busied himself with the restless
movements of goldfish in a bowl. The windows were never
opened except to air the room for a few minutes in the
morning, and it had a stuffy smell which seemed to Philip
to have a mysterious connection with banking.

Then Mrs. Carey remembered that she had to go to the
grocer, and they continued their way. When the shopping
was done they often went down a side street of little
houses, mostly of wood, in which fishermen dwelt (and
here and there a fisherman sat on his doorstep mending his
nets, and nets hung to dry upon the doors), till they came
to a small beach, shut in on each side by warehouses, but
with a view of the sea. Mrs. Carey stood for a few minutes
and looked at it, it was turbid and yellow, [and who
knows what thoughts passed through her mind?] while
Philip searched for flat stones to play ducks and drakes.
Then they walked slowly back. They looked into the post
office to get the right time, nodded to Mrs. Wigram the
doctor's wife, who sat at her window sewing, and so got
home.

Dinner was at one o'clock; and on Monday, Tuesday,
and Wednesday it consisted of beef, roast, hashed, and
minced, and on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of mut-
ton. On Sunday they ate one of their own chickens. In the
afternoon Philip did his lessons. He was taught Latin and
mathematics by his uncle who knew neither, and French
and the piano by his aunt. Of French she was ignorant,
but she knew the piano well enough to accompany the old-
fashioned songs she had sung for thirty years. Uncle Wil-
liam used to tell Philip that when he was a curate his wife
had known twelve songs by heart, which she could sing
at a moment's notice whenever she was asked. She often
sang still when there was a tea-party at the vicarage.
There were few people whom the Careys cared to ask
there, and their parties consisted always of the curate,

OFHUMANBONDAGE 23

Josiah Graves with his sister, Dr. Wigram and his wife.
After tea Miss Graves played one or two of Mendelssohn's
Songs without Words, and Mrs. Carey sang When the
Swallow's Homeward Fly, or Trot, Trot, My Pony.

But the Carey's did not give tea-parties often; the
preparations upset them, and when their guests were gone
they felt themselves exhausted. They preferred to have
tea by themselves, and after tea they played backgammon.
Mrs. Carey arranged that her husband should win, be-
cause he did not like losing. They had cold supper at eight.
It was a scrappy meal because Mary Ann resented getting
anything ready after tea, and Mrs. Carey helped to clear
away. Mrs. Carey seldom ate more than bread and but-
ter, with a little stewed fruit to follow, but the Vicar had
a slice of cold meat. Immediately after supper Mrs. Carey
rang the bell for prayers, and then Philip went to bed.
He rebelled against being undressed by Mary Ann and
after a while succeeded in establishing his right to dress
and undress himself. At nine o'clock Mary Ann brought
in the eggs and the plate. Mrs. Carey wrote the date on
each egg and put the number down in a book. She then
took the plate-basket on her arm and went upstairs. Mr,
Carey continued to read one of his old books, but as the
clock struck ten he got up, put out the lamps, and followed
his wife to bed.

When Philip arrived there was some difficulty in decid-
ing on which evening he should have his bath. It was never
easy to get plenty of hot water, since the kitchen boiler
did not work, and it was impossible for two persons to
have a bath on the same day. The only man who had a
bathroom in Blackstable was Mr. Wilson, and it was
thought ostentatious of him. Mary Ann had her bath in
the kitchen on Monday night, because she liked to begin
the week clean. Uncle William could not have his on Satur-
day, because he had a heavy day before him and he was
always a little tired after a bath, so he had it on Friday.
Mrs. Carey had hers on Thursday for the same reason. It
looked as though Saturday were naturally indicated for
Philip, but Mary Ann said she couldn't keep the fire up
on Saturday night: what with all the cooking on Sunday.

H OF HUMAN BONDAGE

having to make pastry and she didn't know what all. she
did not feel up to giving the boy his bath on Saturday
night ; and it was quite clear that he could not bath him-
self. Mrs. Carey was shy about bathing a boy, and of
course the Vicar had his sermon. But the Vicar insisted
that Philip should be clean and sweet for the Lord's Day.
Mary Ann said she would rather go than be put upon —
and after eighteen years she didn't expect to have more
work given her, and they might show some consideration
— and Philip said he didn't want anyone to bath him, but
could very well bath himself. This settled it. Mary Ann
said she was quite sure he wouldn't bath himself properly,
and rather than he should go dirty — and not because he
was going into the presence of the Lord, but because she
couldn't abide a boy who wasn't properly washed — she'd
work herself to the bone even if it was Saturday night.

VII

SUNDAY was a day crowded with incident. Mr. Carey
was accustomed to say that he was the only man in his
parish who worked seven days a week.

The household got up half an hour earlier than usual.
No lying abed for a poor parson on the day of rest, Mr.
Carey remarked as Mary Ann knocked at the door punctu-
ally at eight. It took Mrs. Carey longer to dress, and she
got down to breakfast at nine, a little breathless, only just
before her husband. Mr. Carey's boots stood in front of
the fire to warm. Prayers were longer than usual, and the
breakfast more substantial. After breakfast the Vicar cut
thin slices of bread for the communion, and Philip was
privileged to cut off the crust. He was sent to the study
to fetch a marble paperweight, with which Mr. Carey
pressed the bread till it was thin and pulpy, and then it
was cut into small squares. The amount was regulated by
the weather. On a very bad day few people came to church,
and on a very fine one, though many came, few stayed
for communion. There were most when it was dry enough
to make the walk to church pleasant, but not so fine that
people wanted to hurry away.

Then Mrs. Carey brought the communion plate out of
the safe, which stood in the pantry, and the Vicar polished
it with a chamois leather. At ten the fly drove up, and
Mr. Carey got into his boots. Mrs. Carey took several
minutes to put on her bonnet, during which the Vicar, in
a voluminous cloak, stood in the hall with just such an
expression on his face as would have become an early
Christian about to be led into the arena. It was extraor-
dinary that after thirty years of marriage his wife could
not be ready in time on Sunday morning. At last she came,
in black satin; the Vicar did not like colours in a clergy-
man's wife at any time, but on Sundays he was determined
that she should wear black; now and then, in conspiracy

25

i6 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

with Miss Graves, she ventured a white feather or a pink
rose in her bonnet, but the Vicar insisted that it should dis-
appear ; he said he would not go to church with the scarlet
woman : Mrs. Carey sighed as a woman but obeyed as a
wife. They were about to step into the carriage when the
Vicar remembered that no one had given him his egg.
They knew that he must have an egg for his voice, there
were two women in the house, and no one had the least
regard for his comfort. Mrs. Carey scolded Mary Ann,
and Mary Ann answered that she could not think of every-
thing. She hurried away to fetch an egg, and Mrs. Carey
beat it up in a glass of sherry. The Vicar swallowed it at
a gulp. The communion plate was stowed in the carriage,
and they set off.

The fly came from The Red Lion and had a peculiar
smell of stale straw. They drove with both windows closed
so that the Vicar should not catch cold. The sexton was
waiting at the porch to take the communion piate, and
while the Vicar went to the vestry Mrs. Carey and Philip
settled themselves in the vicarage pew. Mrs. Carey placed
in front of her the sixpenny bit she was accustomed to put
in the plate, and gave Philip threepence for the same pur-
pose. The church filled up gradually and the service began.

Philip grew bored during the sermon, but if he fidgetted
Mrs. Carey put a gentle hand on his arm and looked at him
reproachfully. He regained interest when the final hymn
was sung and Mr. Graves passed round with the plate.

When everyone had gone Mrs. Carey went into Miss
Graves' pew to have a few words with her while they were
waiting for the gentlemen, and Philip went to the vestry.
His uncle, the cuiate, and Mr. Graves were still in their
surplices. Mr. Carey gave him the remains of the con-
secrated bread and told him he might eat it. He had been
accustomed to eat it himself, as it seemed blasphemous to
throw it away, but Philip's keen appetite relieved him from
the duty. Then they counted the money. It consisted of
pennies, sixpences and threepenny bits. There were always
two single shillings, one put in the plate by the Vicar and
the other by Mr. Graves ; and sometimes there was a
florin. Mr. Graves told the Vicar who had given this. It

OFHUMANBONDAGE 2f

was always a stranger to Blackstable, and Mr. Carey won-
dered who he was. But Miss Graves had observed the rash
act and was able to tell Mrs. Carey that the stranger came
from London, was married and had children. During the
drive home Mrs. Carey passed the information on, and the
Vicar made up his mind to call on him and ask for a sub-
scription to the Additional Curates Society. Mr. Carey
asked if Philip had behaved properly; and Mrs. Carey
remarked that Mrs. Wigram had a new mantle, Mr. Cox
was not in church, and somebody thought that Miss Phil-
lips was engaged. When they reached the vicarage they all
felt that they deserved a substantial dinner.

When this was over Mrs. Carey went to her room to
rest, and Mr. Carey lay down on the sofa in the drawing-
room for forty winks.

They had tea at five, and the Vicar ate an egg to support
himself for evensong. Mrs. Carey did not go to this so that
Mary Ann might, but she read the service through and
the hymns. Mr. Carey walked to church in the evening,
and Philip limped along by his side. The walk through the
darkness along the country road strangely impressed him,
and the church with all its lights in the distance, coming
gradually nearer, seemed very friendly. At first he was shy
with his uncle, but little by little grew used to him, and he
would slip his hand in his uncle's and walk more easily
for the feeling of protection.

They had supper when they got home. Mr. Carey's slip-
pers were waiting for him on a footstool in front of the
fire and by their side Philip's, one the shoe of a small boy,
the other misshapen and odd. He was dreadfully tired
when he went up to bed, and he did not resist when Mary
Ann undressed him. She kissed him after she tucked him
up, and he began to love her.

VIII

PHILIP had led always the solitary life of an only child,
and his loneliness at the vicarage was no greater than it
had been when his mother lived. He made friends with
Mary Ann. She was a chubby little person of thirty-five,
the daughter of a fisherman, and had come to the vicarage
at eighteen ; it was her first place and she had no intention
of leaving it; but she held a possible marriage as a rod
over the timid heads of her master and mistress. Her
father and mother lived in a little house off Harbour
Street, and she went to see them on her evenings out. Her
stories of the sea touched Philip's imagination, and the
narrow alleys round the harbour grew rich with the ro-
mance which his young fancy lent them. One evening he
asked whether he might go home with her; but his aunt
was afraid that he might catch something, and his uncle
said that evil communications corrupted good manners. He
disliked the fisher folk, who were rough, uncouth, and
went to chapel. But Philip was more comfortable in the
kitchen than in the dining-room, and, whenever he could,
he took his toys and played there. His aunt was not sorry.
She did not like disorder, and though she recognised that
boys must be expected to be untidy she preferred that he
should make a mess in the kitchen. If he fidgetted his
uncle was apt to grow restless and say it was high time he
went to school. Mrs. Carey thought Philip very young for
this, and her heart went out to the motherless child; but
her attempts to gain his affection were awkward, and the
boy, feeling shy, received her demonstrations with so much
sullenness that she was mortified. Sometimes she heard his
shrill voice raised in laughter in the kitchen, but when she
went in, he grew suddenly silent, and he flushed darkly
when Mary Ann explained the joke. Mrs. Carey could not
see anything amusing in what she heard, and she smiled
with constraint.

28

29

"He seems happier with Mary Ann than with us, Wil-
liam," she said, when she returned to her sewing.

"One can see he's been very badly brought up. He wants
.licking into shape."

On the second Sunday after Philip arrived an unlucky
incident occurred. Mr. Carey had retired as usual after
dinner for a little snooze in the drawing-room, but he was
in an irritable mood and could not sleep. Josiah Graves
that morning had objected strongly to some candlesticks
with which the Vicar had adorned the altar. He had bought
them second-hand in Tercanbury, and he thought they
looked very well. But Josiah Graves said they were pop-
ish. This was a taunt that always aroused the Vicar. He
had been at Oxford during the movement which ended in
the secession from the Established Church of Edward
Manning, and he felt a certain sympathy for the Church
of Rome. He would willingly have made the service more
ornate than had been usual in the low-church parish of
Blackstable, and in his secret soul he yearned for pro-
cessions and lighted candles. He drew the line at incense.
He hated the word protestant. He called himself a Catho-
lic. He was accustomed to say that Papists required an
epithet, they were Roman Catholic; but the Church oi
England was Catholic in the best, the fullest, and the no-
blest sense of the term. He was pleased to think that his
shaven face gave him the look of a priest, and in his youth
he had possessed an ascetic air which added to the impres-
sion. He often related that on one of his holidays in Bou-
logne, one of those holidays upon which his wife for
economy's sake did not accompany him, when he was sit-
ting in a church, the cure had come up to him and invited
him to preach a sermon. He dismissed his curates when
they married, having decided views on the celibacy of the
unbeneficed clergy. But when at an election the Liberals
had written on his garden fence in large blue letters : This
way to Rome, he had been very angry, and threatened to
prosecute the leaders of the Liberal party in Blackstable.
He made up his mind now that nothing Josiah Graves said
would induce him to remove the candlesticks from the

30 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

altar, and he muttered Bismarck to himself once or twice
irritably.

Suddenly he heard an unexpected noise. He pulled the
handkerchief off his face, got up from the sofa on which
he was lying, and went into the dining-room. Philip was
seated on the table with all his bricks around him. He had
built a monstrous castle, and some defect in the founda-
tion had just brought the structure down in noisy ruin.

"What are you doing with those bricks, Philip? You
know you're not allowed to play games on Sunday."

Philip stared at him for a moment with frightened eyes,
and, as his habit was, flushed deeply.

"I always used to play at home," he answered.

"I'm sure your dear mamma never allowed you to do
such a wicked thing as that."

Philip did not know it was wicked ; but if it was, he did
not wish it to be supposed that his mother had consented
to it. He hung his head and did not answer.

"Don't you know it's very, very wicked to play on Sun-
day? What d'you suppose it's called the day of rest for?
You're going to church tonight, and how can you face your
Maker when you've been breaking one of His laws in the
afternoon ?"

Mr. Carey told him to put the bricks away at once, and
stood over him while Philip did so.

"You're a very naughty boy," he repeated. "Think of
the grief you're causing your poor mother in heaven."

Philip felt inclined to cry, but he had an instinctive dis-
inclination to letting other people see his tears, and he
clenched his teeth to prevent the sobs from escaping. Mr.
Carey sat down in his arm-chair and began to turn over
the pages of a book. Philip stood at the window. The
vicarage was set back from the highroad to Tercanbury,
and from the dining-room one saw a semicircular strip
of lawn and then as far as the horizon green fields. Sheep
were grazing in them. The sky was forlorn and gray.
Philip felt infinitely unhappy.

Presently Mary Ann came in to lay the tea, and Aunt
Louisa descended the stairs.

"Have you had a nice little nap, William?" she asked.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 31

"No," he answered. "Philip made so much noise that I
couldn't sleep a wink."

This was not quite accurate, for he had been kept awake
by his own thoughts ; and Philip, listening sullenly, re-
flected that he had only made a noise once, and there was
no reason why his uncle should not have slept before or
after. When Mrs. Carey asked for an explanation the
Vicar narrated the facts.

"He hasn't even said he was sorry," he finished.

"Oh, Philip, I'm sure you're sorry," said Mrs. Carey,
anxious that the child should not seem wickeder to his
uncle than need be.

Philip did not reply. He went on munching his bread
and butter. He did not know what power it was in him that
prevented him from making any expression of regret. He
felt his ears tingling, he was a little inclined to cry, but no
word would issue from his lips.

"You needn't make it worse by sulking," said Mr.
Carey.

Tea was finished in silence. Mrs. Carey looked at Philip
surreptitiously now and then, but the Vicar elaborately
ignored him. When Philip saw his uncle go upstairs to
get ready for church he went into the hall and got his hat
and coat, but when the Vicar came downstairs and saw
him, he said :

"I don't wish you to go to church tonight, Philip. I
don't think you're in a proper frame of mind to enter the
House of God."

Philip did not say a word. He felt it was a deep humilia-
tion that was placed upon him, and his cheeks reddened.
He stood silently watching his uncle put on his broad hat
and his voluminous cloak. Mrs. Carey as usual went to the
door to see him off. Then she turned to Philip.

"Never mind, Philip, you won't be a naughty boy next
Sunday, will you, and then your uncle will take you to
church with him in the evening."

She took off his hat and coat, and led him into the
dining-room.

"Shall you and I read the service together, Philip, and

32 OFHUMANBONDAGE

we'll sing the hymns at the harmonium. Would you like
that?"

Philip shook his head decidedly. Mrs. Carey was taken
aback. If he would not read the evening service with her
she did not know what to do with him.

"Then what would you like to do until vour uncle comes
back?" she asked helplessly.

Philip broke his silence at last.

"I want to be left alone," he said.

"Philip, how can you say anything so unkind? Don't you
know that your uncle and I only want your good? Don't
you love me at all?"

"I hate you. I wish you was dead."

Mrs. Carey gasped. He said the words so savagely that
it gave her quite a start. She had nothing to say. She sat
down in her husband's chair; and as she thought of her
desire to love the friendless, crippled boy and her eager
wish that he should love her — she was a barren woman
and, even though it was clearly God's will that she should
be childless, she could scarcely bear to look at little chil-
dren sometimes, her heart ached so — the tears rose to her
eyes and one by one, slowly, rolled down her cheeks.
Philip watched her in amazement. She took out her hand-
kerchief, and now she cried without restraint. Suddenly
Philip realised that she was crying because of what he had
said, and he was sorry. He went up to her silently and
kissed her. It was the first kiss he had ever given her •
without being asked. And the poor lady, so small in her
black satin, shrivelled up and sallow, with her funny cork-
screw curls, took the little boy on her lap and put her arms
around him and wept as though her heart would break.
But her tears were partly tears of happiness, for she felt
that the strangeness between them was gone. She loved
him now with a new love because he. had made her suffer.

IX

ON the following Sunday, when the Vicar was making
his preparations to go into the drawing-room for his nap
— all the actions of his life were conducted with ceremony
— and Mrs. Carey was about to go upstairs, Philip asked :

"What shall I do if I'm not allowed to play?"

"Can't you sit still for once and be quiet ?"

"I can't sit still till tea-time."

Mr. Carey looked out of the window, but it was cold and
raw, and he could not suggest that Philip should go into
the garden.

"I know what you can do. You can learn by heart the
collect for the day."

He took the prayer-book which was used for prayers
from the harmonium, and turned the pages till he came to
the place he wanted.

"It's not a long one. If you can say it without a mistake
when I come in to tea you shall have the top of my egg."

Mrs. Carey drew up Philip's chair to the dining-room
table — they had bought him a high chair by now — and
placed the book in front of him.

"The devil finds work for idle hands to do," said Mr.
Carey.

He put some more coals on the fire so that there should
be a cheerful blaze when he came in to tea, and went into
the drawing-room. He loosened his collar, arranged the
cushions, and settled himself comfortably on the sofa. But
thinking the drawing-room a little chilly, Mrs. Carey
brought him a rug from the hall; she put it over his legs
and tucked it round his feet. She drew the blinds so that
the light should not offend his eyes, and since he had
closed them already went out of the room on tiptoe. The
Vicar was at peace with himself today, and in ten minutes
he was asleep. He snored softly.

It was the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, and the collect

33

34 OFHUMANBONDAGE

began with the words: O God, whose blessed Son was
manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil,
and make us the sons of God, and heirs of Eternal life.
Philip read it through. He could make no sense of it. He
began saying the words aloud to himself, but many of
them were unknown to him, and the construction of the
sentences was strange. He could not get more than two
lines in his head. And his attention was constantly wander-
ing : there were fruit trees trained on the walls of the vica-
rage, and a long twig beat now and then against the
windowpane ; sheep grazed stolidly in the field beyond the
garden. It seemed as though there were knots inside his
brain. Then panic seized him that he would not know the
words by tea-time, and he kept on whispering them to him-
self quickly; he did not try to understand, but merely to
get them parrot-like into his memory.

Mrs. Carey could not sleep that afternoon, and by four
o'clock she was so wide awake that she came downstairs.
She thought she would hear Philip his collect so that he
should make no mistakes when he said it to his uncle. His
uncle then would be pleased ; he would see that the boy's
heart was in the right place. But when Mrs. Carey came
to the dining-room and was about to go in, she heard a
sound that made her stop suddenly. Her heart gave a little
jump. She turned away and quietly slipped out of the
front-door. She walked round the house till she came to
the dining-room window and then cautiously looked in.
Philip was still sitting on the chair she had put him in,
but his head was on the table buried in his arms, and he
was sobbing desperately. She saw the convulsive move-
ment of his shoulders. Mrs. Carey was frightened. A thing
that had always struck her about the child was that he
seemed so collected. She had never seen him cry. And
now she realised that his calmness was some instinctive
shame of showing his feelings : he hid himself to weep.

Without thinking that her husband disliked being awak-
ened suddenly, she burst into the drawing-room.

"William, William," she said. "The boy's crying as
though his heart would break."

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 35

Mr. Carey sat up and disentangled himself from the rug
about his legs.

"What's he got to cry about ?"

"I don't know. . . . Oh, William, we can't let the boy
be unhappy. D'you think it's our fault? If we'd had chil-
dren we'd have known what to do."

Mr. Carey looked at her in perplexity. He felt extraor-
dinarily helpless.

"He can't be crying because I gave him the collect to
learn. It's not more than ten lines."

"Don't you think I might take him some picture books
to look at, William? There are some of the Holy Land.
There couldn't be anything wrong in that."

"Very well, I don't mind."

Mrs. Carey went into the study. To collect books was
Mr. Carey's only passion, and he never went into Tercan-
bury without spending an hour or two in the second-hand
shop ; he always brought back four or five musty volumes,
He never read them, for he had long lost the habit of read-
ing, but he liked to turn the pages, look at the illustrations
if they were illustrated, and mend the bindings. He wel-
comed wet days because on them he could stay at home
without pangs of conscience and spend the afternoon with
white of egg and a glue-pot, patching up the Russia leather
of some battered quarto. He had many volumes of old
travels, with steel engravings, and Mrs. Carey quickly
found two which described Palestine. She coughed elabo-
rately at the door so that Philip should have time to com-
pose himself, she felt that he would be humiliated if she
came upon him in the midst of his tears, then she rattled
the door handle. When she went in Philip was poring over
the prayer-book, hiding his eyes with his hands so that she
might not see he had been crying.

"Do you know the collect yet ?" she said.

He did not answer for a moment, and she felt that he
did not trust his voice. She was oddly embarrassed.

"I can't learn it by heart," he said at last, with a gasp.

"Oh, well, never mind," she said. "You needn't. I've
got some picture books for you to look at. Come and sit
on my lap, and we'll look at them together."

36 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

Philip slipped off his chair and limped over to her. He
looked down so that she should not see his eyes. She put
her arms round him.

"Look," she said, "that's the place where our Blessed
Lord was born."

She showed him an Eastern town with flat roofs and
cupolas and minarets. In the foreground was a group of
palm-trees, and under them were resting two Arabs and
some camels. Philip passed his hand over the picture as if
he wapted to feel the houses and the loose habiliments of
the nomads.

"Read what it says," he asked.

Mrs. Carey in her even voice read the opposite page. It
was a romantic narrative of some Eastern traveller of the
thirties, pompous maybe, but fragrant with the emotion
with which the East came to the generation that followed
Byron and Chateaubriand. In a moment or two Philip in-
terrupted her.

"I want to see another picture."

When Mary Ann came in and Mrs. Carey rose to help
her lay the cloth, Philip took the book in his hands and
hurried through the illustrations. It was with difficulty
that his aunt induced him to put the book down for tea.
He had forgotten his horrible struggle to get the collect
by heart; he had forgotten his tears. Next day it was
raining, and he asked for the book again. Mrs. Carey gave
it him joyfully. Talking over his future with her hus-
band she had found that both desired him to take orders,
and this eagerness for the book which described places
hallowed by the presence of Jesus seemed a good sign. It
looked as though the boy's mind addressed itself naturally
to holy things. But in a day or two he asked for more
books. Mr. Carey took him into his study, showed him the
shelf in which he kept illustrated works, and chose for him
one that dealt with Rome. Philip took it greedily. The pic-
tures led him to a new amusement. He began to read the
page before and the page after each engraving to find out
what it was about, and soon he lost all interest in his toys.

Then, when no one was near, he took out books tor
himself ; and perhap« because the first impression on his

OFHUMANBONDAGE 37

mind was made by an Eastern town, he found his chief
amusement in those which described the Levant. His heart
beat with excitement at the pictures of mosques and rich
palaces ; but there was one, in a book on Constantinople,
which peculiarly stirred his imagination. It was called the
Hall of the Thousand Columns. It was a Byzantine cis-
tern, which the popular fancy had endowed with fantastic
vastness; and the legend which he read told that a boat
was always moored at the entrance to tempt the unwary,
but no traveller venturing into the darkness had ever been
seen again. And Philip wondered whether the boat went
on for ever through one pillared alley after another or
came at last to some strange mansion.

One day a good fortune befell him, for he hit upon
Lane's translation of The Thousand Nights and a Night.
He was captured first by the illustrations, and then he
began to read, to start with, the stories that dealt with
magic, and then the others; and those he liked he read
again and again. He could think of nothing else. He forgot
the life about him. He had to be called two or three times
before he would come to his dinner. Insensibly he formed
the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of read-
ing: he did not know that thus he was providing himself
with a refuge from all the distress of life; he did not
know either that he was creating for himself an unreal
world which would make the real world of every day a
source of bitter disappointment. Presently he began to
read other things. His brain was precocious. His uncle
and aunt, seeing that he occupied himself and neither
worried nor made a noise, ceased to trouble themselves
about him. Mr. Carey had so many books that he did not
know them, and as he read little he forgot the odd lots he
had bought at one time and another because they were
cheap. Haphazard among the sermons and homilies, the
travels, the lives of the Saints, the Fathers, the histories
of the church, were old-f ashionad novels ; and these Philip
at last discovered. He chose them by their titles, and the
first he read was The Lancashire Witches, and then he
read The Admirable Crichton, and then many more.
Whenever he started a book with two solitary travellers

.8 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

riding along the brink of a desperate ravine he knew he
was safe.

The summer was come now, and the gardener, an old
sailor, made him a hammock and fixed it up for him in
the branches of a weeping willow. And here for long hours
he lay, hidden from anyone who might come to the vica-
rage, reading, reading passionately. Time passed and it
was July; August came: on Sundays the church was
crowded with strangers, and the collection at the offertory
often amounted to two pounds. Neither the Vicar nor
Mrs. Carey went out of the garden much during this
period; for they disliked strange faces, and they looked
upon the visitors from London with aversion. The house
opposite was taken for six weeks by a gentleman who had
two little boys, and he sent in to ask if Philip would like
to go and play with them ; but Mrs. Carey returned a polite
refusal. She was afraid that Philip would be corrupted
by little boys from London. He was going to be a clergy-
man, and it was necessary that he should be preserved
from contamination. She liked to see in him an infant
Samuel.

THE Careys made up their minds to send Philip to
King's School at Tercanbury. The neighbouring clergy
sent their sons there. It was united by long tradition to the
Cathedral : its headmaster was an honorary Canon, and a
past headmaster was the Archdeacon. Boys were en-
couraged there to aspire to Holy Orders, and the education
was such as might prepare an honest lad to spend his life
in God's service. A preparatory school was attached to it,
and to this it was arranged that Philip should go. Mr.
Carey took him into Tercanbury one Thursday afternoon
towards the end of September. All day Philip had been
excited and rather frightened. He knew little of school
life but what he had read in the stories of The Boy's Own
Paper. He had also read Eric, or Little by Little.

When they got out of the train at Tercanbury, Philip
felt sick with apprehension, and during the drive in to the
town sat pale and silent. The high brick wall in front of
the school gave it the look of a prison. There was a little
door in it, which opened on their ringing; and a clumsy,
untidy man came out and fetched Philip's tin trunk and
his play-box. They were shown into the drawing-room ; it
was filled with massive, ugly furniture, and the chairs of
the suite were placed round the walls with a forbidding
rigidity. They waited for the headmaster.

"What's Mr. Watson like ?" asked Philip, after a while.

"You'll see for yourself."

There was another pause. Mr. Carey wondered why the
headmaster did not come. Presently Philip made an effort
and spoke again.

"Tell him I've got a club-foot," he said.

Before Mr. Carey could speak the door burst open and
Mr. Watson swept into the room. To Philip he seemed
gigantic. He was a man of over six feet high, and broad,
with enormous hands and a great red beard; he talked

39

40 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

loudly in a jovial manner ; but his aggressive cheerfulness
struck terror in Philip's heart. He shook hands with Mr.
Carey, and then took Philip's small hand in his.

"Well, young fellow, are you glad to come to school?"
he shouted.

Philip reddened and found no word to answer.

"How old are you?"

"Nine," said Philip.

"You must say sir," said his uncle.

"I expect you've got a good lot to learn," the headmaster
bellowed cheerily.

To give the boy confidence he began to tickle him with
rough fingers. Philip, feeling shy and uncomfortable,
squirmed under his touch.

"I've put him in the small dormitory for the present.
. . . You'll like that, won't you?" he added to Philip.
"Only eight of you in there. You won't feel so strange."

Then the door opened, and Mrs. Watson came in. She
was a dark woman with black hair, neatly parted in the
middle. She had curiously thick lips and a small round
nose. Her eyes were large and black. There was a singular
coldness in her appearance. She seldom spoke and smiled
more seldom still. Her husband introduced Mr. Carey to
her, and then gave Philip a friendly push towards her.

"This is a new boy, Helen. His name's Carey."

Without a word she shook hands with Philip and then
sat down, not speaking, while the headmaster asked Mr.
Carey how much Philip knew and what books he had been
working with. The Vicar of Blackstable was a little embar-
rassed by Mr. Watson's boisterous heartiness, and in a mo-
ment or two got up.

"I think I'd better leave Philip with you now."

"That's all right," said Mr. Watson. "He'll be safe with
me. He'll get on like a house on fire. Won't you, young
fellow ?"

Without waiting for an answer from Philip the big
man burst into a great bellow of laughter. Mr. Carey
kissed Philip on the forehead and went away.

"Come along, young fellow," shouted Mr. Watson. "I'll
show you the school-room."

41

He swept out of the drawing-room with giant strides,
and Philip hurriedly limped behind him. He was taken into
a long, bare room with two tables that ran along its whole
length; on each side of them were wooden forms.

"Nobody much here yet," said Mr. Watson. "I'll just
show you the playground, and then I'll leave you to shift
for yourself."

Mr. Watson led the way. Philip found himself in a large
play-ground with high brick walls on three sides of it. On
the fourth side was an iron railing through which you saw
a vast lawn and beyond this some of the buildings of
King's School. One small boy was wandering disconso-
lately, kicking up the gravel as he walked.

"Hulloa, Yenning," shouted Mr. Watson. "When did
you turn up?"

The small boy came forward and shook hands.

"Here's a new boy. He's older and bigger than you, so
don't you bully him."

The headmaster glared amicably at the two children,
filling them with fear by the roar of his voice, and then
with a guffaw left them.

"What's your name ?"

"Carey."

"What's your father?"

"He's dead."

"Oh! Does your mother wash?"

"My mother's dead, too."

Philip thought this answer would cause the boy a certain
awkwardness, but Yenning was not to be turned from his
facetiousness for so little.

"Well, did she wash ?" he went on.

"Yes," said Philip indignantly.

"She was a washerwoman then?"

"No, she wasn't."

"Then she didn't wash."

The little boy crowed with delight at the success of his
dialectic. Then he caught sight of Philip's feet.

"What's the matter with your foot ?"

Philip instinctively tried to withdraw it from sight, He
hid it behind the one which was whole.

ta OF HUMAN BONDAGE

'I've got a club-foot," he answered.

'How did you get it ?"

'I've always had it."

'Let's have a look."

'No."

'Don't then."

The little boy accompanied the words with a sharp kick
on Philip's shin, which Philip did not expect and thus
could not guard against. The pain was so great that it
made him gasp, but greater than the pain was the surprise.
He did not know why Yenning kicked him. He had not
the presence of mind to give him a black eye. Besides, the
boy was smaller than he, and he had read in The Boy's
Own Paper that it was a mean thing to hit anyone smaller
than yourself. While Philip was nursing his shin a third
boy appeared, and his tormentor left him. In a little while
he noticed that the pair were talking about him, and he
felt they were looking at his feet. He grew hot and un-
comfortable.

But others arrived, a dozen together, and then more,
and they began to talk about their doings during the holi-
days, where they had been, and what wonderful cricket
they had played. A few new boys appeared, and with
these presently Philip found himself talking. He was shy
and nervous. He was anxious to make himself pleasant,
but he could not think of anything to say. He was asked
a great many questions and answered them all quite will-
ingly. One boy asked him whether he could play cricket.

"No," answered Philip. "I've got a club-foot."

The boy looked down quickly and reddened. Philip saw
that he felt he had asked an unseemly question. He was
too shy to apologise and looked at Philip awkwardly.

XI

NEXT morning when the clanging of a bell awoke Philip
he looked round his cubicle in astonishment. Then a voice
sang out, and he remembered where he was.

"Are you awake, Singer?"

The partitions of the cubicle were of polished pitch-pine,
and there was a green curtain in front. In those days there
was little thought of ventilation, and the windows were
closed except when the dormitory was aired in the morn-
ing.

Philip got up and knelt down to say his prayers. It was
a cold morning, and he shivered a little; but he had been
taught by his uncle that his prayers were more acceptable
to God if he said them in his nightshirt than if he waited
till he was dressed. This did not surprise him, for he was
beginning to realise that he was the creature of a God
who appreciated the discomfort of his worshippers. Then
he washed. There were two baths for the fifty boarders,
and each boy had a bath once a week. The rest of his wash-
ing was done in a small basin on a wash-stand, which,
with the bed and a chair, made up the furniture of each
cubicle. The boys chatted gaily while they dressed. Philip
was all ears. Then another bell sounded, and they ran
downstairs. They took their seats on the forms on each
side of the two long tables in the school-room; and Mr.
Watson, followed by his wife and the servants, came in
and sat down. Mr. Watson read prayers in an impressive
manner, and the supplications thundered out in his loud
voice as though they were threats personally addressed to
°ach boy. Philip listened with anxiety. Then Mr. Watson
read a chapter from the Bible, and the servants trooped
out. In a moment the untidy youth brought in two large
pots of tea and on a second journey immense dishes of
bread and butter.

Philip had a squeamish appetite, and the thick slabs of

43

44 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

poor butter on the bread turned his stomach, but he saw
other boys scraping it off and followed their example.
They all had potted meats and such like, which they had
brought in their play-boxes; and some had 'extras,' eggs
or bacon, upon which Mr. Watson made a profit. When he
had asked Mr. Carey whether Philip was to have these,
Mr. Carey replied that he did not think boys should be
spoilt. Mr. Watson quite agreed with him — he considered
nothing was better than bread and butter for growing
teds — but some parents, unduly pampering their offspring,
insisted on it.

Philip noticed that 'extras' gave boys a certain consider^
fttion and made up his mind, when he wrote to Aunt
Louisa, to ask for them.

After breakfast the boys wandered out into the play-
ground. Here the day-boys were gradually assembling.
They were sons of the local clergy, of the officers at the
Depot, and of such manufacturers or men of business as
the old town possessed. Presently a bell rang, and they all
trooped into school. This consisted of a large, long room at
opposite ends of which two under-masters conducted the
second and third forms, and of a smaller one, leading out
of it, used by Mr. Watson, who taught the first form. To
attach the preparatory to the senior school these three
classes were known officially, on speech days and in re-,
ports, as upper, middle, and lower second. Philip was put
in the last. The master, a red-faced man with a pleasant
voice, was called Rice; he had a jolly manner with boys,
and the time passed quickly. Philip was surprised when it
was a quarter to eleven and they were let out for ten min-
utes' rest.

The whole school rushed noisily into the play-ground.
The new boys were told to go into the middle, while the
others stationed themselves along opposite walls. They
began to play Pig in the Middle. The old boys ran from
wall to wall while the new boys tried to catch them : when
>one was seized and the mystic words said — one, two, three,
nnd a pig for me — he became a prisoner and, turning sides,
helped to catch those who were still free. Philip saw a boy
running past and tried to catch him, but his limp gave him

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 45

no chance ; and the runners, taking their opportunity, made
straight for the ground he covered. Then one of them had
the brilliant idea of imitating Philip's clumsy run. Other
boys saw it and began to laugh ; then they all copied the
first; and they ran round Philip, limping grotesquely,
screaming in their treble voices with shrill laughter. They
lost their heads with the delight of their new amusement,
and choked with helpless merriment. One of them tripped
Philip up and he fell, heavily as he always fell, and cut his
knee. They laughed all the louder when he got up. A boy
pushed him from behind, and he would have fallen again
if another had not caught him. The game was forgotten in
the entertainment of Philip's deformity. One of them in-
vented an odd, rolling limp that struck the rest as su-
premely ridiculous, and several of the boys lay down on
the ground and rolled about in laughter: Philip was com-
pletely scared. He could not make out why they were
laughing at him. His heart beat so that he could hardly
breathe, and he was more frightened than he had ever been
in his life. He stood still stupidly while the boys ran
round him, mimicking and laughing; they shouted to him
to try and catch them; but he did not move. He did not
want them to see him run any more. He was using all his
strength to prevent himself from crying.

Suddenly the bell rang, and they all trooped back to
school. Philip's knee was bleeding, and he was dusty and
dishevelled. For some minutes Mr. Rice could not control
his form. They were excited still by the strange novelty,
and Philip saw one or two of them furtively looking
down at his feet. He tucked them under the bench.

In the afternoon they went up to play football, but Mr.
Watson stopped Philip on the way out after dinner.

"I suppose you can't play football, Carey?" he asked
him.

Philip blushed self-consciously.

"No, sir."

"Very well. You'd better go up to the field. You can
walk as far as that, can't you?"

Philip had no idea where the field was, but he answered
all the same.

46 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

"Yes, sir/-
The boys went in charge of Mr. Rice, who glanced at
Philip and, seeing he had not changed, asked why he was
not going to play.

"Mr. Watson said I needn't, sir," said Philip.

"Why?"

There were boys all round him, looking at him curiously,
and a feeling of shame came over Philip. He looked down
without answering. Others gave the reply.

"He's got a club-foot, sir."

"Oh, I see."

Mr. Rice was quite young; he had only taken his de-
gree a year before; and he was suddenly embarrassed.
His instinct was to beg the boy's pardon, but he was too
shy to do so. He made his voice gruff and loud.

"Now then, you boys, what are you waiting about for?
Get on with you."

Some of them had already started and those that were
left now set off, in groups of two or three.

"You'd better come along with me, Carey," said the
master. "You don't know the way, do you ?"

Philip guessed the kindness, and a sob came to his
throat.

"I can't go very fast, sir."

"Then I'll go very slow," said the master, with a smile.

Philip's heart went out to the red-faced, commonplace
young man who said a gentle word to him. He suddenly
felt less unhappy.

But at night when they went up to bed and were un-
dressing, the boy who was called Singer came out of his
cubicle and put his bead in Philip's.

"I say, let's look at your foot," he said.

"No," answered Philip.

He jumped into bed quickly.

"Don't say no to me," said Singer. "Come on, Mason."

The boy in the next cubicle was looking round the cor-
ner, and at the words he slipped in. They made for Philip
and tried to tear the bed-clothes off him, but he held them
tightly.

"Why can't you leave me alone?" he cried.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 47

Singer seized a brush and with the back of it beat Phil-
ip's hands clenched on the blanket. Philip cried out.

"Why don't you show us your foot quietly ?"

"I won't."

In desperation Philip clenched his fist and hit the boy
who tormented him, but he was at a disadvantage, and
the boy seized his arm. He began to turn it.

"Oh, don't, don't," said Philip. "You'll break my arm."

"Stop still then and put out your foot."

Philip gave a sob and a gasp. The boy gave the arm
another wrench. The pain was unendurable.

"All right. I'll do it," said Philip.

He put out his foot. Singer still kept his hand on Phil
ip's wrist. He looked curiously at the deformity.

"Isn't it beastly?" said Mason.

Another came in and looked too.

"Ugh," he said, in disgust.

"My word, it is rum," said Singer, making a face. "Is it
hard?"

He touched it with the tip of his forefinger, cautiously,
as though it were something that had a life of its own.
Suddenly they heard Mr. Watson's heavy tread on the
stairs. They threw the clothes back on Philip and dashed
like rabbits into their cubicles. Mr. Watson came into the
dormitory. Raising himself on tiptoe he could see over
the rod that bore the green curtain, and he looked into two
or three of the cubicles. The little boys were safely in bed.
He put out the light and went out.

Singer called out to Philip, but he did not answer. He
had got his teeth in the pillow so that his sobbing should
be inaudible. He was not crying for the pain they had
caused him, nor for the humiliation he had suffered when
they looked at his foot, but with rage at himself because,
unable to stand the torture, he had put out his foot of his
own accord.

And then he felt the misery of his life. It seemed to his
childish mind that this unhappiness must go on for ever.
For no particular reason he remembered that cold morn-
ing when Emma had taken him out of bed and put him
beside his mother. He had not thought of it once since it

48 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

'happened, but now he seemed to feel the warmth of his
mother's body against his and her arms around him. Sud-
denly it seemed to him that his life was a dream, his moth-
er's death, and the life at the vicarage, and these two
wretched days at school, and he would awake in the morn-
ing and be back again at home. His tears dried as he
thought of it. He was too unhappy, it must be nothing but
a dream, and his mother was alive, and Emma would
come up presently and go to bed. He fell asleep.

But when he awoke next morning it was to the clanging
of a bell, and the first thing his eyes saw was the green
curtain of his cubicle.

XII

As time went on Philip's deformity ceased to interest.
It was accepted like one boy's red hair and another's un-
reasonable corpulence. But meanwhile he had grown hor-
ribly sensitive. He never ran if he could help it, because
he knew it made his limp more conspicuous, and he
adopted a peculiar walk. He stood still as much as he
could, with his club-foot behind the other, so that it should
not attract notice, and he was constantly on the look out
for any reference to it. Because he could not join in the
games which other boys played, their life remained strange
to him; he only interested himself from the outside in
their doings ; and it seemed to him that there was a barrier
between them and him. Sometimes they seemed to think
that it was his fault if he could not play football, and he
was unable to make them understand. He was left a good
deal to himself. He had been inclined to talkativeness, but
gradually he became silent. He began to think of the differ-
ence between himself and others.

The biggest boy in his dormitory, Singer, took a dislike
to him, and Philip, small for his age, had to put up with a
good deal of hard treatment. About half-way through the
term a mania ran through the school for a game called
Nibs. It was a game for two, played on a table or a form
with steel pens. You had to push your nib with the finger-
nail so as to get the point of it over your opponent's, while
he manoeuvred to prevent this and to get the point of his
nib over the back of yours ; when this result was achieved
you breathed on the ball of your thumb, pressed it hard
on the two nibs, and if you were able then to lift them
without dropping either, both nibs became yours. Soon
nothing was seen but boys playing this game, and the more
skilful acquired vast stores of nibs. But in a little while
Mr. Watson made up his mind that it was a form cf
gambling, forbade the game, and confiscated all the nibs f-v»

49

So OF HUM AN BONDAGE

the boys' possession. Philip had been very adroit, and h
was with a heavy heart that he gave up his winnings ; but
his fingers itched to play still, and a few days later, on his
way to the football field, he went into a shop and bought
a pennyworth of J pens. He carried them loose in hi»
pocket and enjoyed feeling them. Presently Singer found
out that he had them. Singer had given up his nibs too,
but he had kept back a very large one, called a Jumbo,
which was almost unconquerable, and he could not resist
the opportunity of getting Philip's Js out of him. Though
Philip knew that he was at a disadvantage with his small
nibs, he had an adventurous disposition and was willing
to take the risk ; besides, he was aware that Singer would
not allow him to refuse. He had not played for a week
and sat down to the game now with a thrill of excitement.
He lost two of his small nibs quickly, and Singer was
jubilant, but the third time by some chance the Jumbo
slipped round and Philip was able to push his J across it.
He crowed with triumph. At that moment Mr. Watson
-came in.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

He looked from Singer to Philip, but neither answered.

"Don't you know that I've forbidden you to play that
idiotic game?"

Philip's heart beat fast. He knew what was coming and
was dreadfully frightened, but in his fright there was a
certain exultation. He had never been swished. Of course
it would hurt, but it was something to boast about after-
wards.

"Come into my study."

The headmaster turned, and they followed him side by
. Singer whispered to Philip :

"We're in for it."

Mr. Watson pointed to Singer.

"Bend over," he said.

Philip, very white, saw the boy quiver at each stroke,
and after the third he heard him cry out. Three more fol-
lowed.

"That'll do. Get up."

Singer stood up. The tears were streaming down his

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 51

face. Philip stepped forward. Mr. Watson looked at him
for a moment.

"I'm not going to cane you. You're a new boy. And I
can't hit a cripple. Go away, both of you, and don't be
naughty again."

When they got back into the school-room a group of
boys, who had learned in some mysterious way what was
happening, were waiting for them. They set upon Singer
at once with eager questions. Singer faced them, his face
red with the pain and marks of tears still on his cheeks.
He pointed with his head at Philip, who was standing a
little behind him.

"He got off because he's a cripple," he said angrily.

Philip stood silent and flushed. He felt that they looked
at him with contempt.

"How many did you get?" one boy asked Singer.

But he did not answer. He was angry because he had
been hurt.

"Don't ask me to play Nibs with you again," he said
to Philip. "It's jolly nice for you. You don't risk any-
thing."

"I didn't ask you."

"Didn't you !"

He quickly put out his foot and tripped Philip up.
Philip was always rather unsteady on his feet, and he fell
heavily to the ground.

"Cripple," said Singer.

For the rest of the term he tormented Philip cruelly,
and, though Philip tried to keep out of his way, the school
was so small that it was impossible ; he tried being friendly
and jolly with him ; he abased himself so far as to buy him
a knife; but though Singer took the knife he was not
placated. Once or twice, driven beyond endurance, he hit
and kicked the bigger boy, but Singer was so much
stronger that Philip was helpless, and he was always forced
after more or less torture to beg his pardon. It was that
which rankled with Philip : he could not bear the humilia-
tion of apologies, which were wrung from him by pain
greater than he could bear. And what made it worse was
that there seemed no end to his wretchedness ; Singer was

52 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

only eleven and would not go to the upper school till he
was thirteen. Philip realized that he must live two years
with a tormentor from whom there was no escape. He was
only happy while he was working and when he got into
bed. And often there recurred to him then that queer feel-

Ving that his life with all its misery was nothing but a
dream, and that he would awake in the morning in his own
little bed in London.

XIII

Two years passed, and Philip was nearly twelve. He was
in the first form, within two or three places of the top, and
after Christmas when several boys would be leaving for
the senior school he would be head boy. He had already
quite a collection of prizes, worthless books on bad paper,
but in gorgeous bindings decorated with the arms of the
school: his position had freed him from bullying, and he
was not unhappy. His fellows forgave him his success
because of his deformity.

"After all, it's jolly easy for him to get prizes," they
said, "there's nothing he can do but swat."

He had lost his early terror of Mr. Watson. He had
grown used to the loud voice, and when the headmaster's
heavy hand was laid on his shoulder Philip discerned
vaguely the intention of a caress. He had the good memory
which is more useful for scholastic achievements than
mental power, and he knew Mr. Watson expected him to
leave the preparatory school with a scholarship.

But he had grown very self-conscious. The new-born
child does not realise that his body is more a part of him-
self than surrounding objects, and will play with his toes
without any feeling that they belong to him more than the
rattle by his side ; and it is only by degrees, through pain,
that he understands the fact of the body. And experiences
of the same kind are necessary for the individual to be-
come conscious of himself ; but here there is the difference
that, although everyone becomes equally conscious of his
body as a separate and complete organism, everyone does
not become equally conscious of himself as a complete
and separate personality. The feeling of apartness from
others comes to most with puberty, but it is not always
devolped to such a degree as to make the difference be-
tween the individual and his felfows noticeable to the
individual. It is such as he, as little conscious of himself

53

54 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

as the bee in a hive, who are the lucky in life, for they
have the best chance of happiness : their activities are
shared by all, and their pleasures are only pleasures be-
cause they are enjoyed in common ; you will see them on
Whit-Monday dancing on Hampstead Heath, shouting at
a football match, or from club windows in Pall Mall cheer-
ing a royal procession. It is because of them that man has
been called a social animal.

Philip passed from the innocence of childhood to bitter
consciousness of himself by the ridicule which his club-
foot had excited. The circumstances of his case were so pe-
culiar that he could not apply to them the ready-made rules
which acted well enough in ordinary affairs, and he was
forced to think for himself. The many books he had read
rilled his mind with ideas which, because he only half un-
derstood them, gave more scope to his imagination. Be-
neath his painful shyness something was growing up
within him, and obscurely he realised his personality. But
at times it gave him odd surprises ; he did things, he knew
not why, and afterwards when he thought of them found
himself all at sea.

There was a boy called Luard between whom and Philip
a friendship had arisen, and one day, when they were
playing together in the school-room. Luard began to per-
form some trick with an ebony pen-holder of Philip's.

"Don't play the giddy ox," said Philip. "You'll only
break it."

"I shan't."

But no sooner were the words out of the boy's mouth
than the pen-holder snapped in two. Luard looked at
Philip with dismay

"Oh, I say, I'm awfully sorry."

The tears rolled down Philip's cheeks, but he did not
answer.

"I say, what's the matter?" said Luard. with surprise.
"I'll get you another one exactly the same."

"It's not about the pen-holder I care," said Philip, in a
trembling voice, "only it was given me by by mater, just
before she died."

"I say, I'm awfully sorry, Carey."

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 55

"It doesn't matter. It wasn't your fault."

Philip took the two pieces of the pen-holder and looked
at them. He tried to restrain his sobs. He felt utterly mis-
erable. And yet he could not tell why, for he knew quite
well that he had bought the pen-holder during his last holi-
days at Blackstable for one and twopence. He did not
know in the least what had made him invent that pathetic
story, but he was quite as unhappy as though it had been
true. The pious atmosphere of the vicarage and the re-
ligious tone of the school had made Philip's conscience
very sensitive; he absorbed insensibly the feeling about
him that the Tempter was ever on the watch to gain his
immortal soul ; and though he was not more truthful than
most boys he never told a lie without suffering from re-
morse. When he thought over this incident he was very
much distressed, and made up his mind that he must go
to Luard and tell him that the story was an invention.
Though he dreaded humiliation more than anything in the
world, he hugged himself for two or three days at the
thought of the agonising joy of humiliating himself to the
Glory of God. But he never got any further. He satisfied
his conscience by the more comfortable method of ex-
pressing his repentance only to the Almighty. But he could
not understand why he should have been so genuinely
affected by the story he was making up. The tears that
flowed down his grubby cheeks were real tears. Then by
some accident of association there occurred to him that
scene when Emma had told him of his mother's death,
and, though he could not speak for crying, he had insisted
on going in to say good-bye to the Misses Watkin so that
they might see his grief and pity him.

XIV

THEN a wave of religiosity passed through the school.
Bad language was no longer heard, and the little nasti-
nesses of small boys were looked upon with hostility ; the
bigger boys, like the lords temporal of the Middle Ages,
used the strength of their arms to persuade those weaker
than themselves to virtuous courses.

Philip, his restless mind avid for new things, became
very devout. He heard soon that it was possible to join a
Bible League, and wrote to London for particulars. These
consisted in a form to be filled up with the applicant's
name, age, and school; a solemn declaration to be signed
that be would read a set portion of Holy Scripture every
night for a year ; and a request for half a crown ; this, it
was explained, was demanded partly to prove the earnest-
ness of the applicant's desire to become a member of the
League, and partly to cover clerical expenses. Philip duly
sent the papers and the money, and in return received a
calendar worth about a penny, on which was set down
the appointed passage to be read each day, and a sheet of
paper on one side of which was a picture of the Good
Shepherd and a lamb, and on the other, decorative4y
framed in red lines, a short prayer which had to be said
before beginning to read.

Every evening he undressed as quickly as possible in
order to have time for his task before the gas was put out.
He read industriously, as he read always, without criti-
cism, stories of cruelty, deceit, ingratitude, dishonesty, and
low cunning. Actions which would have excited his horror
in the life about him, in the reading passed through his
mind without comment, because they were committed
under direct inspiration of God. The method of the League
was to alternate a book of the Old Testament with a book
of the New, and one night Philip came across these words
of Jesus Christ:

56

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 57

// ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this
which is done to the fig-tree, but also if ye shall say unto
this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the
sea; it shall be done.

And all this, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believ-
ing, ye shall receive.

They made no particular impression on him, but it hap-
pened that two or three days later, being Sunday, the
Canon in residence chose them for the text of his sermon.
Even if Philip had wanted to hear this it would have been
impossible, for the boys of King' School sit in the choir,
and the pulpit stands at the corner of the transept so that
the preacher's back is almost turned to them: The distance
also is so great that it needs a man with a fine voice and
a knowledge of elocution to make himself heard in the
choir; and according to long usage the Canons of Ter-
canbury are chosen for their learning rather than for any
qualities which might be of use in a cathedral church. But
the words of the text, perhaps because he had read them
so short a while before, came clearly enough to Philip's
ears, and they seemed on a sudden to have a personal ap-
plication. He thought about them through most of the
sermon, and that night, on getting into bed, he turned
over the pages of the Gospel and found once more the
passage. Though he believed implicitly everything he saw
in print, he had learned already that in the Bible things
that said one thing quite clearly often mysteriously meant
another. There was no one he liked to ask at school, so
he kept the question he had in mind till the Christmas
holidays, and then one day he made.an opportunity. It was
after supper and prayers were just finished. Mrs. Carey
was counting the eggs that Mary Ann had brought in as
usual and writing on each one the date. Philip stood at
the table and pretended to turn listlessly the pages of the
Bible.

"I say, Uncle William, this passage here, does it really
mean that?"

He put his finger against it as though he had come across
it accidentally.

Mr. Carey looked up over his spectacles. He was holding

SS OF HUMAN BONDAGE

The Blackstable Times in front of the fire. It had come in
that evening damp from the press, and the Vicar always
aired it for ten minutes before he began to read.

"What passage is that ?" he asked.

"Why, this about if you have faith you can remove
mountains."

"If it says so in the Bible it is so, Philip," said Mrs.
Carey gently, taking up the plate-basket.

Philip looked at his uncle for an answer.

"It's a matter of faith."

"D'you mean to say that if you really believed you could
move mountains you could ?"

"By the grace of God," said the Vicar.

"Now, say good-night to your uncle, Philip," said Aunt
Louisa. "You're not wanting to move a mountain tonight,
are you?"

Philip allowed himself to be kissed on the forehead by
his uncle and preceded Mrs. Carey upstairs. He had got
the information he wanted. His little room was icy, and he
shivered when he put on his nightgown. But he always felt
that his prayers were more pleasing to God when he said
them under conditions of discomfort. The coldness of his
hands and feet were an offering to the Almighty. And to-
night he sank on his knees, buried his face in his hands,
and prayed to God with all his might that He would make
his club-foot whole. It was a very small thing beside the
moving of mountains. He knew that God could do it if
He wished, and his own faith was complete. Next morn-
ing, finishing his prayers with the same request, he fixed
a date for the miracle.

"Oh, God, in Thy loving mercy and goodness, if it be
Thy will, please make my foot all right on the night be-
fore I go back to school."

He was glad to get his petition into a formula, and he
repeated it later in the dining-room during the short pause
which the Vicar always made after prayers, before he
rose from his knees. He said it again in the evening and
again, shivering in his nightshirt, before he got into bed.
And he believed. For once he looked forward with eager-
ness to the end of the holidays. He laughed to himself as

OFHUMANBONDAGE 59

he thought of his uncle's astonishment when he ran down
the stairs three at a time ; and after breakfast he and
Aunt Louisa would have to hurry out and buy a new pair
of boots. At school they would be astounded.

"Hulloa, Carey, what have you done with your foot?"

"Oh, it's all right now," he would answer casually, as
though it were the most natural thing in the world.

He would be able to play football. His heart leaped as he
saw himself running, running, faster than any of the other
boys. At the end of the Easter term there were the sports,
and he would be able to go in for the races ; he rather fan-
cied himself over the hurdles. It would be splendid to be
like everyone else, not to be stared at curiously by new
boys who did not know about his deformity, nor at the
baths in summer to need incredible precautions, while he
was undressing, before he could hide his foot in the water.

He prayed with all the power of his soul. No doubts
assailed him. He was confident in the word of God. And
the night before he was to go back to school he went up to
bed tremulous with excitement. There \ras snow on the
ground, and Aunt Louisa had allowed herself the unaccus-
tomed luxury of a fire in her bed-room; but in Philip's
little room it was so cold that his fingers were numb, and
he had great difficulty in undoing his collar. His teeth chat-
tered. The idea came to him that he must do something
more than usual to attract the attention of God, and he
turned back the rug which was in front of his bed so that
he could kneel on the bare boards ; and then it struck him
that his nightshirt was a softness that might displease his
Maker, so he took it off and said his prayers naked. When
he got into bed he was so cold that for some time he could
not sleep, but when he did, it was so soundly that Mary
Ann had to shake him when she brought in his hot water
next morning. She talked to him while she drew the cur-
tains, but he did not answer; he had remembered at once
that this was the morning for the miracle. His heart was
filled with joy and gratitude. His first instinct was to put
down his hand and feel the foot which was whole now,
but to do this seemed to doubt the goodness of God. He
knew that his foot was well. But at last he made up his

60 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

mind, and with the toes of his right foot he just touched
his left. Then he passed his hand over it.

He limped downstairs just as Mary Ann was going into
the dining-room for prayers, and then he sat down to
breakfast.

"You're very quiet this morning, Philip," said Aunt
Louisa presently.

"He's thinking of the good breakfast he'll have at school
to-morrow," said the Vicar.

When Philip answered, it was in a way that always irri-
tated his uncle, with something that had nothing to do with
the matter in hand. He called it a bad habit of wool-
gathering.

"Supposing you'd asked God to do something," said
Philip, "and really believed it was going to happen, like
moving a mountain, I mean, and you had faith, and it
didn't happen, what would it mean?"

"What a funny boy you are !" said Aunt Louisa. "You
asked about moving mountains two or three weeks ago."

"It would just mean that you hadn't got faith," an-
swered Uncle William.

Philip accepted the explanation. If God had not cured
him, it was because he did not really believe. And yet he
did not see how he could believe more than he did. But
perhaps he had not given God enough time. He had only
asked Him for nineteen days. In a day or two he began his
prayer again, and this time he fixed upon Easter. That
was the day of His Son's glorious resurrection, and God
in His happiness might be mercifully inclined. But now
Philip added other means of attaining his desire : he began
to wish, when he saw a new moon or a dappled horse, and
he looked out for shooting stars ; during exeat they had a
chicken at the vicarage, and he broke the lucky bone with
Aunt Louisa and wished again, each time that his foot
might be made whole. He was appealing unconsciously to
gods older to his race than the God of Israel. And he
bombarded the Almighty with his prayer, at odd times of
the day, whenever it occurred to him, in identical words
always, for it seemed to him important to make his re-
quest in the same terms. But presently the feeling came to

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 61

him that this time also his faith would not be great enough.
He could not resist the doubt that assailed him. He made
his own experience into a general rule.

"I suppose no one ever has faith enough," he said.

It was like the salt which his nurse used to tell him
about : you could catch any bird by putting salt on his tail ;
and once he had taken a little bag of it into Kensington
Gardens. But he could never get near enough to put the
salt on a bird's tail. Before Easter he had given up the
struggle. He felt a dull resentment against his uncle for
taking him in. The text which spoke of the moving of
mountains was just one of those that said one thing and
meant another. He thought his uncle had been playing a
practical joke on him.

XV

THE King's School at Tercanbury. to which Philip went
when he was thirteen, prided itself on its antiquity. It
traced its origin to an abbey school, founded before the
Conquest, where the rudiments of learning were taught by
Augustine monks; and, like many another establishment
of this sort, on the destruction of the monasteries it had
been reorganised by the officers of King Henry VIII and
thus acquired its name. Since then, pursuing its modest
course, it had given to the sons of the local gentry and of
the professional people of Kent an education sufficient to
their needs. One or two men of letters, beginning with a
poet, than whom only Shakespeare had a more splendid
genius, and ending with a writer of prose whose view of
life has affected profoundly the generation of which Philip
was a member, had gone forth from its gates to achieve
fame; it had produced one or two eminent lawyers, but
eminent lawyers are common, and one or two soldiers of
distinction ; but during the three centuries since its separa-
tion from the monastic order it had trained especially men
of the church, bishops, deans, canons, and above all conn-
try clergymen: there were boys in the school whose
fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, had been edu-
cated there and had all been rectors of parishes in the dio-
cese of Tercanbury ; and they came to it with their minds
made up already to be ordained. But there were signs not-
withstanding that even there changes were coming; for
a few, repeating what they had heard at home, said that
the Church was no longer what it used to be. It wasn't so
much the money ; but the class of people who went in for
it weren't the same; and two or three boys knew curates
whose fathers were tradesmen: they'd rather go out to
the Colonies (in those days the Colonies were still the
last hope of those who could get nothing to do in Eng-
land) than be a curate under some chap who wasn't a

62

OFHUMANBONDAGE 63

gentleman. At King's School, as at Blackstable Vicarage,
a tradesman was anyone who was not lucky enough to
own land (and here a fine distinction was made between
the gentleman farmer and the landowner), or did not fol-
low one of the four professions to which it was possible
for a gentleman to belong. Among the day-boys, of whom
there were about a hundred and fifty, sons of the local
gentry and of the men stationed at the depot, those whose
fathers were engaged in business were made to feel the
degradation of their state.

The masters had no patience with modern ideas of edu-
cation, which they read of sometimes in The Times or The
Guardian, and hoped fervently that King's School would
remain true to its old traditions. The dead languages were
taught with such thoroughness that an old boy seldom
thought of Homer or Virgil in after life without a qualm
of boredom; and though in the common room at dinner
one or two bolder spirits suggested that mathematics were
of increasing importance, the general feeling was that
they were a less noble study than the classics. Neither
German nor chemistry was taught, and French only by the
form-masters; they could keep order better than a for-
eigner, and, since they knew the grammar as well as any
Frenchman, it seemed unimportant that none of them
could have got a cup of coffee in the restaurant at Bou-
logne unless the waiter had known a little English. Geog-
raphy was taught chiefly by making boys draw maps, and
this was a favourite occupation, especially when the coun-
try dealt with was mountainous : it was possible to waste
a great deal of time in drawing the Andes or the Apen-
nines. The masters, graduates of Oxford or Cambridge,
were ordained and unmarried ; if by chance they wished to
marry they could only do so by accepting one of the
smaller livings at the disposal of the Chapter; but for
many years none of them had cared to leave the refined
society of Tercanbury, which owing to the cavalry depot
had a martial as well as an ecclesiastical tone, for the
monotony of life in a country rectory ; and they were now
ail men of middle age.

The headmaster, on the other hand, was obliged to be

64 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

married, and he conducted the school till age began to tell
upon him. When he retired he was rewarded with a much
better living than any of the under-masters could hope for,
and an honorary Canonry.

But a year before Philip entered the school a great
change had come over it. It had been obvious for some
time that Dr. Fleming, who had been headmaster for the
quarter of a century, was become too deaf to continue his
work to the greater glory of God ; and when one of the
livings on the outskirts of the city fell vacant, with a sti-
pend of six hundred a year, the Chapter offered it to him
in such a manner as to imply that they thought it high
time for him to retire. He could nurse his ailments com-
fortably on such an income. Two or three curates who had
hoped for preferment told their wives it was scandalous
to give a parish that needed a young, strong, and energetic
man to an old fellow who knew nothing of parochial
work, and had feathered his nest already ; but the mutter-
ings of the unbeneficed clergy do not reach the ears of a
cathedral Qiapter. And as Tor the parishioners they had
nothing to say in the matter, and therefore nobody asked
for their opinion. The Wesleyans and the Baptists both
had chapels in the village.

When Dr. Fleming was thus disposed of it became
necessary to find a successor. It was contrary to the tra-
ditions of the school that one of the lower-masters should
be chosen. The common-room was unanimous in desiring
the election of Mr. Watson, headmaster of the prepara-
tory school ; he could hardly be described as already a
master of King's School, they had all known him for
twenty years, and there was no danger that he would make
a nuisance of himself. But the Chapter sprang a surprise
on them. It chose a man called Perkins. At first nobody
knew who Perkins was, and the name favourably im-
pressed no one; but before the shock of it had passed
away, it was realised that Perkins was the son of Perkins
the linendraper. Dr. Fleming informed the masters just
before dinner, and his manner showed his consternation.
Such of them as were dining in, ate their meal almost in
silence, and no reference was made to the matter till the

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 65

servants had left the room. Then they set to. The names
of those present on this occasion are unimportant, but they
had been known to generations of school-boys as Sighs,
Tar, Winks, Squirts, and Pat.

They all knew Tom Perkins. The first thing about him
was that he was not a gentleman. They remembered him
quite well. He was a small, dark boy, with untidy black
hair and large eyes. He looked like a gipsy. He had come
to the school s.s a day-boy, with the best scholarship on
their endowment, so that his education had cost him noth-
ing. Of course he was brilliant. At every Speech-Day he
was loaded with prizes. He was their show-boy, and they
remembered now bitterly their fear that he would try to
get some scholarship at one of the larger public schools
and so pass out of their hands. Dr. Fleming had gone to
the linendraper his father — they all remembered the shop,
Perkins and Cooper, in St. Catherine's Street — and said
he hoped Tom would remain with them till he went to Ox-
ford. The school was Perkins and Cooper's best customer,
and Mr. Perkins was only too glad to give the required
assurance. Tom Perkins continued to triumph, he was the
finest classical scholar that Dr. Fleming remembered, and
on leaving the school took with him the most valuable
scholarship they had to offer. He got another at Magdalen
and settled down to a brilliant career at the University.
The school magazine recorded the distinctions he achieved
year after year, and when he got his double first Dr. Flem-
ing himself wrote a few words of eulogy on the front
page. It was with greater satisfaction that they welcomed
his success, since Perkins and Cooper had fallen upon evil
days : Cooper drank like a fish, and just before Tom Per-
kins took his degree the linendrapers filed their petition in
bankruptcy.

In due course Tom Perkins took Holy Orders and en-
tered upon the profession for which he was so admirably
suited. He had been an assistant master at Wellington and
then at Rugby.

But there was quite a difference between welcoming his
success at other schools and serving under his leadership
in their own. Tar had frequently given him lines, and

66 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

Squirts had boxed his ears. They could not imagine how
the Chapter had made such a mistake. No one could be
expected to forget that he was the son of a bankrupt linen-
draper, and the alcoholism of Cooper seemed to increase
the disgrace. It was understood that the Dean had sup-
ported his candidature with zeal, so the Dean would prob-
ably ask him to dinner ; but would the pleasant little din-
ners in the precincts ever be the same when Tom Perkins
sat at the table? And what about the depot? He really
could not expect officers and gentlemen to receive him as
one of themselves. It would do the school incalculable
harm. Parents would be dissatisfied, and no one could be
surprised if there were wholesale withdrawals. And then
the indignity of calling him Mr. Perkins! The masters
thought by way of protest of sending in their resignations
in a body, but the uneasy fear that they would be accepted
with equanimity restrained them.

"The only thing is to prepare ourselves for changes,"
said Sighs, who had conducted the fifth form for five and
twenty years with unparalleled incompetence.

And when they saw him they were not reassured. Dr.
Fleming invited them to meet him at luncheon. He was
now a man of thirty-two, tall and lean, but with the same
wild and unkempt look they remembered on him as a boy.
His clothes, ill-made and shabby, were put on untidily. His
hair was as black and as long as ever, and he had plainly
never learned to brush it; it fell over his forehead with
every gesture, and he had a quick movement of the hand
with which he pushed it back from his eyes. He had a
black moustache and a beard which came high up on his
face almost to the cheek-bones. He talked to the masters
quite easily, as though he had parted from them a week
or two before ; he was evidently delighted to see them. He
seemed unconscious of the strangeness of the position and
appeared not to notice any oddness in being addressed as
Mr. Perkins.

When he bade them good-bye, one of the masters, for
something to say, remarked that he was allowing himself
plenty of time to catch his train.

OFHUMANBONDAGE 67

"I want to go round and have a look at the shop," he
answered cheerfully.

There was a distinct embarrassment. They wondered
that he could be so tactless, and to make it worse Dr.
Fleming had not heard what he said. His wife shouted i|
in his ear.

"He wants to go round and look at his father's old
shop."

Only Tom Perkins was unconscious of the humiliation
which the whole party felt. He turned to Mrs. Fleming.
"Who's got it now, d'you know?"
She could hardly answer. She was very angry.
"It's still a linendraper's," she said bitterly. "Grove is
the name. We don't deal there any more."
"I wonder if he'd let me go over the house."
"I expect he would if you explain who you are."
It was not till the end of dinner that evening that any
reference was made in the common-room to the subject
that was in all their minds. Then it was Sighs who asked i
"Well, what did you think of our new head?"
They thought of the conversation at luncheon. It was
hardly a conversation; it was a monologue. Perkins had
talked incessantly. He talked very quickly, with a flow oi
easy words and in a deep, resonant voice. He had a short,
odd little laugh which showed his white teeth. They had
followed him with difficulty, for his mind darted from
subject to subject with a connection they did not always,
catch. He talked of pedagogics, and this was natural
enough; but he had much to say of modern theories in
Germany which they had never heard of and received
with misgiving. He talked of the classics, but he had been
to Greece, and he discoursed of archaeology; he had once
spent a winter digging ; they could not see how that helped
a man to teach boys to pass examinations. He talked of
politics. It sounded odd to them to hear him compare Lord
Beaconsfield with Alcibiades. He talked of Mr. Gladstone
and Home Rule. They realised that he was a Liberal.
Their hearts sank. He talked of German philosophy and
of French fiction. They could not think a man profound
whose interests were so diverse.

68 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

It was Winks who summed up the general impression
and put it into a form they all felt conclusively damning.
Winks was the master of the upper third, a weak-kneed
man with drooping eyelids. He was too tall for his
strength, and his movements were slow and languid. He
gave an impression of lassitude, and his nickname was
eminently appropriate.

"He's very enthusiastic," said Winks.

Enthusiasm was ill-bred. Enthusiasm was ungentle-
manly. They thought of the Salvation Army with its bray-
ing trumpets and its drums. Enthusiasm meant change.
They had goose-flesh when they thought of all the pleasant
old habits which stood in imminent danger. They hardly
dared to look forward to the future.

"He looks mote of a gipsy than ever," said one, after a
pause.

"I wonder if the Oean and Chapter knew that he was a
Radical when they elected him," another observed bitterly.

But conversation halted. They were too much disturbed
for words.

When Tar and Sighs were walking together to the
Chapter House on Speech-Day a week later, Tar, who had
a bitter tongue, remarked to his colleague :

"Well, we've seen a good many Speech-Days here,
haven't we? I wonder if we shall see another."

Sighs was more melancholy even than usual.

"If anything worth having comes along in the way of a
living I don't mind when I retire."

XVI

A YEAR passed, and when Philip came to the school the
old masters were all in their places; but a good many
changes had taken place notwithstanding their stubborn
resistance, none the less formidable because it was con-
cealed under an apparent desire to fall in with the new
head's ideas. Though the form-masters still taught French
to the lower school, another master had come, with a de-
gree of doctor of philology from the University of Heidel-
berg and a record of three years spent in a French lycee,
to teach French to the upper forms and German to any-
one who cared to take it up instead of Greek. Another
master was engaged to teach mathematics more systemati-
cally than had been found necessary hitherto. Neither of
these was ordained. This was a real revolution, and when
the pair arrived the older masters received them with dis-
trust. A laboratory had been fitted up, army classes were
instituted ; they ail said the character of the school was
changing. And heaven only knew what further projects
Mr. Perkins turned in that untidy head of his. The school
was small as public schools go, there were not more than
two hundred boarders ; and it was difficult for it to grow
larger, for it was huddled up against the Cathedral; the
precincts, with the exception of a house in which some of
the masters lodged, were occupied by the cathedral clergy ;
and there was no more room for building. But Mr. Per-
kins devised an elaborate scheme by which he might ob-
tain sufficient space to make the school double its present
si/e. He wanted to attract boys from London. He thought
it? would be good for them to be thrown in contact with the
Kentish lads, and it would sharpen the country wits of
Ifiese.

EJ "It's against all our traditions," said Sighs, when Mr.
e'erkins made the suggestion to him. "We've rather gone

69

7o OF HUM AN BONDAGE

out of our way to avoid the contamination of boys from
London."

"Oh, what nonsense !" said Mr. Perkins.

X<> one had ever told the form-master before that he
talked nonsense, and he was meditating an acid reply, in
which perhaps he might insert a veiled reference to
hosiery, when Mr. Perkins in his impetuous way attacked
him outrageously.

"That house in the Precincts — if you'd only marry I'd
get the Chapter to put another couple of stories on, and
we'd make dormitories and studies, and your wife could
help you."

The elderly clergyman gasped. Why should he marry?
He was fifty-seven, a man couldn't marry at fifty-seven.
He couldn't start looking after a house at his time of
life. He didn't want to marry. If the choice lay between
that and the country living he would much sooner resign.
All he wanted now was peace and quietness.

"I'm not thinking of marrying," he said.

Mr. Perkins looked at him with his dark, bright eyes,
and if there was a twinkle in them poor Sighs never saw
it.

"What a pity! Couldn't you marry to oblige me? It
would help me a great deal with the Dean and Chapter
when I suggest rebuilding your house."

But Mr. Perkins' most unpopular innovation was his
system of taking occasionally another man's form. He
asked it as a favour, but after all it was a favour which
could not be refused, and as Tar, otherwise Mr. Turner,
said, it was undignified for all parties. He gave no warn-
ing, but after morning prayers would say to one of the
masters :

"I wonder if you'd mind taking the Sixth today at
eleven. We'll change over, shall we?"

They did not know whether this was usual at other
schools, but certainly it had never been done at Tercap-
bury. The results were curious. Mr. Turner, who was *$
first victim, broke the news to his form that the he fl
master would take them for Latin that day, and on
oretence that they might like to ask him a question or f

OFHUMANBONDAGE 71

so that they should not make perfect fools of themselves,
spent the last quarter of an hour of the history lesson
in construing for them the passage of Livy which had been
set for the day; but when he rejoined his class and looked
at the paper on which Mr. Perkins had written the marks,
a surprise awaited him ; for the two boys at the top of the
form seemed to have done very ill, while others who had
never distinguished themselves before were given full
marks. When he asked Eldridge, his cleverest boy, what
was the meaning of this the answer came sullenly :

"Mr. Perkins never gave us any construing to do. He
asked me what I knew about General Gordon."

Mr. Turner looked at him in astonishment. The boys
evidently felt they had been hardly used, and he could not
help agreeing with their silent dissatisfaction. He could
not see either what General Gordon had to do with Livy.
He hazarded an enquiry afterwards.

"Eldridge was dreadfully put out because you asked him
what he knew about General Gordon," he said to the head-
master, with an attempt at a chuckle.

Mr. Perkins laughed.

"I saw they'd got to the agrarian laws of Caius Grac-
chus, and I wondered if they knew anything about the
agrarian troubles in Ireland. But all they knew aboul
Ireland was that Dublin was on the Liffey. So I won-
dered if they'd ever heard of General Gordon."

Then the horrid fact was disclosed that the new head
had a mania for general information. He had doubts about
the utility of examinations on subjects which had been
crammed for the occasion. He wanted common sense.

Sighs grew more worried every month; he could not
get the thought out of his head that Mr. Perkins would
ask him to fix a day for his marriage; and he hated the
attitude the head adopted towards classical literature.
There was no doubt that he was a fine scholar, and he
was engaged on a work which was quite in the right
tradition : he was writing a treatise on the trees in Latin
literature ; but he talked of it flippantly, as though it were
a pastime of no great importance, like billiards, which
engaged his leisure but was not to be considered with seri-

72 OF HUM AN BOND AGE

ousness. And Squirts, the master of the middle-third,
grew more ill-tempered every day.

It was in his form that Philip was put on entering the
school. The Rev. B. B. Gordrn was a man by nature ill-
suited to be a schoolmaster : he was impatient and choleric.
With no one to call him to account, with only small boys
to face him, he had long lost all power of self-control. He
began his work in a rage and ended it in a passion. He was
a man of middle height and of a corpulent figure ; he had
sandy hair, worn very short and now growing gray, and a
small bristly moustache. His large face, with indistinct
features and small blue eyes, was naturally red, but during
his frequent attacks of anger it grew dark and purple. His
nails were bitten to the quick, for while some trembling
boy was construing he would sit at his desk shaking with
the fury that consumed him, and gnaw his fingers. Stories,
perhaps exaggerated, were told of his violence, and two
years before there had been some excitement in the school
when it was heard that one father was threatening a prose-
cution: he had boxed the ears of a boy named Walters
with a book so violently that his hearing was affected and
the boy had to be taken away from the school. The boy's
father lived in Tercanbury, and there had been much indig-
nation in the city, the local paper had referred to the
matter ; but Mr. Walters was only a brewer, so the sym-
pathy was divided. The rest of the boys, for reasons best
known to themselves, though they loathed the master, took
his side in the affair, and, to show their indignation that
the school's business had been dealt with outside, made
things as uncomfortable as they could for Walters'
younger brother, who still remained. But Mr. Gordon had
only escaped the country living by the skin of his teeth,
and he had never hit a boy since. The right the masters
possessed to cane boys on the hand was taken away from
them, and Squirts could no longer emphasize his anger by
beating his desk with the cane. He never did more now
than take a boy by the shoulders and shake him. He still
made a naughty or refractory lad stand with one arm
stretched out for anything from ten minutes to half an
hour, and he was as violent as before with his tongue.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 73

No master could hare been more unfitted to teach things
to so shy a boy as Philip. He had come to the school with
fewer terrors than he had when first he went to Mr.
Watson's. He knew a good many boys who had been with
him at the preparatory school. He felt more grown-up, and
instinctively realised that among the larger numbers his
deformity would be less noticeable. But from the first day
Mr. Gordon struck terror in his heart; and the master,
quick to discern the boys who were frightened of him,
seemed on that account to take a peculiar dislike to him.
Philip had enjoyed his work, but now he began to look
upon the hours passed in school with horror. Rather than
risk an answer which might be wrong and excite a storm
of abuse from the master, he would sit stupidly silent, and
when it came towards his turn to stand up and construe he
grew sick and white with apprehension. His happy mo-
ments were those when Mr. Perkins took the form. He
was able to gratify the passion for general knowledge
which beset the headmaster; he had read all sorts of
strange books beyond his years, and often Mr. Perkins,
when a question was going round the room, would stop
at Philip with a smile that filled the boy with rapture, and
say:

"Now, Carey, you tell them."

The good marks he got on these occasions increased Mr.
Gordon's indignation. One day it came to Philip's turn
to translate, and the master sat there glaring at him and
furiously biting his thumb. He was in a ferocious mood.
Philip began to speak in a low voice.

"Don't mumble," shouted the master.

Something seemed to stick in Philip's throat.

"Go on. Go on. Go on."

Each time the words were screamed more loudly. The
effect was to drive all he knew out of Philip's head, and
he looked at the printed page vacantly. Mr. Gordon began
to breathe heavily.

"If you don't know why don't you say so? Do you
know it or not? Did you hear all this construed last time
or not? Why don't you speak? Speak, you blockhead,
speak !"

74 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

The master seized the arms of his chair and grasped
them as though to prevent himself from falling upon
Philip. They knew that in past days he often used to seize
boys by the throat till they almost choked. The veins in
his forehead stood out and his face grew dark and threat-
ening. He was a man insane.

Philip had known the passage perfectly the day before,
but now he could remember nothing.

"I don't know it," he gasped.

"Why don't you know it? Let's take the words one by
one. We'll soon see if you don't know it."

Philip stood silent, very white, trembling a little, with
his head bent down on the book. The master's breathing
grew almost stertorous.

"The headmaster says you're clever. I don't know how
lie sees it. General information." He laughed savagely. "I
don't know what they put you in this form for. Block-
head."

He was pleased with the word, and he repeated it at
the top of his voice.

"Blockhead! Blockhead! Club-footed blockhead!"

That relieved him a little. He saw Philip redden sud-
denly. He told him to fetch the Black Book. Philip put
down his Caesar and went silently out. The Black Book
was a sombre volume in which the names of boys were
written with their misdeeds, and when a name was down
three times it meant a caning. Philip went to the head-
master's house and knocked at his study-door. Mr. Per-
kins was seated at his table.

"May I have the Black Book, please, sir."

"There it is," answered Mr. Perkins, indicating its
place by a nod of his head. "What have you been doing
that you shouldn't?"

"I don't know, sir."

Mr. Perkins gave him a quick look, but without answer-
ing went on with his work. Philip took the book and went
out. When the hour was up, a few minutes later, he
brought it back.

"Let me have a look at it," said the headmaster. "I see

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 75

Mr. Gordon has black-booked you for 'gross imperti-
nence.' What was it?"

"I don't know, sir. Mr. Gordon said I was a club-footed
blockhead."

Mr. Perkins looked at him again. He wondered whether
there was sarcasm behind the boy's reply, but he was still
much too shaken. His face was white and his eyes had a
look of terrified distress. Mr. Perkins got up and put the
book down. As he did so he took up some photographs.

"A friend of mine sent me some pictures of Athens
this morning," he said casually. "Look here, there's the
Akropolis."

He began explaining to Philip what he saw. The ruin
grew vivid with his words. He showed him the theatre of
Dionysus and explained in what order the people sat, and
how beyond they could see the blue Aegean. And then
suddenly he said :

"I remember Mr. Gordon used to call me a gipsy
counter-jumper when I was in his form."

And before Philip, his mind fixed on the photographs,
had time to gather the meaning of the remark, Mr. Per-
kins was showing him a picture of Salamis, and with his
finger, a finger of which the nail had a little black edge to
it, was pointing out how the Greek ships were placed and
how the Persian.

XVII

PHILIP passed the next two years with comfortable
monotony. He was not bullied more than other boys of his
size; and his deformity, withdrawing him from games,
acquired for him an insignificance for which he was grate-
ful. He was not popular, and he was very lonely. He spent
a couple of terms with Winks in the Upper Third. Winks,
with his weary manner and his drooping eyelids, looked
infinitely bored. He did his duty, but he did it with an
abstracted mind. He was kind, gentle, and foolish. He had
a great belief in the honour of boys ; he felt that the first
thing to make them truthful was not to let it enter your
head for a moment that it was possible for them to lie.
"Ask much," he quoted, "and much shall be given to you."
Life was easy in the Upper Third. You knew exactly
what lines would come to your turn to construe, and
with the crib that passed from hand to hand you could
find out all you wanted in two minutes ; you could hold a
Latin Grammar open on your knees while questions were
passing round ; and Winks never noticed anything odd in
the fact that the same incredible mistake was to be found
in a dozen different exercises. He had no great faith in
examinations, for he noticed that boys never did so well
in them as in form : it was disappointing, but not signifi-
cant. In due course they were moved up, having learned
little but a cheerful effrontery in the distortion of truth,
which was possibly of greater service to them in after
life than an ability to read Latin at sight.

Then they fell into the hands of Tar. His name was
Turner; he was the most vivacious of the old masters, a
short man with an immense belly, a black beard turning
now to gray, and a swarthy skin. In his clerical dress there
was indeed something in him to suggest the tar-barrel;
and though on principle he gave five hundred lines to any
boy on whose lips he overheard his nickname, at dinner-

76

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 77

oarties in the precincts he often made little jokes about it.
He was the most worldly of the masters; he dined out
more frequently than any of the others, and the society
he kept was not so exclusively clerical. The boys looked
upon him as rather a dog. He left off his clerical attire
during the holidays and had been seen in Switzerland in
gay tweeds. He liked a bottle of wine and a good dinner,
and having once been seen at the Cafe Royal with a lady
who was very probably a near relation, was thenceforward
supposed by generations of school-boys to indulge in orgies
the circumstantial details of which pointed to an un-
bounded belief in human depravity.

Mr. Turner reckoned that it took him a term to lick
boys into shape after they had been in the Upper Third ;
and now and then he let fall a sly hint, which showed that
he knew perfectly what went on in his colleague's form.
He took it good-humouredly. He looked upon boys as
young ruffians who were more apt to be truthful if it
was quite certain a lie would be found out, whose sense of
honour was peculiar to themselves and did not apply to
dealings with masters, and who were least likely to be
troublesome when they learned that it did not pay. He was
proud of his form and as eager at fifty-five that it should
do better in examinations than any of the others as he
had been when he first came to the school. He had the
choler of the obese, easily roused and as easily calmed,
and his boys soon discovered that there was much kindli-
ness beneath the invective with which he constantly
assailed them. He had no patience with fools, but was will-
ing to take much trouble with boys whom he suspected
of concealing intelligence behind their wilfulness. He was
fond of inviting them to tea; and, though vowing they
never got a look in with him at the cakes and muffins, for
it was the fashion to believe that his corpulence pointed to
a voracious appetite, and his voracious appetite to tape-
worms, they accepted his invitations with real pleasure.

Philip was now more comfortable, for space was so
limited that there were only studies for boys in the upper
school, and till then he had lived in the great hall in which
they all ate and in which the lower forms did preparation

78 O F H U M A N B O N D A G E

in a promiscuity which was vaguely distasteful to him.
Now and then it made him restless to be with people and
he wanted urgently to be alone. He set out for solitary
walks into the country. There was a little stream, with
pollards on both sides of it, that ran through green fields,
and it made him happy, he knew not why, to wander along
its banks. When he was tired he lay face-downward on
the grass and watched the eager scurrying of minnows and
of tadpoles. It gave him a peculiar satisfaction to saunter
round the precincts. On the green in the middle they prac-
tised at nets in the summer, but during the rest of the year
it was quiet : boys used to wander round sometimes arm
in arm, or a studious fellow with abstracted gaze walked
slowly, repeating to himself something he had to learn by
heart. There was a colony of rooks in the great elms, and
they filled the air with melancholy cries. Along one side
lay the Cathedral with its great central tower, and Philip,
who knew as yet nothing of beauty, felt when he looked
at it a troubling delight which he could not understand.
When he had a study (it was a little square room looking
on a slum, and four boys shared it), he bought a photo-
graph of that view of the Cathedral, and pinned it up over
his desk. And he found himself taking a new interest in
what he saw from the window of the Fourth Form room.
It looked on to old lawns, carefully tended, and fine trees
with foliage dense and rich. It gave him an odd feeling
in his heart, and he did not know if it was pain or pleas-
ure. It was the first dawn of the aesthetic emotion. It
accompanied other changes. His voice broke. It was no
longer quite under his control, and queer sounds issued
from his throat.

Then he began to go to the classes which were held in
the headmaster's study, immediately after tea, to prepare
boys for confirmation. Philip's piety had not stood the test
of time, and he had long since g:ven up his nightly read-
ing of the Bible ; but now, under the influence of Mr. Per-
kins, with this new condition of the body which made
him so restless, his old feelings revived, and he reproached
nimself bitterly for his backsliding. The fires of Hell
burned fiercely before his mind's eye. If he had died dur-

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 79

ing that time when he was little better than an infidel he
would have been lost ; he believed implicitly in pain ever-
lasting, he believed in it much more than in eternal hap-
piness; and he shuddered at the dangers he had run.

Since the day on which Mr. Perkins had spoken kindly
to him, when he was smarting under the particular form
of abuse which he could least bear, Philip had conceived
for hi3 headmaster a dog-like adoration. He racked his
brains vainly for some way to please him. He treasured
the smallest word of commendation which by chance fell
from his lips. And when he came to the quiet little meet-
ings in his house he was prepared to surrender himself
entirely. He kept his eyes fixed on Mr. Perkins' shining
eyes, and sat with mouth half open, his head a little thrown
forward so as to miss no word. The ordinariness of the
surroundings made the matters they dealt with extraor-
dinarily moving. And often the master, seized himself
by the wonder of his subject, would push back the book
in front of him, and with his hands clasped together over
his heart, as though to still the beating, would talk of the
mysteries of their religion. Sometimes Philip did not un-
derstand, but he did not want to understand, he felt
vaguely that it was enough to feel. It seemed to him then
that the headmaster, with his black, straggling hair and his
pale face, was like those prophets of Israel who feared not
to take kings to task; and when he thought of the Re-
deemer he saw Him only with the same dark eyes and
those wan cheeks.

Mr. Perkins took this part of his work with great seri'
ousness. There was never here any of that flashing humouf
which made the other masters suspect him of flippancy.
Finding time for everything in his busy day, he was able
at certain intervals to take separately for a quarter of an
hour or twenty minutes the boys whom he was preparing
for confirmation. He wanted to make them feel that this
was the first consciously serious step in their lives ; he tried
to grope into the depths of their souls ; he wanted to instil
in them his own vehement devotion. In Philip, notwith-
standing his shyness, he felt the possibility of a passion
equal to his own. The boy's temperament seemed to him

8o OFHUMANBONDAGE

essentially religious. One day he broke off suddenly from
the subject on which he had been talking.

"Have you thought at all what you're going to be when
you grow up?" he asked.

"My uncle wants me to be ordained," said Philip.

"And you?"

Philip looked away. He was ashamed to answer that he
felt himself unworthy.

"I don't know any life that's so full of happiness as
ours. I wish I could make you feel what a wonderful
privilege it is. One can serve God in every walk, but we
stand nearer to Him. I don't want to influence you, but if
you made up your mind — oh, at once — you couldn't help
feeling that joy and relief which never desert one again."

Philip did not answer, but the headmaster read in his
eyes that he realised already something of what he tried
to indicate.

"If you go on as you are now you'll find yourself head
of the school one of these days, and you ought to be pretty
safe for a scholarship when you leave. Have you got any-
thing of your own?"

"My uncle says I shall have a hundred a year when I'm
twenty-one."

"You'll be rich. I had nothing."

The headmaster hesitated a moment, and then, idly
drawing lines with a pencil on the blotting paper in front
of him, went on.

"I'm afraid your choice of professions will be rather
limited. You naturally couldn't go in for anything that
required physical activity."

Philip reddened to the roots of his hair, as he always
did when any reference was made to his club-foot. Mr.
Perkins looked at him gravely.

"I wonder if you're not oversensitive about your mis-
fortune. Has it ever struck you to thank God for it?"

Philip looked up quickly. His lips tightened. He remem-
bered how for months, trusting in what they told him, he
had implored God to heal him as He had healed the Leper
and made the Blind to see.

"As long as you accept it rebelliously it can only cause

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 81

you shame. But if you looked upon it as a cross that was
given you to bear only because your shoulders were strong
enough to bear it, a sign of God's favour, then it would
be a source of happiness to you instead of misery."

He saw that the boy hated to discuss the matter and he
let him go.

But Philip thought over all that the headmaster had
said, and presently, his mind taken up entirely with the
ceremony that was before him, a mystical rapture seized
him. His spirit seemed to free itself from the bonds of the
flesh and he seemed to be living a new life. He aspired
to perfection with all the passion that was in him. He
wanted to surrender himself entirely to the service of God,
and he made up his mind definitely that he would be or-
dained. When the great day arrived, his soul deeply moved
by all the preparation, by the books he had studied and
above all by the overwhelming influence of the head, he
could hardly contain himself for fear and joy. One thought
had tormented him. He knew that he would have to walk
alone through the chancel, and he dreaded showing his
limp thus obviously, not only to the whole school, who
were attending the service, but also to the strangers, peo-
ple from the city or parents who had come to see their
sons confirmed. But when the time came he felt sud-
denly that he could accept the humiliation joyfully ; and as
he limped up the chancel, very small and insignificant be-
neath the lofty vaulting of the Cathedral, he offered con-
sciously his deformity as a sacrifice to the God who loved
him.

XVIII

Bur Philip could not live long in the rarefied air of the
hilltops. What had happened to him when first he was
seized by the religious emotion happened to him now. Be-
cause he felt so keenly the beauty of faith, because the
desire for self-sacrifice burned in his heart with such a
gem-like glow, his strength seemed inadequate to his am-
bition. He was tired out by the violence of his passion.
His soul was filled on a sudden with a singular aridity. He
began to forget the presence of God which had seemed
so surrounding; and his religious exercises, still very
punctually performed, grew merely formal. At first he
blamed himself for this falling away, and the fear of hell-
fire urged him to renewed vehemence ; but the passion was
dead, and gradually other interests distracted his thoughts.

Philip had few friends. His habit of reading isolated
him: it became such a need that after being in company
for some time he grew tired and restless ; he was vain of
the wider knowledge he had acquired from the perusal of
so many books, his mind was alert, and he had not the skill
to hide his contempt for his companions' stupidity. They
complained that he was conceited; and, since he excelled
only in matters which to them were unimportant, they
asked satirically what he had to be conceited about. He
was developing a sense of humour, and found that he had
a knack of saying bitter things, which caught people on
the raw; he said them because they amused him, hardly
realising how much they hurt, and was much offended
when he found that his victims regarded him with active
dislike. The humiliations he suffered when first he went to
school had caused in him a shrinking from his fellows
which he could never entirely overcome ; he remained shy
and silent. But though he did everything to alienate the
sympathy of other boys he longed with all his heart for
the popularity which to some was so easily accorded. These

. 82

OFHUMANBONDAGE 83

from his distance he admired extravagantly; and though
he was inclined to be more sarcastic with them than with
others, though he made little jokes at their expense, he
would have given anything to change places with them.
Indeed he would gladly have changed places with the dull-
est boy in the school who was whole of limb. He took to
a singular habit. He would imagine that he was some boy
whom he had a particular fancy for ; he would throw his
soul, as it were, into the other's body, talk with his voice
and laugh with his heart ; he would imagine himself doing
all the things the other did. It was so vivid that he seemed
for a moment really to be no longer himself. In this way
he enjoyed many intervals of fantastic happiness.

At the beginning of the Christmas term which followed
on his confirmation Philip found himself moved into an-
other study. One of the boys who shared it was called
Rose. He was in the same form as Philip, and Philip had
always looked upon him with envious admiration. He was
not good-looking; though his large hands and big bones
suggested that he would be a tall man, he was clumsily
made; but his eyes were charming, and when he laughed
(he was constantly laughing) his face wrinkled all round
them in a jolly way. He was neither clever nor stupid, but
good enough at his work and better at games. He was a
favourite with masters and boys, and he in his turn liked
everyone.

When Philip was put in the study he could not help
seeing that the others, who had been together for three
terms, welcomed him coldly. It made him nervous to feel
himself an intruder ; but he had learned to hide his feel-
ings, and they found him quiet and unobtrusive. With
Rose, because he was as little able as anyone else to resist
his charm, Philip was even more than usually shy and
abrupt ; and whether on account of this, unconsciously
bent upon exerting the fascination he knew was his only
by the results, or whether from sheer kindness of heart,
it was Rose who first took Philip into the circle. One day,
quite suddenly, he asked Philip if he would walk to the
football field with him. Philip flushed.

"I can't walk fast enough for you," he said.

84 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

"Rot. Come on."

And just before they were setting out some boy put hia
head in the study-door and asked Rose to go with him.

"I can't," he answered. "I've already promised Carey."

"Don't bother about me," said Philip quickly. "I shan't
mind."

"Rot," said Rose.

He looked at Philip with those good-natured eyes of
his and laughed. Philip felt a curious tremor in his heart.

In a little while, their friendship growing with boyish
rapidity, the pair were inseparable. Other fellows won-
dered at the sudden intimacy, and Rose was asked what
he saw in Philip.

"Oh, I don't know," he answered. "He's not half a bad
chap really."

Soon they grew accustomed to the two walking into
chapel arm in arm or strolling round the precincts in con-
versation ; wherever one was the other could be found also,
and, as though acknowledging his proprietorship^boys who
wanted Rose would leavt messages with Carey. Philip at
first was reserved. He would not let himself yield entirely
to the proud joy that filled him ; but presently his distrust
of the fates gave way before a wild happiness. He thought
Rose the most wonderful fellow he had ever seen. His
books now were insignificant; he could not bother about
them when there was something infinitely more important
to occupy him. Rose's friends used to come in to tea in the
study sometimes or sit about when there was nothing bet-
ter to do — Rose liked a crowd and the chance of a rag —
and they found that Philip was quite a decent fellow.
Philip was happy.

When the last day of term came he and Rose arranged
by which train they should come back, so that they might
meet at the station and have tea in the town before return-
ing to school. Philip went home with a heavy heart. He
thought of Rose all through the holidays, and his fancy
was active with the things they would do together next
term. He was bored at the vicarage, and when on the last
day his uncle put him the usual question in the usual faceti-
ous tone :

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 83

"Well, are you glad to be going back to school?"

Philip answered joyfully:

"Rather."

In order to be sure of meeting Rose at the station he
took an earlier train than he usually did, and he waited
about the platform for an hour. When the train came in
from Faversham, where he knew Rose had to change, he
ran along it excitedly. But Rose was not there. He got a
porter to tell him when another train was due, and he
waited ; but again he was disappointed ; and he was cold
and hungry, so he walked, through side-streets and slums,
by a short cut to the school. He found Rose in the study,
with his feet on the chimney-piece, talking eighteen to the
dozen with half a dozen boys who were sitting on what-
ever there was to sit on. He shook hands with Philip en-
thusiastically, but Philip's face fell, for he realised that
Rose had forgotten all about their appointment.

"I say, why are you so late ?" said Rose. "I thought you
were never coming."

"You were at the station at half-past four," said an-
other boy. "I saw you when I came."

Philip blushed a little. He did not want Rose to know
that he had been such a fool as to wait for him.

"I had to see about a friend of my people's," he in-
vented readily. "I was asked to see her off."

But his disappointment made him a little sulky. He sat
in silence, and when spoken to answered in monosyllables.
He was making up his mind to have it out with Rose when
they were alone. But when the others had gone Rose at
once came over and sat on the arm of the chair in which
Philip was lounging.

"I say, I'm jolly glad we're in the same study this term.
Ripping, isn't it?"

He seemed so genuinely pleased to see Philip that
Philip's annoyance vanished. They began as if they had
not been separated for five minutes to talk eagerly of the
thousand things that interested them.

XIX

AT first Philip had been too grateful for Rose's friend-
ship to make any demands on him. He took things as they
came and enjoyed life. But presently he began to resent
Rose's universal amiability; he wanted a more exclusive
attachment, and he claimed as a right what before he had
accepted as a favour. He watched jealously Rose's com-
panionship with others ; and though he knew it was un-
reasonable could not help sometimes saying bitter things
to him. If Rose spent an hour playing the fool in another
study, Philip would receive him when he returned to his
own with a sullen frown. He would sulk for a day, and
he suffered more because Rose either did not notice hi3
ill-humour or deliberately ignored it. Not seldom Philip,
knowing all the time how stupid he was, would force a
quarrel, and they would not speak to one another for a
coupla of days. But Philip could not bear to be angry with
him long, and even when convinced that he was in the
right, would apologise humbly. Then for a week they
would be as great friends as ever. But the best was over,
and Philip could see that Rose often walked with him
merely from old habit or from fear of his anger ; they had
not so much to say to one another as at first, and Rose
was often bored. Philip felt that his lameness began to
irritate him.

Towards the end of the term two or three boys caught
scarlet fever, and there was much talk of sending them all
home in order to escape an epidemic; but the sufferers
were isolated, and since no more were attacked it was sup-
posed that the outbreak was stopped. One of the stricken
was Philip. He remained in hospital through the Easter
holidays, and at the beginning of the summer term was
sent home to the vicarage to get a little fresh air. The
Vicar, notwithstanding medical assurance that the boy was
no longer infectious, received him with suspicion ; he

86

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 87

thought it very inconsiderate of the doctor to suggest that
his nephew's convalescence should be spent by the sea-
side, and consented to have him in the house only because
there was nowhere else he could go.

Philip went back to school at half-term. He had forgot-
ten the quarrels he had had with Rose, but remembered
only that he was his greatest friend. He knew that he had
been silly. He made up his mind to be more reasonable.
During his illness Rose had sent him in a couple of little
notes, and he had ended each with the words : "Hurry up
and come back." Philip thought Rose must be looking
forward as much to his return as he was himself to seeing
Rose.

He found that owing to the death from scarlet fever of
one of the boys in the Sixth there had been some shifting
in the studies and Rose was no longer in his. It was a bit-
ter disappointment. But as soon as he arrived he burst into
Rose's study. Rose was sitting at his desk, working with
a boy called Hunter, and turned round crossly as Philip
came in.

"Who the devil's that?" he cried. And then, seeing
Philip: "Oh, it's you."

Philip stopped in embarrassment.

"I thought I'd come in and see how you were."

"We were just working."

Hunter broke into the conversation.

"When did you get back?"

"Five minutes ago."

They sat and looked at him as though he was disturbing
them. They evidently expected him to go quickly. Philip
reddened.

"I'll be off. You might look in when you've done," he
said to Rose.

"All right."

Philip closed the door behind, him and limped back to
his own study. He felt frightfully hurt. Rose, far from
seeming glad to see him, had looked almost put out. They
might never have been more than acquaintances. Though
he waited in his study, not leaving it for a moment in case
just then Rose should come, his friend never appeared;

88 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

and next morning when he went into prayers he saw
Rose and Hunter swinging along arm in arm. What he
could not see for himself others told him. He had for-
gotten that three months is a long time in a school-boy's
life, and though he had passed them in solitude Rose had
lived in the world. Hunter had stepped into the vacant
place. Philip found that Rose was quietly avoiding him.
But he was not the boy to accept a situation without put-
ting it into words; he waited till he was sure Rose was
alone in his study and went in.

"May I come in?" he asked.

Rose looked at him with an embarrassment that made
him angry with Philip.

"Yes, if you want to."

"It's very kind of you," said Philip sarcastically.

" What d'you want?"

"I say, why have you been so rotten since I came back ?"

"Oh, don't be an ass," said Rose.

"I don't know what you see in Hunter."

"That's my business."

Philip looked down. He could not bring himself to say
what was in his heart He was afraid of humiliating him-
self. Rose got up.

"I've got to go to the Gym," he said.

When he was at the door Philip forced himself to speak.

"I say, Rose, don't be a perfect beast."

"Oh, go to hell."

Rose slammed the door behind him and left Philip
alone. Philip shivered with rage. He went back to his
study and turned the conversation over in his mind. He
hated Rose now, he wanted to hurt him, he thought of
biting things he might have said to him. He brooded over
the end to their friendship and fancied that others were
talking of it. In his sensitiveness he saw sneers and won-
derings in other fellows' manner when they were not
bothering their heads with him at all. He imagined to
himself what they were saying.

"After all, it wasn't likely to last long. I wonder he ever
stuck Carey at all. Blighter !"

To show his indifference he struck up a violent friend-

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 89

ship with a boy called Sharp whom he hated and despised.
He was a London boy, with a loutish air, a heavy fellow
with the beginnings of a moustache on his lip and bushy
eyebrows that joined one another across the bridge of his
nose. He had soft hands and manners too suave for his
years. He spoke with the suspicion of a cockney accent.
He was one of those boys who are too slack to play games,
and he exercised great ingenuity in making excuses to
avoid such as were compulsory. He was regarded by boys
and masters with a vague dislike, and it was from arro-
gance that Philip now sought his society. Sharp in a cou-
ple of terms was going to Germany for a year. He hated
school, which he looked upon as an indignity to be endured
till he was old enough to go out into the world. London
was all he cared for, and he had many stories to tell of his
doings there during the holidays. From his conversation —
he spoke in a soft, deep-toned voice — there emerged the
vague rumour of the London streets by night. Philip lis-
tened to him at once fascinated and repelled. With his
vivid fancy he seemed to see the surging throng round the
pit-door of theatres, and the glitter of cheap restaurants,
bars where men, half drunk, sat on high stools talking with
barmaids ; and under the street lamps the mysterious pass-
ing of dark crowds bent upon pleasure. Sharp lent him
cheap novels from Holywell Row, which Philip read in his
cubicle with a sort of wonderful fear.

Once Rose tried to effect a reconciliation. He was a
good-natured fellow, who did not like having enemies.

"I say, Carey, why are you being such a silly ass? It
doesn't do you any good cutting me and all that."

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

"Well, I don't see why you shouldn't talk."

"You bore me," said Philip.

"Please yourself."

Rose shrugged his shoulders and left him. Philip was
very white, as he always became when he was moved, and
his heart beat violently. When Rose went away he felt
suddenly sick with misery. He did not know why he had
answered in that fashion. He would have given anything
to be friends with Rose. He hated to have quarrelled with

90 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

him, and now that he saw he had given him pain he was
very sorry. But at the moment he had not been master of
himself. It seemed that some devil had seized him, forcing
him to say bitter things against his will, even though at
the time he wanted to shake hands with Rose and meet
him more than half-way. The desire to wound had been
too strong for him. He had wanted to revenge himself for
the pain and the humiliation he had endured. It was pride :
it was folly too, for he knew that Rose would not care
at all, while he would suffer bitterly. The thought came
to him that he would go to Rose, and say :

"I say, I'm sorry I was such a beast. I couldn't help it.
Let's make it up."

But he knew he would never be able to do it. He was
afraid that Rose would sneer at him. He was angry with
himself, and when Sharp came in a little while afterward*
he seized upon the first opportunity to quarrel with him.
Philip had a fiendish instinct for discovering other people's
raw spots, and was able to say things that rankled because
they were true. But Sharp had the last word.

"I heard Rose talking about you to Mellor just now,"
he said. "Mellor said: why didn't you kick him? It would
teach him manners. And Rose said : I didn't like to.
Damned cripple."

Philip suddenly became scarlet. He could not answer,
for there was a lump in his throat that almost choked him.

XX

PHILIP was moved into the Sixth, but he hated school
now with all his heart, and, having lost his ambition, cared
nothing whether lie did ill or well. He awoke in the morn-
ing with a sinking heart because he must go through an-
other day of drudgery. He was tired of having to do things
because he was told; and the restrictions irked him, not
because they were unreasonable, but because they were
restrictions. He yearned for freedom. He was weary of
repeating things that he knew already and of the ham-
mering away, for the sake of a thick-witted fellow, at
something that he understood from the beginning.

With Mr. Perkins you could work or not as you chose.
He was at once eager and abstracted. The Sixth Form
room was in a part of the old abbey which had been re-
stored, and it had a Gothic window : Philip tried to cheat
his boredom by drawing this over and over again; and
sometimes out of his head he drew the great tower of
the Cathedral or the gateway that led into the precincts.
He had a knack for drawing. Aunt Louisa during her
youth had painted in water colours, and she had several
albums filled with sketches of churches, old bridges, and
picturesque cottages. They were often shown at the vicar-
age tea-parties. She had once given Philip a paint-box as
a Christmas present, and he had started by copying her
pictures. He copied them better than anyone could have
expected, and presently he did little pictures of his own.
Mrs. Carey encouraged him. It was a good way to keep
him out of mischief, and later on his sketches would be
useful for bazaars. Two or three of them had been framed
and hung in his bed-room.

But one day, at the end of the morning's work, Mr.
Perkins stopped him as he was lounging out of the form-
room.

"I want to speak to you, Carey."

92 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

Philip waited. Mr. Perkins ran his lean fingers through
his beard and looked at Philip. He seemed to be thinking
over what he wanted to say.

''What's the matter with you, Carey?" he said abruptly.

Philip, flushing, looked at him quickly. But knowing him
well by now, without answering, he waited for him to go
on.

"I've been dissatisfied with you lately. You've been slack
and inattentive. You seem to take no interest in your work.
It's been slovenly and bad."

"I'm very sorry, sir," said Philip.

"Is that all you have to say for yourself ?"

Philip looked down sulkily. How could he answer that
he was bored to death ?

"You know, this term you'll go down instead of up. I
shan't give you a very good report."

Philip wondered what he would say if he knew how the
report was treated. It arrived at breakfast, Mr. Carey
glanced at it indifferently, and passed it over to Philip.

"There's your report. You'd better see what it says," he
remarked, as he ran his fingers through the wrapper of
a catalogue of second-hand books.

Philip read it.

"Is it good?" asked Aunt Louisa.

"Not so good as I deserve," answered Philip, with a
smile, giving it to her.

"I'll read it afterwards when I've got my spectacles,"
she said.

But after breakfast Mary Ann came in to say the
butcher was there, and she generally forgot.

Mr. Perkins went on.

"I'm disappointed with you. And I can't understand.
I know you can do things if you want to, but you don't
seem to want to any more. I was going to make you a
monitor next term, but I think I'd better wait a bit."

Philip flushed. He did not like the thought of being
passed over. He tightened his lips.

"And there's something else. You must begin thinking
of your scholarship now. You won't get anything unless
you start working very seriously."

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 93

Philip was irritated by the lecture. He was angry with
the headmaster, and angry with himself.

"I don't think I'm going up to Oxford," he said.

"Why not? I thought your idea was to be ordained."

"I've changed my mind."

"Why?"

Philip did not answer. Mr. Perkins, holding himself
oddly as he always did, like a figure in one of Perugino's
pictures, drew his fingers thoughtfully through his beard.
He looked at Philip as though he were trying to under-
stand and then abruptly told him he might go.

Apparently he was not satisfied, for one evening, a week
later, when Philip had to go into his study with some
papers, he resumed the conversation; but this time he
adopted a different method: he spoke to Philip not as a
schoolmaster with a boy but as one human being with
another. He did not seem to care now that Philip's work
was poor, that he ran small chance against keen rivals of
carrying off the scholarship necessary for him to go to
Oxford: the important matter was his changed intention
about his life afterwards. Mr. Perkins set himself to
revive his eagerness to be ordained. With infinite skill he
worked on his feelings, and this was easier since he was
himself genuinely moved. Philip's change of mind caused
him bitter distress, and he really thought he was throwing
away his chance of happiness in life for he knew not what.
His voice was very persuasive. And Philip, easily moved
by the emotion of others, very emotional himself notwith-
standing a placid exterior — his face, partly by nature but
also from the habit of all these years at school, seldom
except by his quick flushing showed what he felt — Philip
was deeply touched by what the master said. He was very
grateful to him for the interest he showed, and he was
conscience-stricken by the grief which he felt his behaviour
caused him. It was subtly flattering to know that with the
whole school to think about Mr. Perkins should trouble
with him, but at the same time something else in him, like
another person standing at his elbow, clung desperately
to two words.

"I won't. I won't. I won't."

94 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

Ke felt himself slipping. He was powerless against the
weakness that seemed to well up in him ; it was like the
water that rises up in an empty bottle held over a full
basin ; and he set his teeth, saying the words over and over
to himself.

"I won't. I won't. I won't."

At last Mr. Perkins put his hand on Philip's shoulder.

"I don't want to influence you," he said. "You must de-
cide for yourself. Pray to Almighty God for help and
guidance."

When Philip came out of the headmaster's house there
was a light rain falling. He went under the archway that
led to the precincts, there was not a soul there, and the
rooks were silent in the elms. He walked round slowly.
He felt hot, and the rain did him good. He thought over
all that Mr. Perkins had said, calmly now that he was
withdrawn from the fervour of his personality, and he was
thankful he had not given way.

In the darkness he could but vaguely see the great mass
of the Cathedral : he hated it now because of the irksome-
-less of the long services which he was forced to attend.
The anthem was interminable, and you had to stand
drearily while it was being sung; you could not hear the
droning sermon, and your body twitched because you had
to sit still when you wanted to move about. Then Philip
thought of the two services every Sunday at Blackstable.
The church was bare and cold, and there was a smell all
about one of pomade and starched clothes. The curate
preached once and his uncle preached once. As he grew
up he had learned to know his uncle; Philip was down-
right and intolerant, and he could not understand that a
man might sincerely say things as a clergyman which he
never acted up to as a man. The deception outraged him.
His uncle was a weak and selfish man, whose chief desire
it was to be saved trouble.

Mr. Perkins had spoken to him of the beauty of a life
dedicated to the service of God. Philip knew what sort of
lives the clergy led in the corner of East Anglia which
was his home. There was the Vicar of Whitestone, a par-
ish a little way from Blackstable : he was a bachelor and

OFHUMANBONDAGE 95

to give himself something to do had lately taken up farm-
ing: the local paper constantly reported the cases he had
in the county court against this one and that, labourers
he would not pay their wages to or tradesmen whom he
accused of cheating him ; scandal said he starved his cows,
and there was much talk about some general action which
should be taken against him. Then there was the Vicar of
Feme, a bearded, fine figure of a man : his wife had been
forced to leave him because of his cruelty, and she had
filled the neighbourhood with stories of his immorality.
The Vicar of Surle, a tiny hamlet by the sea, was to be
seen every evening in the public house a stone's throw
from his vicarage ; and the churchwardens had been to Mr.
Carey to ask his advice. There was not a soul for any of
them to talk to except small farmers or fishermen; there
were long winter evenings when the wind blew, whistling
drearily through the leafless trees, and all around they saw
nothing but the bare monotony of ploughed fields; and
there was poverty, and there was lack of any work that
seemed to matter; every kink in their characters had
free play; there was nothing to restrain them; they grew
narrow and eccentric: Philip knew all this, but in his
young intolerance he did not offer it as an excuse. He
shivered at the thought of leading such a life; he wanted
to get out into the world.

XXI

MR. PERKINS soon saw that his words had had no effect
on Philip, and for the rest of the term ignored him. He
wrote a report which was vitriolic. When it arrived and
Aunt Lousia asked Philip what it was like, he answered
cheerfully :

"Rotten."

"Is it?" said the Vicar. "I must look at it again."

"Do you think there's any use in my staying on at
Tercanbury? I should have thought it would be better
if I went to Germany for a bit."

"What has put that in your head ?" said Aunt Louisa.

"Don't you think it's rather a good idea?"

Sharp had already left King's School and had written
to Philip from Hanover. He was really starting life, and
it made Philip more restless to think of it. He felt he
could not bear another year of restraint.

"But then you wouldn't get a scholarship."

"I haven't a chance of getting one anyhow. And besides,
I don't know that I particularly want to go to Oxford."

"But if you're going to be ordained, Philip?" Aunt
Louisa exclaimed in dismay.

"I've given up that idea long ago."

Mrs. Carey looked at him with startled eyes, and then,
used to self-restraint, she poured out another cup of tea
for his uncle. They did not speak. In a moment Philip
saw tears slowly falling down her cheeks. His heart was
suddenly wrung because he caused her pain. In her tight
black dress, made by the dressmaker down the street, with
her wrinkled face and pale tired eyes, her gray hair still
done in the frivolous ringlets of her youth, she was a
ridiculous but strangely pathetic figure. Philip saw it for
the first time.

Afterwards, when the Vicar was shut up in his study
with the curate, he put his arms round her waist

96

OFHUMANBONDAGE 97

"I say, I'm sorry you're upset, Aunt Louisa," he said.
"But it's no good my being ordained if I haven't a real
vocation, is it?"

"I'm so disappointed, Philip," she moaned. "I'd set my
heart on it. I thought you could be your uncle's curate, and
then when our time came — after all, we can't last for ever,
can we? — you might have taken his place."

Philip shivered. He was seized with panic. His heart
beat like a pigeon in a trap beating with its wings. His
aunt wept softly, her head upon his shoulder.

"I wish you'd persuade Uncle William to let me leave
Tercanbury. I'm so sick of it."

But the Vicar of Blackstable did not easily alter any
arrangements he had made, and it had always been in-
tended that Philip should stay at King's School till he
was eighteen, and should then go to Oxford. At all events
he would not hear of Philip leaving then, for no notice
had been given and the term's fee would have to be paid
in any case.

"Then will you give notice for me to leave at Christ-
mas?" said Philip, at the end of a long and often bitter
conversation.

"I'll write to Mr. Perkins about it and see what he
says."

"Oh, I wish to goodness I were twenty-one. It is awful
to be at somebody else's beck and call."

"Philip, you shouldn't speak to your uncle like that,"
said Mrs. Carey gently.

"But don't you see that Perkins will want me to stay?
He gets so much a head for every chap in the school."

"Why don't you want to go to Oxford ?"

"What's the good if I'm not going into the Church?"

"You can't go into the Church ; you're in the Church al-
ready," said the Vicar.

"Ordained then," replied Philip impatiently.

"What are you going to be, Philip ?" asked Mrs. Carey.

"I don't know. I've not made up my mind. But what-
ever I am, it'll be useful to know foreign languages. 1
shall get far more out of a year in Germany than by stay-
ing on at that hole."

98 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

He would not say that he felt Oxford would be little
better than a continuation of his life at school. He wished
immensely to be his own master. Besides he would be
known to a certain extent among old schoolfellows, and
he wanted to get away from them all. He felt that his life
at school had been a failure. He wanted to start fresh.

It happened that his desire to go to Germany fell in with
certain ideas which had been of late discussed at Black-
stable. Sometimes friends came to stay with the doctor and
brought news of the world outside ; and the visitors spend-
ing August by the sea had their own way of looking at
things. -The Vicar had heard that there were people who
did not think the old-fashioned education so useful nowa-
days as it had been in the past, and modern languages were
gaining an importance which they had not had in his own
youth. His own mind was divided, for a younger brother
of his had been sent to Germany when he failed in some
examination, thus creating a precedent, but since he had
there died of typhoid it was impossible to look upon the
experiment as other than dangerous. The result of in-
numerable conversations was that Philip should go back
to Tercanbury for another term, and then should leave.
With this agreement Philip was not dissatisfied. But when
he had been back a few days the headmaster spoke to him.

"I've had a letter from your uncle. It appears you want
to go to Germany, and he asks me what I think about it."

Philip was astounded. He was furious with his guardian
for going back on his word.

"I thought it was settled, sir," he said.

"Far from it. I've written to say I think it the greatest
mistake to take you away."

Philip immediately sat down and wrote a violent letter
to his uncle. He did not measure his language. He was so
angry that he could not get to sleep till quite late that
night, and he awoke in the early morning and began
brooding over the way they had treated him. He waited
impatiently for an answer. In two or three days it came.
It was a mild, pained letter from Aunt Louisa, saying that
he should not write such things to his uncle, who was very
much distressed. He was unkind and unchristian. He must

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 99

know they were only trying to do their best for him, and
they were so much older than he that they must be better
judges of what was good for him. Philip clenched his
hands. He had heard that statement so often, and he could
not see why it was true ; they did not know the conditions
as he did, why should they accept it as self-evident that
their greater age gave them greater wisdom? The letter
ended with the information that Mr. Carey had withdrawn
the notice he had given.

Philip nursed his wrath till the next half-holiday. They
had them on Tuesdays and Thursdays, since on Saturday
afternoons they had to go to a service in the Cathedral.
He stopped behind when the rest of the Sixth went out.

"May I go to Blackstable this afternoon, please, sir?"
he asked.

"No," said the headmaster briefly.

"I wanted to see my uncle about something very im-
portant."

"Didn't you hear me say no?"

Philip did not answer. He went out. He felt almost
sick with humiliation, the humiliation of having to ask
and the humiliation of the curt refusal. He hated the head-
master now. Philip writhed under that despotism which
never vouchsafed a reason for the most tyrannous act. Ho
was too angry to care what he did, and after dinner
walked down to the station, by the back ways he knew so
well, just in time to catch the train to Blackstable. H;
walked into the vicarage and found his uncle and aunt
sitting in the dining-room.

"Hulloa, where have you sprung from ?" said the Vicar ,

It was very clear that he was not pleased to see him.
He looked a little uneasy.

"I thought I'd come and see you about my leaving. I
want to know what you mean by promising me one thing
when I was here, and doing something different a week
after."

He was a little frightened at his own boldness, but he
had made up his mind exactly what words to use, and,
though his heart beat violently, he forced himself to say
them.

ioo OF HUM AN BONDAGE

"Have you got leave to come here this afternoon?"

"No. I asked Perkins and he refused. If you like to
write and tell him I've been here you can get me into a
really fine old row."

Mrs. Carey sat knitting with trembling hands. She was
unused to scenes and they agitated her extremely.

"It would serve you right if I told him," said Mr. Carey.

"If you like to be a perfect sneak you can. After writing
to Perkins as you did you're quite capable of it."

It was foolish of Philip to say that, because it gave the
Vicar exactly the opportunity he wanted.

"I'm not going to sit still while you say impertinent
things to me," he said with dignity.

He got up and walked quickly out of the room into his
study. Philip heard him shut the door and lock it.

"Oh, I wish to God I were twenty-one. It is awful to
be tied down like this."

Aunt Louisa began to cry quietly.

"Oh, Philip, you oughtn't to have spoken to your uncle
like that. Do please go and tell him you're sorry."

"I'm not in the least sorry. He's taking a mean advan-
tage. Of course it's just waste of money keeping me on at
school, but what does he care? It's not his money. It was
cruel to put me under the guardianship of people who
know nothing about things."

"Philip."

Philip in his voluble anger stopped suddenly at the
sound of her voice. It was heart-broken. He had not
realised what bitter things he was saying.

"Philip, how can you be so unkind ? You know we are
only trying to do our best for you, and we know that we
have no experience; it isn't as if we'd had any children
of our own: that's why we consulted Mr. Perkins." Her
voice broke. "I've tried to be like a mother to you. I've
loved you as if you were my own son."

She was so small and frail, there was something so
pathetic in her old-maidish air, that Philip was touched.
A great lump came suddenly in his throat and his eyes
rilled with tears.

"I'm so sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to be beastly."

OF HUM AN BONDAGE lot

He knelt down beside her and took her in his arms, and
kissed her wet, withered cheeks. She sobbed bitterly, and
he seemed to feel on a sudden the pity of that wasted
life. She had never surrendered herself before to such a
display of emotion.

"I know I've not been what I wanted to be to you,
Philip, but I didn't know how. It's been just as dreadful
for me to have no children as for you to have no mother."

Philip forgot his anger and his own concerns, but
thought only of consoling her, with broken words and
clumsy little caresses. Then the clock struck, and he had to
bolt off at once to catch the only train that would get him
back to Tercanbury in time for call-over. As he sat in the
corner of the railway carriage he saw that he had done
nothing. He was angry with himself for his weakness. It
was despicable to have allowed himself to be turned from
his purpose by the pompous airs of the Vicar and the tears
of his aunt. But as the result of he knew not what conver-
sations between the couple another letter was written to
the headmaster. Mr. Perkins read it with an impatient
shrug of the shoulders. He showed it to Philip. It ran :

Dear Mr. Perkins,

Forgive me for troubling you again about my ward, but
both his Aunt and I have been uneasy abeut him. He
seems very anxious to leave school, and his Aunt thinks
he is unhappy. It is very difficult for us to know what to
do as we are not his parents. He does not seem to think
he is doing very well and he feels it is wasting his money
to stay on. I should be very much obliged if you would
have a talk to him, and if he is still of the same mind per-
haps it would be better if he left at Christmas as I origi-
nally intended.

Yours very truly,

William Carey.

Philip gave him back the letter. He felt a thrill of pride
in his triumph. He had got his own way, and he was satis-
fied. His will had gained a victory over the wills of others.

"It's not much good my spending half an hour writing

102 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

to your uncle if he changes his mind the next letter he
gets from you," said the headmaster irritably.

Philip said nothing, and his face was perfectly placid ;
but he could not prevent the twinkle in his eyes. Mr. Per-
kins noticed it and broke into a little laugh.

"You've rather scored, haven't you?" he said.

Then Philip smiled outright. He could not conceal his
exultation.

"Is it true that you're very anxious to leave?"

"Yes, sir."

"Are you unhappy here ?"

Philip blushed. He hated instinctively any attempt to get
into the depths of his feelings.

"Oh, I don't know, sir."

Mr. Perkins, slowly dragging his ringers through his
beard, looked at him thoughtfully. He seemed to speak
almost to himself.

"Of course schools are made for the average. The holes
are all round, and whatever shape the pegs are they must
wedge in somehow. One hasn't time to bother about any-
thing but the average." Then suddenly he addressed him-
self to Philip : "Look here, I've got a suggestion to make
to you. It's getting on towards the end of the term now.
Another term won't kill you, and if you want to go to
Germany you'd better go after Easter than after Christ-
mas. It'll be much pleasanter in the spring than in mid-
winter. If at the end of the next term you still want to go
I'll make no objection. What d'you say to that?"

"Thank you very much, sir."

Philip was so glad to have gained the last three months
that he did not mind the extra term. The school seemed
less of a prison when he knew that before Easter he would
be free from it for ever. His heart danced within him.
That evening in chapel he looked round at the boys, stand-
ing according to their forms, each in his due place, and he
chuckled with satisfaction at the thought that soon he
would never see them again. It made him regard them al-
most with a friendly feeling. His eyes rested on Rose.
Rose took his position as a monitor very seriously : he had
quite an idea of being a good influence in the school; it

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 10.3

was his turn to read the lesson that evening, and he read
it very well. Philip smiled when he thought that he would
be rid of him for ever, and it would not matter in six
months whether Rose was tall and straight-limbed; and
where would the importance be that he was a monitor and
captain of the eleven ? Philip looked at the masters in their
gowns. Gordon was dead, he had died of apoplexy two
years before, but all the rest were there. Philip knew now
what a poor lot they were, except Turner perhaps, there
was something of a man in him; and he writhed at the
thought of the subjection in which they had held him. In
six months they would not matter either. Their praise
would mean nothing to him, and he would shrug his shoul •
ders at their censure.

Philip had learned not to express his emotions by out-
ward signs, and shyness still tormented him, but he had
often very high spirits ; and then, though he limped aboui
demurely, silent and reserved, it seemed to be hallooing
in his heart. He seemed to himself to walk more lightly.
All sorts of ideas danced through his head, fancies chased
one another so furiously that he could not catch them ; but
their coming and their going filled him with exhilaration.
Now, being happy, he was able to work, and during the
remaining weeks of the term set himself to make up for
his long neglect. His brain worked easily, and he took a
keen pleasure in the activity of his intellect. He did very
well in the examinations that closed the term. Mr. Perkins
made only one remark: he was talking to him about an
essay he had written, and, after the usual criticisms, said :

"So you've made up your mind to stop playing the fool
for a bit, have you ?"

He smiled at him with his shining teeth, and Philip,
looking down, gave an embarrassed smile.

The half dozen boys who expected to divide between
them the various prizes which were given at the end of
the summer term had ceased to look upon Philip as a seri-
ous rival, but now they began to regard him with some
uneasiness. He told no one that he was leaving at Easter
and so was in no sense a competitor, but left them to their
anxieties. He knew that Rose flattered himself on his

104 OF HUM AN BOND AGE

French, for he had spent two or three holidays in France s
and he expected to get the Dean's Prize for English es'-
say ; Philip got a good deal of satisfaction in watching his
dismay when he saw how much better Philip was doing in
these subjects than himself. Another fellow, Norton, could
not go to Oxford unless he got one of the scholarships
at the disposal of the school. He asked Philip if he was
going in for them.

"Have you any objection?" asked Philip.

It entertained him to think that he held someone else's
future in his hand. There was something romantic in get-
ting these various rewards actually in his grasp, and then
leaving them to others because he disdained them. At last
the breaking-up day came, and he went to Mr. Perkins to
bid him good-bye.

"You don't mean to say you really want to leave ?"

Philip's face fell at the headmaster's evident surprise.

"You said you wouldn't put any objection in the way,
sir," he answered.

"I thought it was only a whim that I'd better humour.
I know you're obstinate and headstrong. What on earth
d'you want to leave for now? You've only got another
term in any case. You can get the Magdalen scholarship
easily ; you'll get half the prizes we've got to give."

Philip looked at him sullenly. He felt that he had been
tricked ; but he had the promise, and Perkins would have
to stand by it.

"You'll have a very pleasant time at Oxford. You
needn't decide at once what you're going to do afterwards.
I wonder if you realise how delightful the life is up there
for anyone who has brains."

"I've made all my arrangements now to go to Germany,
sir," said Philip.

"Are they arrangements that couldn't possibly be
altered?" asked Mr. Perkins, with his quizzical smile. "I
shall be very sorry to lose you. In schools tho rather stu-
pid boys who work always do better than the clever boy
who's idle, but when the clever boy works — why then, he
does what you've done this term."

Philip flushed darkly. He was unused to compliments,

OFHUMANBONDAGE 105

and no one had ever told him he was clever. The head-
master put his hand on Philip's shoulder.

"You know, driving things into the heads of thick-
witted boys is dull work, but when now and then you
have the chance of teaching a boy who comes half-way
towards you, who understands almost before you've got
the words out of your mouth, why, then teaching is the
most exhilarating thing in the world."

Philip was melted by kindness; it had never occurred
to him that it mattered really to Mr. Perkins whether he
went or stayed. He was touched and immensely flattered.
It would be pleasant to end up his school-days with glory
and then go to Oxford : in a flash there appeared before
him the life which he had heard described from boys who
came back to play in the O. K. S. match or in letters from
the University read out in one of the studies. But he was
ashamed ; he would look such a fool in his own eyes if he
gave in now ; his uncle would chuckle at the success of the
headmaster's ruse. It was rather a come-down from the
dramatic surrender of all these prizes which were in his
reach, because he disdained to take them, to the plain,
ordinary winning of them. It only required a little more
persuasion, just enough to save his self-respect, and Philip
would have done anything that Mr. Perkins wished; but
his face showed nothing of his conflicting emotions. It was
placid and sullen.

"I think I'd rather go, sir," he said.

Mr. Perkins, like many men who manage things by their
personal influence, grew a little impatient when his power
was not immediately manifest. He had a great deal of
work to do, and could not waste more time on a boy who
seemed to him insanely obstinate.

"Very well, I promised to let you if you really wanted
it, and I keep my promise. When do you go to Germany?"

Philip's heart beat violently. The battle was won, and he
did not know whether he had not rather lost it.

"At the beginning of May, sir," he answered.

"Well, you must come and see us when you get back."

He held out his hand. If he had given him one more
chance Philip would have changed his mind, but he seemed

io6 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

to look upon the matter as settled. Philip walked out of the
house. His school-days were over, and he was free; but
the wild exultation to which he had looked forward at that
moment was not there. He walked round the precincts
slowly, and a profound depression seized him. He wished
now that he had not been foolish. He did not want to go,
but he knew he could never bring himself to go to the
headmaster and tell him he would stay. That was a humili-
ation he could never put upon himself. He wondered
whether he had done right. He was dissatisfied with him-
self and with all his circumstances. He asked himself dully
whether whenever you got your way you wished after-
v.-ards that you hadn't.

XXII

PHILIP'S uncle had an old friend, called Miss Wilkin-
son, who lived in Berlin. She was the daughter of a clergy-
man, and it was with her father, the rector of a village in
Lincolnshire, that Mr. Carey had spent his last curacy ; on
his death, forced to earn her living, she had taken various
situations as a governess in France and Germany. She had
kept up a correspondence with Mrs. Carey, and two or
three times had spent her holidays at Blackstable Vicar-
age, paying as was usual with the Careys' unfrequent
guests a small sum for her keep. When it became clear that
it was less trouble to yield to Philip's wishes than to resist
them, Mrs. Carey wrote to ask her for advice. Miss Wil-
kinson recommended Heidelberg as an excellent place to
learn German in and the house of Frau Professor Erlin
as a comfortable home. Philip might live there for thirty
marks a week, and the Professor himself, a teacher at the
local high school, would instruct him.

Philip arrived in Heidelberg one morning in May. His
things were put on a barrow and he followed the porter
out of the station. The sky was bright blue, and the trees
in the avenue through which they passed were thick with
leaves ; there was something in the air fresh to Philip, and
mingled with the timidity he felt at entering on a new life,
among strangers, was a great exhilaration. He was a little
disconsolate that no one had come to meet him, and felt
very shy when the porter left him at the front door of a
big white house. An untidy lad let him in and took him
into a drawing-room. It was filled with a large suite cov-
ered in green velvet, and in the middle was a round table.
On this in water stood a bouquet of flowers tightly packed
together in a paper frill like the bone of a mutton chop, and
carefully spaced round it were books in leather bindings.
There was a musty smell.

Presently, with an odour of cooking, the Frau Professor

107

io8 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

came in, a short, very stout woman with tightly dreised
hair and a red face; she had little eyes, sparkling like
beads, and an effusive manner. She took both Philip's
hands and asked him about Miss Wilkinson, who had twice
spent a few weeks with her. She spoke in German and in
broken English. Philip could not make her understand that
he did not know Miss Wilkinson. Then her two daughters
appeared. They seemed hardly young to Philip, but per-
haps they were not more than twenty-five: the elder,
Thekla, was as short as her mother, with the same, rather
shifty air, but with a pretty face and abundant dark hair ;
Anna, her younger sister, was tall and plain, but since
she had a pleasant smile Philip immediately preferred her.
After a few minutes of polite conversation the Frau Pro-
fessor took Philip to his room and left him. It was in a
turret, looking over the tops of the trees in the Anlage ;
and the bed was in an alcove, so that when you sat at the
desk it had not the look of a bed-room at all. Philip un-
packed his things and set out all his books. He was his own
master at last.

A bell summoned him to dinner at one o'clock, and he
found the Frau Professor's guests assembled in the
drawing-room. He was introduced to her husband, a tall
man of middle age with a large fair head, turning now
to gray, and mild blue eyes. He spoke to Philip in correct,
rather archaic English, having learned it from a study of
the English classics, not from conversation ; and it was odd
to hear him use words colloquially which Philip had only
met in the plays of Shakespeare. Frau Professor Erlin
called her establishment a family and not a pension ; but
it would have required the subtlety of a metaphysician to
find out exactly where the difference lay. When they sat
down to dinner in a long dark apartment that led out of
the drawing-room, Philip, feeling very shy, saw that there
were sixteen people. The Frau Professor sat at one end
and carved. The service was conducted, with a great clat-
tering of plates, by the same clumsy lout who had opened
the door for him; and though he was quick, it happened
that the first persons to be served had finished before the
last had received their appointed portions. The Frau Pro-

OF HUMAN BONDAGE ioc

fessor insisted that nothing but German should be spoken,
so that Philip, even if his bashfulness had permitted him
to be talkative, was forced to hold his tongue. He looked
at the people among whom he was to live. By the Frau
Professor sat several old ladies, but Philip did not give
them much of his attention. There were two young girls,
both fair and one of them very pretty, whom Philip heard
addressed as Fraulein Hedwig and Fraulein Cacilie. Frau-
lein Cacilie had a long pig-tail hanging down her back.
They sat side by side and chattered to one another, with
smothered laughter: now and then they glanced at Philip
and one of them said something in an undertone; they
both giggled, and Philip blushed awkwardly, feeling that
they were making fun of him. Near them sat a Chinaman,
with a yellow face and an expansive smile, who was study-
ing Western conditions at the University. He spoke so
quickly, with a queer accent, that the girls could not always
understand him, and then they burst out laughing. He
laughed too, good-humouredly, and his almond eyes almost
closed as he did so. There were two or three American
men, in black coats, rather yellow and dry of skin: they
were theological students ; Philip heard the twang of their
New England accent through their bad German, and he
glanced at them with suspicion; for he had been taught
to look upon Americans as wild and desperate barbarians.

Afterwards, when they had sat for a little on the stiff
green velvet chairs of the drawing-room, Fraulein Anna
asked Philip if he would like to go for a walk with them.

Philip accepted the invitation. They were quite a party.
There were the two daughters of the Frau Professor, the
two other girls, one of the American students, and Philip.
Philip walked by the side of Anna and Fraulein Hedwig.
He was a little fluttered. He had never known any girls.
At Blackstable there were only the farmers' daughters
and the girls of the local tradesmen. He knew them by
name and by sight, but he was timid, and he thought they
laughed at his deformity. He accepted willingly the differ^
ence which the Vicar and Mrs. Carey put between their
own exalted rank and that of the farmers. The doctor had
two daughters, but they were both much older than Philip

no OF HUM AN BONDAGE

and had been married to successive assistants while Philip
was still a small boy. At school there had been two or three
girls of more boldness than modesty whom some of the
boys knew ; and desperate stories, due in all probability to
the masculine imagination, were told of intrigues with
them ; but Philip had always concealed under a lofty con-
tempt the terror with which they filled him. His imagina-
tion and the books he had read had inspired in him a desire
for the Byronic attitude ; and he was torn between a mor-
bid self -consciousness and a conviction that he owed it
to himself to be gallant. He felt now that he should be
bright and amusing, but his brain seemed empty and he
could not for the life of him think of anything to say.
Fraulein Anna, the Frau Professor's daughter, addressed
herself to him frequently from a sense of duty, but the
other said little : she looked at him now and then with
sparkling eyes, and sometimes to his confusion laughed
outright. Philip felt that she thought him perfectly ridicu-
lous. They walked along the side of a hill among pine-
trees, and their pleasant odour caused Philip a keen de«
light. The day was warm and cloudless. At last they came
to an eminence from which they saw the valley of the
Rhine spread out before them under the sun. It was a
vast stretch of country, sparkling with golden light, with
cities in the distance ; and through it meandered the silver
ribband of the river. Wide spaces are rare in the corner of
Kent which Philip knew, the sea offers the only broad
horizon, and the immense distance he saw now gave him
a peculiar, an indescribable thrill. He felt suddenly elated.
Though he did not know it, it was the first time that he
had experienced, quite undiluted with foreign emotions,
the sense of beauty. They sat on a bench, the three of
them, for the others had gone on, and while the girls talked
in rapid German, Philip, indifferent to their proximity,
feasted his eyes.
"By Jove, I am happy," he said to himself unconsciously.

XXIII

PHILIP thought occasionally of the King's School at
Tercanbury, and laughed to himself as he remembered
what at some particular moment of the day they were do-
ing. Now and then he dreamed that he was there still, and
it gave him an extraordinary satisfaction, on awaking, to
realise that he was in his little room in the turret. From his
bed he could see the great cumulus clouds that hung in the
blue sky. He revelled in his freedom. He could go to bed
when he chose and get up wb.en tue fancy took him. There
was no one to order him about. It struck him that he need
not tell any more lies.

It had been arranged that Professor Erlin should teach
him Latin and German ; a Frenchman came every day to
give him lessons in French; and the Frau Professor had
recommended for mathematics an Englishman who was
taking a philological degree at the University. This was
a man named Wharton. Philip went to him every morning.
He lived in one room on the top floor of a shabby house.
It was dirty and untidy, and it was filled with a pungent
odour made up of many different stinks. He was gener-
ally in bed when Philip arrived at ten o'clock, and he
jumped out, put on a filthy dressing-gown and felt slip-
pers, and, while he gave instruction, ate his simple break-
fast. He was a short man, stout from excessive beer drink-
ing, with a heavy moustache and long, unkempt hair. He
had been in Germany for five years and was become very
Teutonic. He spoke with scorn of Cambridge where he
had taken his degree and with horror of the life which
awaited him when, having taken his doctorate in Heidel-
berg, he must return to England and a pedagogic career..
He adored the life of the German University with itu
happy freedom and its jolly companionships. He was y
member of a Burschenschaft, and promised to take Philip
to a Kneipe. He was very poor and made no secret tha< th»

in

112 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

lessons he was giving Philip meant the difference between
meat for his dinner and bread and cheese. Sometimes after
a heavy night he had such a headache that he could not
drink his coffee, and he gave his lesson with heaviness of
spirit. For these occasions he kept a few bottles of beer
under the bed, and one of these and a pipe would help him
to bear the burden of life.

"A hair of the dog that bit him," he would say as he
poured out the beer, carefully so that the foam should not
make him wait too long to drink.

Then he would talk to Philip of the University, the
quarrels between rival corps, the duels, and the merits of
this and that professor. Philip learnt more of life from
him than of mathematics. Sometimes Wharton would sit
back with a laugh and say: .

"Look here, we've not done anything today. You needn't
pay me for the lesson."

"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Philip.

This was something new and very interesting, and he
felt that it was of greater import than trigonometry, which
he never could understand. It was like a window on life
that he had a chance of peeping through, and he looked
with a wildly beating heart.

"No, you can keep your dirty money," said Wharton.

"But how about your dinner ?" said Philip, with a smile,
for he knew exactly how his master's finances stood.

Wharton had even asked him to pay him the two shil-
lings which the lesson cost once a week rather than once a
month, since it made things less complicated.

"Oh, never mind my dinner. It won't be the first time
I've dined off a bottle of beer, and my mind's never clearer
than when I do."

He dived under the bed (the sheets were gray with want
of washing), and fished out another bottle. Philip, who
was young and did not know the good things of life, re-
fused to share it with him, so he drank alone.

"How long are you going to stay here?" asked Whar-
ton.

Both he and Philip had given up with relief tht pre-
tence of mathematics.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 113

"Oh, I don't know. I suppose about a year. Then my
people want me to go to Oxford."

Wharton gave a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders.
It was a new experience for Philip to learn that there were
persons who did not look upon that seat of learning with
awe.

"What d'you want to go there for? You'll only be a
glorified school-boy. Why don't you matriculate here? A
year's no good. Spend five years here. You know, there
are two good things in life, freedom of thought and free-
dom of action. In France you get freedom of action : you
can do what you like and nobody bothers, but you must
think like everybody else. In Germany you must do what
everybody else does, but you may think as you choose.
They're both very good things. I personally prefer free-
dom of thought. But in England you get neither: you're
ground down by convention. You can't think as you like
and you can't act as you like. That's because it's a demo-
cratic nation. I expect America's worse."

He leaned back cautiously, for the chair on which he
sat had a ricketty leg, and it was disconcerting when a
rhetorical flourish was interrupted by a sudden fall to the
floor.

"I ought to go back to England this year, but if I can
scrape together enough to keep body and soul on speaking
terms I shall stay another twelve months. But then I shall
have to go. And I must leave all this" — he waved his
arm round the dirty garret, with its unmade bed, the
clothes lying on the floor, a row of empty beer bottles
against the wall, piles of unbound, ragged books in every
corner — "for some provincial university where I shall try
and get a chair of philology. And I shall play tennis and
go to tea-parties." He interrupted himself and gave Philip,
very neatly dressed, with a* clean collar on and his hair
well-brushed, a quizzical look. "And, my God ! I shall have
to wash."

Philip reddened, feeling his own spruceness an intol-
erable reproach ; for of late he had begun to pay some at-
tention to his toilet, and he had come out from England
with a pretty selection of ties.

1X4 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

The summer came upon the country like a conqueror.
Each day was beautiful. The sky had an arrogant blue
which goaded the nerves like a spur. The green of the
trees in the Anlage was violent and crude ; and the houses,
when the sun caught them, had a dazzling white which
stimulated till it hurt. Sometimes on his way back from
Wharto^ Philip would sit in the shade on one of the
benches in the Anlage, enjoying the coolness and watching
the patterns of light which the sun, shining through the
leaves, made on the ground. His soul danced with delight
as gaily as the sunbeams. He revelled in those moments of
idleness stolen from his work. Sometimes he sauntered
through the streets of the old town. He looked with awe
at the students of the corps, their cheeks gashed and red,,
who swaggered about in their coloured caps. In the after-
noons he wandered about the hills with the girls in the
Frau Professor's house, and sometimes they went up the
river and had tea in a leafy beer-garden. In the evenings
they walked round and round the Stadtgarten, listening
to the band.

Philip soon learned the various interests of the house-
hold. Fraulein Thekla, the professor's elder daughter, was
engaged to a man in England who had spent twelve months
in the house to learn German, and their marriage was to
take place at the end of the year. But the young man
wrote that his father, an india-rubber merchant who lived
in Slough, did not approve of the union, and Fraulein
Thekla was often in tears. Sometimes she and her mother
might be seen, with stern eyes and determined mouths,
looking over the letters of the reluctant lover. Thekla
painted in water colour, and occasionally she and Philip,
with another of the girls to keep them company, would go
out and paint little pictures. The pretty Fraulein Hedwig
had amorous troubles too. She was the daughter of a mer-
chant in Berlin and a dashing hussar had fallen in love
with her, a von if you please; but his parents opposed a
marriage with a person of her condition, and she had been
sent to Heidelberg to forget him. She could never, never
do this, and corresponded with him continually, and he
was making every effort to induce an exasperating father

OF HUM AN BONDAGE nj

tit :*mnge his mind. She told all this to Philip with pi etty
sighs and becoming blushes, and showed him the photo-
graph of the gay lieutenant. Philip liked her best of all
the girls at the Frau Professor's, and on their walks always
tried to get by her side. He blushed a great deal when the
others chaffed him for his obvious preference. He made
the first declaration in his life to Fraulein Hedwig, but un-
fortunately it was an accident, and it happened in this
manner. In the evenings when they did not go out, the
young women sang little songs in the green velvet drawing-
room, while Fraulein Anna, who always made herself
useful, industriously accompanied. Fraulein Hedwig's
favourite song was called Ich Hebe dich, I love you; and
one evening after she had sung this, when Philip was
standing with her on the balcony, looking at the stars, it
occurred to him to make some remark about it. He began :

"Ich Hebe dick."

His German was halting, and he looked about for the
word he wanted. The pause was infinitesimal, but before
he could go on Fraulein Hedwig said :

"Ach, Herr Carey, Sie mussen mir nicht du sagen — you
mustn't talk to me in the second person singular."

Philip felt himself grow hot all over, for he would never
have dared to do anything so familiar, and he could think
of nothing on earth to say. It would be ungallant to ex-
plain that he was not making an observation, but merely
mentioning the title of a song.

"Entschuldigen Sie" he said. "I beg your pardon."

"It does not matter," she whispered.

She smiled pleasantly, quietly took his hand and pressed
it, then turned back into the drawing-room.

Next day he was so embarrassed that he could not speak
to her, and in his shyness did all that was possible to avoid
her. When he was asked to go for the usual walk he re-
fused because, he said, he had work to do. But Fraulein
Hedwig seized an opportunity to speak to him alone.

"Why are you behaving in this way?" she said kindly.
"You know, I'm not angry with you for what you said
last night. You can't help it if you love me. I'm flattered.
But although I'm not exactly engaged to Hermann I can

n6 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

never love anyone else, and I look upon myself as his
bride."

Philip blushed again, but he put on quite the expression
of a rejected lover.

"I hope you'll be very happy," he said.

XXIV

PROFESSOR ERLIN gave Philip a lesson every day. He
made out a list of books which Philip was to read till he
was ready for the final achievement of Faust, and mean-
while, ingeniously enough, started him on a German trans-
lation of one of the plays by Shakespeare which Philip
had studied at school. It was the period in Germany of
Goethe's highest fame. Notwithstanding his rather con-
descending attitude towards patriotism he had been
adopted as the national poet, and seemed since the war of
seventy to be one of the most significant glories of national
unity. The enthusiastic seemed in the wildness of the Wal-
purgisnacht to hear the rattle of artillery at Gravelotte.
But one mark of a writer's greatness is that different minds
can find in him different inspirations; and Professor
Erlin, who hated the Prussians, gave his enthusiastic ad-
miration to Goethe because his works, Olympian and
sedate, offered the only refuge for a sane mind against the
onslaughts of the present generation. There was a drama-
tist whose name of late had been much heard at Heidel-
berg, and the winter before one of his plays had been
given at the theatre amid the cheers of adherents and the
hisses of decent people. Philip heard discussions about it
at the Frau Professor's long table, and at these Professor
Erlin lost his wonted calm : he beat the table with his fist,
and drowned all opposition with the roar of his fine deep
voice. It was nonsense and obscene nonsense. He forced
himself to sit the play out, but he did not know whether
he was more bored or nauseated. If that was what the
theatre was coming to, then it was high time the police
stepped in and closed the playhouses. He was no prude
and could laugh as well as anyone at the witty immorality
of a farce at the Palais Royal, but here was nothing but
filth. With an emphatic gesture he held his nose and

117

iiS OF HUM AN BONDAGE

whistled through his teeth. It was the ruin of the family,
the uprooting of morals, the destruction of Germany.

"Aber, Adolf," said the Frau Professor from the other
end of the table. "Calm yourself."

He shook his fist at her. He was the mildest of creatures
and ventured upon no action of his life without consulting
her.

"No, Helene, I tell you this," he shouted. "I would
sooner my daughters were lying dead at my feet than see
them listening to the garbage of that shameless fellow."

The play was The Doll's House and the author was
Henrik Ibsen.

Professor Erlin classed him with Richard Wagner, but
of him he spoke not with anger but with good-humoured
laughter. He was a charlatan but a successful charlatan,
and in that was always something for the comic spirit to
rejoice in.

"Verruckter Kerl! A madman!" he said.

He had seen Lohengrin and that passed muster. It was
dull but no worse. But Siegfried! When he mentioned it
Professor Erlin leaned his head on his hand and bellowed
with laughter. Not a melody in it from beginning to end !
He could imagine Richard Wagner sitting in his box and
laughing till his sides ached at the sight of all the people
who were taking it seriously. It was the greatest hoax of
the nineteenth century. He lifted his glass of beer to his
lips, threw back his head, and drank till the glass was
empty. Then wiping his mouth with the back of his hand,
he said :

"I tell you young people that before the nineteenth cen-
tury is out Wagner will be as dead as mutton. Wagner ! I
would give all his works for one opera by Donizetti."

XXV

THE oddest of Philip's masters was his teacher of
French. Monsieur Ducroz was a citizen of Geneva. He was
a tall old man, with a sallow skin and hollow cheeks; his
gray hair was thin and long. He wore shabby black clothes,
with holes at the elbows of his coat and frayed trousers.
His linen was very dirty. Philip had never seen him Li a
clean collar. He was a man of few words, who gave his
lesson conscientiously but without enthusiasm, arriving
as the clock struck and leaving on the minute. His charges
were very small. He was taciturn, and what Philip learnt
about him he learnt from others : it appeared that he had
fought with Garibaldi against the Pope, but had left Italy
in disgust when it was clear that all his efforts for free-
dom, by which he meant the establishment of a republic,
tended to no more than an exchange of yokes ; he had been
expelled from Geneva for it was not known what political
offences. Philip looked upon him with puzzled surprise;
for he was very unlike his idea of the revolutionary: he
spoke in a low voice and was extraordinarily polite; he
never sat down till he was asked to; and when on rare
occasions he met Philip in the street took off his hat with
an elaborate gesture; he never laughed, he never even
smiled. A more complete imagination than Philip's might
have pictured a youth of splendid hope, for he must have
been entering upon manhood in 1848 when kings, remem-
bering their brother of France, went about with an uneasy
crick in their necks ; and perhaps that passion for liberty
which passed through Europe, sweeping before it what of
absolutism and tyranny had reared its head during the
reaction from the revolution of 1789, filled no breast with
a hotter fire. One might fancy him, passionate with theo-
ries of human equality and human rights, discussing,
arguing, fighting behind barricades in Paris, flying before
the Austrian cavalry in Milan, imprisoned here,

tao OF HUMAN BONDAGE

from there, hoping on and upborne ever with the word
which seemed so magical, the word Liberty; till at last,
broken with disease and starvation, old, without means to
keep body and soul together but by such lessons as he could
pick up from poor students, he found himself in that little
neat town under the heel of a personal tyranny greater
than any in Europe. Perhaps his taciturnity hid a contempt
for the human race which had abandoned the great dreams
of his youth and now wallowed in sluggish ease ; or per-
haps these thirty years of revolution had taught him that
men are unfit for liberty, and he thought that he had spent
his life in the pursuit of that which was not worth the
finding. Or maybe he was tired out and waited only with
indifference for the release of death.

One day Philip, with the bluntness of his age, asked him
if it was true he had been with Garibaldi. The old man
did not seem to attach any importance to the question. He
answered quite quietly in as low a voice as usual.

"Oui, monsieur."

"They say you were in the Commune?"

"Do they? Shall we get on with our work?"

He held the book open and Philip, intimidated, began
to translate the passage he had prepared.

One day Monsieur Ducroz seemed to be in great pain.
He had been scarcely able to drag himself up the many
stairs to Philip's room; and when he arrived sat down
heavily, his sallow face drawn, with beads of sweat on his
forehead, trying to recover himself.

"I'm afraid you're ill," said Philip.

"It's of no consequence."

But Philip saw that he was suffering, and at the end of
the hour asked whether he would not prefer to give no
more lessons till he was better.

"No," said the old man, in his even low voice. "I prefer
to go on while I am able."

Philip, morbidly nervous when he had to make any
reference to money, reddened.

"But it won't make any difference to you," he said. "I'll
pay for the lessons just the same. If you wouldn't mind
I'd like to give you the money for next week in advance."

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 121

Monsieur Ducroz charged eighteen pence an hour.
Philip took a ten-mark piece out of his pocket and shyly
put it on the table. He could not bring himself to offer it
as if the old man were a beggar.

"In that case I think I won't come again till I'm better."
He took the coin and, without anything more than the
elaborate bow with which he always took his leave, went
out.

"Bon'jour, monsieur."

Philip was vaguely disappointed. Thinking he had done
a generous thing, he had expected that Monsieur Ducroz
would overwhelm him with expressions of gratitude. He
was taken aback to find that the old teacher accepted the
present as though it were his due. He was so young, he
did not realise how much less is the sense of obligation m
those who receive favours than m tnose wno grant them.
Monsieur Ducroz appeared again nve 6f Six" clays later, He
tottered a little more and was very weak, but seemed to
have overcome the severity of the attack. He was no more
communicative than he had been before. He remained
mysterious, aloof, and dirty. He made no reference to his
illness till after the lesson ; and then, just as he was leav-
ing, at the door, which he held open, he paused. He hesi-
tated, as though to speak were difficult.

"If it hadn't been for the money you gave me I should
have starved. It was all I had to live on.','

He made his solemn, obsequious bow, and went out.
Philip felt a little lump in his throat. He seemed to realise
in a fashion the hopeless bitterness of the old man's strug-
gle, and how hard life was for him when to himself it was
so pleasant.

XXVI

PHILIP had spent three months in Heidelberg when one
morning the Frau Professor told him that an Englishman
named Hayward was coming to stay in the house, and the
same evening at supper he saw a new face. For some days
the family had lived in a state of excitement. First, as the
result of heaven knows what scheming, by dint of humble
prayers and veiled threats, the parents of the young Eng-
lishman to whom Fraulein Thekla was engaged had in-
vited her to visit them in England, and she had set off with
an album of water colours to show how accomplished she
was and a bundle of letters to prove how deeply the young
man had compromised himself. A week later Fraulein
Hedwig with radiant smiles announced that the lieutenant
of her affections was coming to Heidelberg with his father
and mother. Exhausted by the importunity of their son
and touched by the dowry which Fraulein Hedwig's father
offered, the lieutenant's parents had consented to pass
through Heidelberg to make the young woman's acquaint-
ance. The interview was satisfactory and Fraulein Hedwig
had the satisfaction of showing her lover in the Stadt-
garten to the whole of Frau Professor Erlin's household.
The silent old ladies who sat at the top of the table near
the Frau Professor were in a flutter, and when Fraulein
Hedwig said she was to go home at once for the formal
engagement to take place, the Frau Professor, regardless
of expense, said she would give a Maibowle. Professor
Erlin prided himself on his skill in preparing this mild in-
toxicant, and after supper the large bowl of hock and
3oda, with scented herbs floating in it and wild strawber-
ries, was placed with solemnity on the round table in the
drawing-room. Fraulein Anna teased Philip about the de-
parture of his lady-love, and he felt very uncomfortable
and rather melancholy. Fraulein Hedwig sang several
songs, Fraulein Anna played the Wedding March, and the

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 123

Professor sang Die Wacht am Rhein. Amid all this jollifi-
cation Philip paid little attention to the new arrival. They
had sat opposite one another at supper, but Philip was
chattering busily with Fraulein Hedwig, and the stranger,
knowing no German, had eaten his food in silence. Philip,
observing that he wore a pale blue tie, had on that account
taken a sudden dislike to him. He was a man of twenty-
six, very fair, with long, wavy hair through which he
passed his hand frequently with a careless gesture. His
eyes were large and blue, but the blue was very pale, and
they looked rather tired already. He was clean-shaven,
and his mouth, notwithstanding its thin lips, was well-
shaped. Fraulein Anna took an interest in physiognomy,
and she made Philip notice afterwards how finely shaped
was his skull, and how weak was the lower part of his
face. The head, she remarked, was the head of a thinker,
but the jaw lacked character. Fraulein Anna, foredoomed
to a spinster's life, with her high cheek-bones and large
misshapen nose, laid great stress upon character. While
they talked of him he stood a little apart from the others,
watching the noisy party with a good-humoured but faintly
supercilious expression. He was tall and slim. He held
himself with a deliberate grace. Weeks, one of the Amer-
ican students, seeing him alone, went up and began to talk
to him. The pair were oddly contrasted : the American
very neat in his black coat and pepper-and-salt trousers,
thin and dried-up, with something of ecclesiastical unction
already in his manner; and the Englishman in his loose
tweed suit, large-limbed and slow of gesture.

Philip did not speak to the new-comer till next day.
They found themselves alone on the balcony of the
drawing-room before dinner. Hayward addressed him.

"You're English, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Is the food always as bad as it was last night?"

"It's always about the same."

"Beastly, isn't it?"

"Beastly."

Philip had found nothing wrong with the food at all,
and in fact had eaten it in large quantities with appetite

i24 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

and enjoyment, but he did not want to show himself a per-
son of so little discrimination as to think a dinner good
which another thought execrable.

Fraulein Thekla's visit to England made it necessary for
her sister to do more in the house, and she could not often
spare the time for long walks ; and Fraulein Cacilie, with
her long plait of fair hair and her little snub-nosed face,
had of late shown a certain disinclination for society.
Fraulein Hedwig was gone, and Weeks, the American who
generally accompanied them on their rambles, had set out
for a tour of South Germany. Philip was left a good deal
to himself. Hayward sought his acquaintance; but Philip
had an unfortunate trait: from shyness or from some
atavistic inheritance of the cave-dweller, he always dis-
liked people on first acquaintance; and it was not till he
became used to them that he got over his first impression.
It made him difficult of access. He received Hayward's
advances very shyly, and when Hayward asked him one
day to go for a walk he accepted only because he could
not think of a civil excuse. He made his usual apology,
angry with himself for the flushing cheeks he could not
control, and trying to carry it off with a laugh.

"I'm afraid I can't walk very fast."

"Good heavens, I don't walk for a wager. I prefer to
stroll. Don't you remember the chapter in Marius where
Pater talks of the gentle exercise of walking as the best
incentive to conversation ?"

Philip was a good listener ; though he often thought of
clever things to say, it was seldom till after the opportunity
to sav them had passed ; but Hayward was communicative ;
anyone more experienced than Philip might have thought
he liked to hear himself talk. His supercilious attitude im-
pressed Philip. He could not help admiring, and yet being
awed by, a man who faintly despised so many things
which Philip had looked upon as almost sacred. He cast
down the fetish of exercise, damning with the contemptu-
ous word pot-hunters all those who devoted themselves
to its various forms ; and Philip did not realise that he was
merely putting up in its stead the other fetish of culture.

They wandered up to the castle, and sat on the terrace

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 125

that overlooked the town. It nestled in the valley along the
pleasant Neckar with a comfortable friendliness. The
smoke from the chimneys hung over it, a pale blue haze ;
and the tall roofs, the spires of the churches, gave it a
pleasantly mediaeval air. There was a homeliness in it
which warmed the heart. Hay ward talked of Richard
Feverel and Madame Bovary, of Verlaine, Dante, and
Matthew Arnold. In those days Fitzgerald's translation of
Omar Khyam was known only to the elect, and Hayward
repeated it to Philip. He was very fond of reciting poetry,
his own and that of others, which he did in a monotonous
sing-song. By the time they reached home Philip's distrust
of Hayward was changed to enthusiastic admiration.

They made a practice of walking together every after-
noon, and Philip learned presently something of Hay-
ward's circumstances. He was the son of a country judge,
on whose death some time before he had inherited three
hundred a year. His record at Charterhouse was so bril-
liant that when he went to Cambridge the Master of Trin-
ity Hall went out of his way to express his satisfaction
that he was going to that college. He prepared himself for
a distinguished career. He moved in the most intellectual
circles; he read Browning with enthusiasm and turned
up his well-shaped nose at Tennyson; he knew all the
details of Shelley's treatment of Harriet; he dabbled in
the history of art (on the walls of his rooms were repro-
ductions of pictures by G. F. Watts, Burne-Jones, and
Botticelli) ; and he wrote not without distinction verses
of a pessimistic character. His friends told one another
that he was a man of excellent gifts, and he listened to
them willingly when they prophesied his future eminence.
In course of time he became an authority on art and liter-
ature. He came under the influence of Newman's Apolo-
gia; the picturesqueness of the Roman Catholic faith
appealed to his aesthetic sensibility; and it was only the
fear of his father's wrath (a plain, blunt man of narrow
ideas, who read Macaulay) which prevented him from
'going over.' When he only got a pass degree his friends
were astonished ; but he shrugged his shoulders and deli-
cately insinuated that he was not the dupe of examiners.

»z6 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

He made one feel that a first class was ever so slightly vul-
gar. He described one of the vivas with tolerant humour;
some fellow in an outrageous collar was asking him ques-
tions in logic; it was infinitely tedious, and suddenly he
noticed that he wore elastic-sided boots: it was grotesque
and ridiculous; so he withdrew his mind and thought of
the Gothic beauty of the Chapel at King's. But he had
spent some delightful days at Cambridge; he had given
better dinners than anyone he knew ; and the conversation
in his rooms had been often memorable. He quoted to
Philip the exquisite epigram :

"They told me, Herakleitus, thev told me you were
dead."

And now, when he related again the picturesque little
anecdote about the examiner and his boots, he laughed.

"Of course it was folly," he said, "but it was a folly in
which there was something fine."

Philip, with a little thrill, thought it magnificent.

Then Hayward went to London to read for the bar. He
had charming rooms in Clement's Inn, with panelled walls,
and he tried to make them look like his old rooms
at the Hall. He had ambitions that were vaguely po-
litical, he described himself as a Whig, and he was put
up for a club which was of Liberal but gentlemanly
flavour. His idea was to practise at the Bar (he chose
the Chancery side as less brutal), and get a seat
for some pleasant constituency as soon as the various
promises made him were carried out ; meanwhile he went
a great deal to the opera, and made acquaintance with a
small number of charming people who admired the things
that he admired. He joined a dining-club of which the
motto was, The Whole, The Good, and The Beautiful.
He formed a platonic friendship with a lady some years
older than himself, who lived in Kensington Square ; and
nearly every afternoon he drank tea with her by the light
of shaded candles, and talked of George Meredith and
Walter Pater. It was notorious that any fool could pass
the examinations of the Bar Council, and he pursued his
studies in a dilatory fashion. When he was ploughed for
his final he looked upon it as a personal affront. At the

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 127

same time the lady in Kensington Square rold him that
her husband was coming home from India on leave, and
was a man, though worthy in every way, of a common-
place mind, who would not understand a young man's fre-
quent visits. Hayward felt that life was full of ugliness,
his soul revolted from the thought of affronting again the
cynicism of examiners, and he saw something rather splen-
did in kicking away the ball which lay at his feet. He
was also a good deal in debt: it was difficult to live in
London like a gentleman on three hundred a year; and
his heart yearned for the Venice and Florence which John
Ruskin had so magically described. He felt that he was
unsuited to the vulgar bustle of the Bar, for he had dis-
covered that it was not sufficient to put your name on a
door to get briefs; and modern politics seemed to lack
nobility. He felt himself a poet. He disposed of his room*
in Clement's Inn and went to Italy. He had spent a winter
in Florence and a winter in Rome, and now was passing
his second summer abroad in Germany so that he might
read Goethe in the original.

Hayward had one gift which was very precious. He had
a real feeling for literature, and he could impart his own
passion with an admirable fluency. He could throw himself
into sympathy with a writer and see all that was best in
him, and then he could talk about him with understanding.
Philip had read a great deal, but he had read without
discrimination everything that he happened to come across,
and it was very good for him now to meet someone who
could guide his taste. He borrowed books from the small
lending library which the town possessed and began read-
ing all the wonderful things that Hayward spoke of. He
did not read always with enjoyment but invariably with
perseverance. He was eager for self -improvement. He felt
himself very ignorant and very humble. By the end of
August, when Weeks returned from South Germany,
Philip was completely under Hayward's influence. Hay-
ward did not like Weeks. He deplored the American's
black coat and pepper-and-salt trousers, and spoke with
a scornful shrug of his New England conscience. Philip
listened complacently to the abuse of a man who had gone

ia8 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

out of his way to be kind to him, but when Weeks in his
turn made disagreeable remarks about Hayward he lost his
temper.

"Your new friend looks like a poet," said Weeks, with a
thin smile on his careworn, bitter mouth.

"He is a poet."

"Did he tell you so? In America we should call him a
pretty fair specimen of a waster."

"Well, we're not in America," said Philip frigidly.

"How old is he ? Twenty-five ? And he does nothing but
stay in pensions and write poetry."

"You don't know him," said Philip hotly.

"Oh yes, I do: I've met a hundred and forty-seven of
him."

Weeks' eyes twinkled, but Philip, who did not under-
stand American humour, pursed his lips and looked severe.
Weeks to Philip seemed a man of middle-age, but he was
in point of fact little more than thirty. He had a long,
thin body and the scholar's stoop ; his head was large and
ugly ; he had pale scanty hair and an earthy skin ; his thin
mouth and thin, long nose, and the great protuberance of
his frontal bones, gave him an uncouth look. He was cold
and precise in his manner, a bloodless man, without pas-
sion; but he had a curious vein of frivolity which dis-
concerted the serious-minded among whom his instincts
naturally threw him. He was studying theology in Heidel-
berg, but the other theological students of his own nation-
ality looked upon him with suspicion. He was very un-
orthodox, which frightened them ; and his freakish humour
excited their disapproval.

"How can you have known a hundred and forty-seven
of him?" asked Philip seriously.

"I've met him in the Latin Quarter in Paris, and I've
met him in pensions in Berlin and Munich. He lives in
small hotels in Perugia and Assisi. He stands by the dozen
before the Botticellis in Florence, and he sits on all the
benches of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. In Italy he drinks
a little too much wine, and in Germany he drinks a great
deal too much beer. He always admires the right thing
whatever the right thing is, and one of these days he's go-

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 129

ing to write a great work. Think of it, there are a hundred
and forty-seven great works reposing in the bosoms of a
hundred and forty-seven great men, and the tragic thing
is that not one of those hundred and forty-seven great
works will ever be written. And yet the world goes on."

Weeks spoke seriously, but his gray eyes twinkled a lit-
tle at the end of his long speech, and Philip flushed when
he saw that the American was making fun of him.

"You do talk rot," he said crossly.

XXVII

WEEKS had two little rooms at the back of Frau Erlin's
house, and one of them, arranged as a parlour, was com-
fortable enough for him to invite people to sit in. After
supper, urged perhaps by the impish humour which was
the despair of his friends in Cambridge, Mass., he often
asked Philip and Hayward to come in for a chat. He re-
ceived them with elaborate courtesy and insisted on their
sitting in the only two comfortable chairs in the room.
Though he did not drink himself, with a politeness of
which Philip recognized the irony, he put a couple of bot-
tles of beer at Hayward's elbow, and he insisted on light-
ing matches whenever in the heat of argument Hayward's
pipe went out. At the beginning of their acquaintance
Hayward, as a member of so celebrated a university, had
adopted a patronising attitude towards Weeks, who was
a graduate of Harvard; and when by chance the conver-
sation turned upon the Greek tragedians, a subject upon
which Hayward felt he spoke with authority, he had as-
sumed the air that it was his part to give information
rather than to exchange ideas. Weeks had listened politely,
with smiling modesty, till Hayward finished ; then he asked
one or two insidious questions, so innocent in appearance
that Hayward, not seeing into what a quandary they led
him, answered blandly; Weeks made a courteous objec-
tion, then a correction of fact, after that a quotation from
some little known Latin commentator, then a reference
to a German authority ; and the fact was disclosed that he
was a scholar. With smiling ease, apologetically, Weeks
tore to pieces all that Hayward had said ; with elaborate
civility he displayed the superficiality of his attainments.
He mocked him with gentle irony. Philip could not help
seeing that Hayward looked a perfect fool, and Hayward
had not the sense to hold his tongue ; in his irritation, his
self-assurance undaunted, he attempted to argue : he made

130

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 131

wild statements and Weeks amicably corrected them; he
reasoned falsely and Weeks proved that he was absurd :
Weeks confessed that he had taught Greek Literature at
Harvard. Hayward gave a laugh of scorn.

"I might have known it. Of course you read Greek like
a schoolmaster," he said. "I read it like a poet."

"And do you find it more poetic when you don't quite
know what it means? I thought it was only in revealed
religion that a mistranslation improved the sense."

At last, having finished the beer, Hayward left Weeks*
room hot and dishevelled ; with an angry gesture he said to
Philip:

"Of course the man's a pedant. He has no real feeling
for beauty. Accuracy is the virtue of clerks. It's the spirit
of the Greeks that we aim at. Weeks is like that fellow
who went to hear Rubenstein and complained that he
played false notes. False notes! What did they matter
when he played divinely ?"

Philip, not knowing how many incompetent people have
found solace in these false notes, was much impressed.

Hayward could never resist the opportunity which
Weeks offered him of regaining ground lost on a previous
occasion, and Weeks was able with the greatest ease to
draw him into a discussion. Though he could not help see-
ing how small his attainments were beside the Amer-
ican's, his British pertinacity, his wounded vanity (perhaps-
they are the same thing), would not allow him to give up
the struggle. Hayward seemed to take a delight in display-
ing his ignorance, self-satisfaction, and wrongheadedness.
Whenever Hayward said something which was illogical.
Weeks in a few words would show the falseness of his
reasoning, pause for a moment to enjoy his triumph, and
then hurry on to another subject as though Christian
charity impelled him to spare the vanquished foe. Philip
tried sometimes to put in something to help his friend, and
Weeks gently crushed him, but so kindly, differently from
the way in which he answered Hayward, that even Philip,
outrageously sensitive, could not feel hurt. Now and then,
losing his calm as he felt himself more and more foolish,
Hayward became abusive, and only the American's smiling

I3a OF HUMAN BONDAGE

politeness prevented the argument from degenerating into
a quarrel. On these occasions when Hayward left Weeks'
room he muttered angrily :

"Damned Yankee !"

That settled it. It was a perfect answer to an argument
which had seemed unanswerable.

Though they began by discussing all manner of subjects
in Weeks' little room eventually the conversation always
turned to religion: the theological student took a profes-
sional interest in it, and Hayward welcomed a subject in
which hard facts need not disconcert him ; when feeling is
the gauge you can snap your fingers at logic, and when
your logic is weak that is very agreeable. Hayward found
it difficult to explain his beliefs to Philip without a great
flow of words; but it was clear (and this fell in with
Philip's idea of the natural order of things), that he had
been brought up in the church by law established. Though
he had now given up all idea of becoming a Roman Catho-
lic, he still looked upon that communion with sympathy.
He had much to say in its praise, and he compared favour-
ably its gorgeous ceremonies with the simple services of
the Church of England. He gave Philip Newman's Apolo-
gia to read, and Philip, finding it very dull, nevertheless
read it to the end.

"Read it for its style, not for its matter," said Hayward.

He talked enthusiastically of the music at the Oratory,
and said charming things about the connection between
incense and the devotional spirit. Weeks listened to him
with his frigid smile.

"You think it proves the truth of Roman Catholicism
that John Henry Newman wrote good English and that
Cardinal Manning has a picturesque appearance?"

Hayward hinted that he had gone through much trouble
with his soul. For a year he had swum in a sea of darkness.
He passed his fingers through his fair, waving hair and
told them that he would not for five hundred pounds en-
dure again those agonies of mind. Fortunately he had
reached calm waU rs at last.

"But what do you believe ?" asked Philip, who was never
satisfied with vague statements.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 133

"I believe in the Whole, the Good, and the Beautiful."

Hayward with his loose large limbs and the fine carriage
of his head looked very handsome when he said this, and
he said it with an air.

"Is that how you would describe your religion in a cen-
sus paper?" asked Weeks, in mild tones.

"I hate the rigid definition : it's so ugly, so obvious. If
you like I will say that I believe in the church of the Duke
of Wellington and Mr. Gladstone."

"That's the Church of England," said Philip.

"Oh wise young man !" retorted Hayward, with a smile
which made Philip blush, for he felt that in putting into
plain words what the other had expressed in a paraphrase,
he had been guilty of vulgarity. "I belong to the Church
of England. But I love the gold and the silk which clothe
the priest of Rome, and his celibacy, and the confessional,
and purgatory ; and in the darkness of an Italian cathedral,
incense-laden and mysterious, I believe with all my heart
in the miracle of the Mass. In Venice I have seen a fisher-
woman come in, barefoot, throw down her basket of fish
by her side, fall on her knees, and pray to the Madonna;
and that I felt was the real faith, and I prayed and be-
lieved with her. But I believe also in Aphrodite and Apollo
and the Great God Pan."

He had a charming voice, and he chose his words as he
spoke; he uttered them almost rhythmically. He would
have gone on, but Weeks opened a second bottle of beer.

"Let me give you something to drink."

Hayward turned to Philip with the slightly condescend-
ing gesture which so impressed the youth.

"Now are you satisfied?" he asked.

Philip, somewhat bewildered, confessed that he was.

"I'm disappointed that you didn't add a little Bud-
dhism," said Weeks. "And I confess I have a sort of
sympathy for Mahomet ; I regret that you should have left
him out in the cold."

Hayward laughed, for he was in a good humour with
himself that evening, and the ring of his sentences still
sounded pleasant in his ears. He emptied his glass.

"I didn't expect you to understand me," he answered.

134 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

"With your cold American intelligence you can only adopt
the critical attitude. Emerson and all that sort of thing.
But what is criticism? Criticism is purely destructive;
anyone can destroy, but not everyone can build up. You
are a pedant, my dear fellow. The important thing is to
construct : I am constructive ; I am a poet."

Weeks looked at him with eyes which seemed at the
same time to be quite grave and yet to be smiling brightly.

"I think, if you don't mind my saying so, you're a little
drunk."

"Nothing to speak of," answered Hayward cheerfully.
"And not enough for me to be unable to overwhelm you
in argument. But come, I have unbosomed my soul; now
tell us what your religion is."

Weeks put his head on one side so that he looked like a
sparrow on a perch.

"I've been trying to find that out for years. I think I'm
a Unitarian."

"But that's a dissenter," said Philip.

He could not imagine why they both burst into laughter,
Hayward uproariously, and Weeks with a funny chuckle.

"And in England dissenters aren't gentlemen, are
they?" asked Weeks.

"Well, if you ask me point-blank, they're not," replied
Philip rather crossly.

He hated being laughed at, and they laughed again.

"And will you tell me what a gentleman is?" asked
Weeks.

"Oh, I don't know ; everyone knows what it is."

"Are you a gentleman ?"

No doubt had ever crossed Philip's mind on the sub-
ject, but he knew it was not a thing to state of oneself.

"If a man tells you he's a gentleman you can bet your
boots he isn't," he retorted.

"Am I a gentleman?"

Philip's truthfulness made it difficult for him to answer,
but he was naturally polite.

"Oh, well, you're different," he said. "You're American,
aren't you?"

OFHUMANBONDAGE 135

"I suppose we may take it that only Englishmen are
gentlemen," said Weeks gravely.

Philip did not contradict him.

"Couldn't you give me a few more particulars?" asked
Weeks.

Philip reddened, but, growing angry, did not care if he
made himself ridiculous.

"I can give you plenty." He remembered his uncle's
saying that it took three generations to make a gentle-
man : it was a companion proverb to the silk purse and the
sow's ear. "First of all he's the son of a gentleman, and
he's been to a public school, and to Oxford or Cambridge."

"Edinburgh wouldn't do, I suppose ?" asked Weeks.

"And he talks English like a gentleman, and he wears
the right sort of things, and if he's a gentleman he can
always tell if another chap's a gentleman."

It seemed rather lame to Philip as he went on, but there
it was : that was what he meant by the word, and everyone
he had ever known had meant that too.

"It is evident to me that I am not a gentleman," said
Weeks. "I don't see why you should have been so sur-
prised because I was a dissenter."

"I don't quite know what a Unitarian is," said Philip.

Weeks in his odd way again put his head on one side:
you almost expected him to twitter.

"A Unitarian very earnestly disbelieves in almost every-
thing that anybody else believes, and he has a very lively
sustaining faith in he doesn't quite know what."

"I don't see why you should make fun of me," said
Philip. "I really want to know."

"My dear friend, I'm not making fun of you. I have
arrived at that definition after years of great labour and
the most anxious, nerve-racking study."

When Philip and Hayward got up to go, Weeks handed
Philip a little book in a paper ^over.

"I suppose you can read French pretty well by now. I
wonder if this would amuse you."

Philip thanked him and, taking the book, looked at the
title. It was Renan's Vie de Jesus.

XXVIII

IT occurred neither to Hayward nor to Weeks that the
conversations which helped them to pass an idle evening
were being turned over afterwards in Philip's active brain.
It had never struck him before that religion was a mat-
ter upon which discussion was possible. To him it meant
the Church of England, and not to believe in its tenets was
a sign of wilfulness which could not fail of punishment
here or hereafter. There was some doubt in his mind about
the chastisement of unbelievers. It was possible that a
merciful judge, reserving the flames of hell for the heathen
— Mahommedans, Buddhists, and the rest — would spare
Dissenters and Roman Catholics (though at the cost of
how much humiliation when they were made to realise
their error!), and it was also possible that He would be
pitiful to those who had had no chance of learning the
truth, — this was reasonable enough, though such were
the activities of the Missionary Society there could not be
many in this condition — but if the chance had been theirs
and they had neglected it (in which category were obvi-
ously Roman Catholics and Dissenters), the punishment
was sure and merited. It was clear that the miscreant was
in a parlous state. Perhaps Philip had not been taught
it in so many words, but certainly the impression had been
given him that only members of the Church of England
had any real hope of eternal happiness.

One of the things that Philip had heard definitely stated
was that the unbeliever was a wicked and a vicious man ;
but Weeks, though he believed in hardly anything that
Philip believed, led a life of Christian purity. Philip had
received little kindness in his life, and he was touched by
the American's desire to help him : once when a cold kept
him in bed for three days, Weeks nursed him like a
mother. There was neither vice nor wickedness in him, but

136

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 137

only sincerity and loving-kindness. It was evidently possi-
ble to be virtuous and unbelieving.

Also Philip had been given to understand that people
adhered to other faiths only from obstinacy or self-
interest: in their hearts they knew they were false; they
deliberately sought to deceive others. Now, for the sake of
his German he had been accustomed on Sunday mornings
to attend the Lutheran service, but when Hayward ar-
rived he began instead to go with him to Mass. He noticed
that, whereas the protestant church was nearly empty and
the congregation had a listless air, the Jesuit on the other
hand was crowded and the worshippers seemed to pray
with all their hearts. They had not the look of hypocrites.
He was surprised at the contrast; for he knew of course
that the Lutherans, whose faith was closer to that of the
Church of England, on that account were nearer the truth
than the Roman Catholics. Most of the men — it was
largely a masculine congregation — were South Germans;
and he could not help saying to himself that if he had
been born in South Germany he would certainly have been
a Roman Catholic. He might just as well have been born
in a Roman Catholic country as in England ; and in Eng-
land as well in a Wesleyan, Baptist, or Methodist family as
in one that fortunately belonged to the church by law
established. He was a little breathless at the danger he had
run. Philip was on friendly terms with the little Chinaman
who sat at table with him twice each day. His name was
Sung. He was always smiling, affable, and polite. It
seemed strange that he should frizzle in hell merely be-
cause he was a Chinaman; but if salvation was possible
whatever a man's faith was, there did not seem to be any
particular advantage in belonging to the Church of Eng-
land.

Philip, more puzzled than he had ever been in his life,
sounded Weeks. He had to be careful, for he was very
sensitive to ridicule ; and the acidulous humour with which
the American treated the Church of England disconcerted
him. Weeks only puzzled him more. He made Philip
acknowledge that those South Germans whom he saw in
the Jesuit church were every bit as firmly convinced of

138

the truth of Roman Catholicism as he was of that of the
Church of England, and from that he led him to admit
that the Mahommedan and the Buddhist were convinced
also of the truth of their respective religions. It looked as
though knowing that you were right meant nothing; they
all knew they were right. Weeks had no intention of un-
dermining the boy's faith, but he was deeply interested in
religion, and found it an absorbing topic of conversation.
He had described his own views accurately when he said
that he very earnestly disbelieved in almost everything
that other people believed. Once Philip asked him a ques-
tion, which he had heard his uncle put when the conver-
sation at the vicarage had fallen upon some mildly
rationalistic work which was then exciting discussion in the
newspapers.

"But why should you be right and all those fellows like
St. Anselm and St. Augustine be wrong?"

"You mean that they were very clever and learned men,
while you have grave doubts whether I am either?" asked
Weeks.

"Yes," answered Philip uncertainly, for put in that way
his question seemed impertinent.

"St. Augustine believed that the earth was flat and that
the sun turned round it."

"I don't know what that proves."

"Why, it proves that you believe with your generation.
Your saints lived in an age of faith, when it was practi-
cally impossible to disbelieve what to us is positively in-
credible."

"Then how d'you know that we have the truth now?"

"I don't."

Philio thought this over for a moment, then he said :

"I don't see why the things we believe absolutely now
shouldn't be just as wrong as what they believed in the
past."

"Neither do I."

"Then how can you believe anything at all?"

"I don't know."

Philip asked Weeks what he thought of Hayward's
religion.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 13*

"Men have always formed gods in their own image,"
said Weeks. "He believes in the picturesque."
Philip paused for a little while, then he said :
"I don't see why one should believe in God at all."
The words were no sooner out of his mouth than he
realised that he had ceased to do so. It took his breath
away like a plunge into cold water. He looked at Weeks
with startled eyes. Suddenly he felt afraid. He left Weeks
as quickly as he could. He wanted to be alone. It was the
most startling experience that he had ever had. He tried
to think it all out; it was very exciting, since his whole
life seemed concerned (he thought his decision on this
matter must profoundly affect its course) and a mistake
might lead to eternal damnation; but the more he re-
flected the more convinced he was; and though during
the next few weeks he read books, aids to scepticism, with
eager interest it was only to confirm him in what he felt
instinctively. The fact was that he had ceased to believe
not for this reason or the other, but because he had not
the religious temperament. Faith had been forced upon
him from the outside. It was a matter of environment and
example. A new environment and a new example gave
him the opportunity to find himself. He put off the faith
of his childhood quite simply, like a cloak that he no
longer needed. At first life seemed strange and lonely
without the belief which, though he never realised it, had
been an unfailing support. He felt like a man who has
leaned on a stick and finds himself forced suddenly to
walk without assistance. It really seemed as though the
days were colder and the nights more solitary. But he was
upheld by the excitement ; it seemed to make life a more
thrilling adventure ; and in a little while the stick which
he had thrown aside, the cloak which had fallen from his
shoulders, seemed an intolerable burden of which he had
been eased. The religious exercises which for so many
years had been forced upon him were part and parcel of
religion to him. He thought of the collects and epistles
which he had been made to learn by heart, and the long
services at the Cathedral through which he had sat when
every limb itched with the desire for movement; and he

140 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

remembered those walks at night through muddy roads to
the parish church at Blackstable, and the coldness of that
bleak building; he sat with his feet like ice, his fingers
numb and heavy, and all around was the sickly odour of
pomatum. Oh, he had been so bored! His heart leaped
when he saw he was free from all that.

He was surprised at himself because he ceased to believe
so easily, and, not knowing that he felt as he did on ac-
count of the subtle workings of his inmost nature, he
ascribed the certainty he had reached to his own clever-
ness. He was unduly pleased with himself. With youth's
lack of sympathy for an attitude other than its own he
despised not a little Weeks and Hayward because they
were content with the vague emotion which they called
God and would not take the further step which to himself
seemed so obvious. One day he went alone up a certain
hill so that he might see a view which, he knew not why,
filled him always with wild exhilaration. It was autumn
now, but often the days were cloudless still, and then the
sky seemed to glow with a more splendid light : it was as
though nature consciously sought to put a fuller vehemence
into the remaining days of fair weather. He looked down
upon the plain, a-quiver with the sun, stretching vastly
before him : in the distance were the roofs of Mannheim
and ever so far away the dimness of Worms. Here and
there a more piercing glitter was the Rhine. The tremen-
dous spaciousness of it was glowing with rich gold. Philip,
as he stood there, his heart beating with sheer joy, thought
how the tempter had stood with Jesus on a high mountain
and shown him the kingdoms of the earth. To Philip, in-
toxicated with the beauty of the scene, it seemed that it
was the whole world which was spread before him, and
he was eager to step down and enjoy it. He was free from
degrading fears and free from prejudice. He could go
his way without the intolerable dread of hell-fire. Sud-
denly he realised that he had lost also that burden of
responsibility which made every action of his life a matter
of urgent consequence. He could breathe more freely in
a lighter air. He was responsible only to himself for the

O F H U M A N B O N D A G E 141

things he did. Freedom! He was his own master at last.
From old habit, unconsciously he thanked God that he no
longer believed in Him.

Drunk with pride in his intelligence and in his fearless-
ness, Philip entered deliberately upon a new life. But his
loss of faith made less difference in his behaviour than
he expected. Though he had thrown on one side the Chris-
tian dogmas it never occurred to him to criticise the
Christian ethics; he accepted the Christian virtues, and
indeed thought it fine to practise them for their own sake,
without a thought of reward or punishment. There was
small occasion for heroism in the Frau Professor's house,
but he was a little more exactly truthful than he had been,
and he forced himself to be more than commonly atten-
tive to the dull, elderly ladies who sometimes engaged
him in conversation. The gentle oath, the violent adjective,
which are typical of our language and which he had culti-
vated before as a sign of manliness, he now elaborately
eschewed.

Having settled the whole matter to his satisfaction he
sought to put it out of his mind, but that was more easily
said than done ; and he could not prevent the regrets nor
stifle the misgivings which sometimes tormented him. He
was so young and had so few friends that immortality had
no particular attractions for him, and he was able with-
out trouble to give up belief in it ; but there was one thing
which made him wretched; he told himself that he was
unreasonable, he tried to laugh himself out of such pathos ;
but the tears really came to his eyes when he thought that
he would never see again the beautiful mother whose love
for him had grown more precious as the years since her
death passed on. And sometimes, as though the influence
of innumerable ancestors, God-fearing and devout, were
working in him unconsciously, there seized him a panic
fear that perhaps after all it was all true, and there was,
up there behind the blue sky, a jealous God who would
punish in everlasting flames the atheist. At these times his
reason could offer him no help, he imagined the anguish
of a physical torment which would last endlessly, he felt

i42 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

quite sick with fear and burst into a violent sweat. At
last he would say to himself desperately :

"After all, it's not my fault. I can't force myself to be-
lieve. If there is a God after all and he punishes me be-
cause I honestly don't believe in Him I can't help it."

XXIX

WINTER set in. Weeks went to Berlin to attend the lec-
tures of Paulssen, and Hayward began to think of going
South. The local theatre opened its doors. Philip and Hay-
ward went to it two or three times a week with the praise-
worthy intention of improving their German, and Philip
found it a more diverting manner of perfecting himself
in the language than listening to sermons. They found
themselves in the midst of a revival of the drama. Several
of Ibsen's plays were on the repertory for the winter;
Sudermann's Die Ehre was then a new play, and on its
production in the quiet university town caused the great-
est excitement; it was extravagantly praised and bitterly
attacked; other dramatists followed with plays written
under the modern influence, and Philip witnessed a series
of works in which the vileness of mankind was displayed
before him. He had never been to a play in his life till
then (poor touring companies sometimes came to the As-
sembly Rooms at Blackstable, but the Vicar, partly on
account of his profession, partly because he thought it
would be vulgar, never went to see them) and the passion
of the stage seized him. He felt a thrill the moment he got
into the little, shabby, ill-lit theatre. Soon he came to know
the peculiarities of the small company, and by the casting
could tell at once what were the characteristics of the per-
sons in the drama ; but this made no difference to him. To
him it was real life. It was a strange life, dark and tor-
tured, in which men and women showed to remorseless
eyes the evil that was in their hearts : a fair face concealed
a depraved mind ; the virtuous used virtue as a mask to
hide their secret vice, the seeming-strong fainted within
with their weakness ; the honest were corrupt, the chaste
were lewd. You seemed to dwell in a room where the night
before an orgy had taken place : the windows had not been
opened in the morning ; the air was foul with the dregs of

144 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

beer, and stale smoke, and flaring gas. There was no
laughter. At most you sniggered at the hypocrite or the
fool: the characters expressed themselves in cruel words
that seemed wrung out of their hearts by shame and
anguish.

Philip was carried away by the sordid intensity of it. He
seemed to see the world again in another fashion, and this
world too he was anxious to know. After the play was
over he went to a tavern and sat in the bright warmth with
Hayward to eat a sandwich and drink a glass of beer. All
round were little groups of students, talking and laugh-
ing ; c.nd here and there was a family, father and mother,
a couple of sons and a girl ; and sometimes the girl said
a sharp thing, and the father leaned back in his chair and
laughed, laughed heartily. It was very friendly and inno-
cent. There was a pleasant homeliness in the scene, but
for this Philip had no eyes. His thoughts ran on the play
he had just come from.

"You do feel it's life, don't you?" he said excitedly.
"You know, I don't think I can stay here much longer. I
want to get to London so that I can really begin. I want to
have experiences. I'm so tired of preparing for life: I
want to live it now."

Sometimes Hayward left Philip to go home by himself.
He would never exactly reply to Philip's eager question-
ing, but with a merry, rather stupid laugh, hinted at a ro-
mantic amour ; he quoted a few lines of Rossetti, and once
showed Philip a sonnet in which passion and purple, pes-
simism and pathos, were packed together on the subject
of a young lady called Trude. Hayward surrounded his
sordid and vulgar little adventures with a glow of poetry,
and thought he touched hands \yith Pericles and Pheidias
because to describe the object of his attentions he used
the word hetaira instead of one of those, more blunt and
apt, provided by the English language. Philip in the day-
time had been led by curiosity to pass through the little
street near the old bridge, with its neat white houses and
green shutters, in which according to Hayward the Frau-
lein Trude lived; but the women, with brutal faces and
painted cheeks, who came out of their doors and cried out

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 145

to him, filled him with fear; and he fled in horror from
the rough hands that sought to detain him. He yearned
above all things for experience and felt himself ridiculous
because at his age he had not enjoyed that which all fiction
taught him was the most important thing in life; but he
had the unfortunate gift of seeing things as they were,
and the reality which was offered him differed too terribly
from the ideal of his dreams.

^ He did not know how wide a country, arid and precipit-
ous, must be crossed before the traveller through life
comes to an acceptance of reality. It is an illusion that
youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it ; but
the young know they are wretched, for they are full of
\he truthless ideals which have been instilled into them,
and each time they come in contact with the real they are
bruised and wounded, it looks as if they were victims of
a conspiracy ; for the books they read, ideal by the neces-
sity of selection, and the conversation of their elders, who
look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forget-
fulness, prepare them for an unreal life. They must dis-
cover for themselves that all they have read and all they
have been told are lies, lies, lies; and each discovery is
another nail driven into the body on the cross of life. The
strange thing is that each one who has gone through that
bitter disillusionment adds to it in his turn, unconsciously,
by the power within him which is stronger than himself.
The companionship of Hayward was the worst possible
thing for Philip. He was a man who saw nothing for him-
self, but only through a literary atmosphere, and he was
dangerous because he had deceived himself into sincerity.
He honestly mistook his sensuality for romantic emotion,
his vacillation for the artistic temperament, and his idleness
for philosophic calm. His mind, vulgar in its effort at re-
finement, saw everything a little larger than life size, with
the outlines blurred, in a golden mist of sentimentality.
He lied and never knew that he lied, and when it was
pointed out to him said that lies were beautiful. He was an
idealist.

XXX

PHILIP was restless and dissatisfied. Hayvvard's poetic
allusions troubled his imagination, and his soul yearned for
romance. At least that was how he put it to himself.

And it happened that an incident was taking place in
Frau Erlin's house which increased Philip's preoccupation
with the matter of sex. Two or three times on his walks
among the hills he had met Frr.'ilein Cacilie wandering
by herself. He had passed her with a bow, and a few yards
further on had seen the Chinaman. He thought nothing
of it; but one evening on his way home, when night had
already fallen, he passed two people walking very close
together. Hearing his footstep, they separated quickly, and
though he could not see well in the darkness he was almost
certain they were Cacilie and Herr Sung. Their rapid
movement apart suggested that they had been walking arm
in arm. Philip was puzzled and surprised. He had never
paid much attention to Fraulein Cacilie. She was a plain
girl, with a square face and blunt features. She could not
have been more than sixteen, since she still wore her long
fair hair in a plait. That evening at supper he looked at
her curiously; and, though of late she had talked little
at meals, she addressed him.

"Where did you go for your walk today, Herr Carey?"
she asked.

"Oh, I walked up towards the Konigstuhl."
"I didn't go out," she volunteered. "I had a headache."
The Chinaman, who sat next to her, turned round.
"I'm so sorry," he said. "I hope it's better now."
Fraulein Cacilie was evidently uneasy, for she spoke
again to Philip.

"Did you meet many people on the way?"
Philip could not help reddening when he told a down-
right lie.

"No. I don't think I saw a living soul."

He fancied that a look of relief passed across her eyes.

146

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 147

Soon, however, there could be no doubt that there was
something between the pair, and other people in the Frau
Professor's house saw them lurking in dark places. The
elderly ladies who sat at the head of the table began to
discuss what was now a scandal. The Frau Professor was
angry and harassed. She had done her best to see nothing.
The winter was at hand, and it was not as easy a matter
then as in the summer to keep her house full. Herr Sung
was a good customer : he had two rooms on the ground
floor, and he drank a bottle of Moselle at each meal. The
Frau Professor charged him three marks a bottle and
made a good profit. None of her other guests drank wine,
and some of them did not even drink beer. Neither did
she wish to lose Fraulein Cacilie, whose parents were in
business in South America and paid well for the Frau
Professor's motherly care ; and she knew that if she wrote
to the girl's uncle, who lived in Berlin, he would immedi-
ately take her away. The Frau Professor contented herself
with giving them both severe looks at table and, though
she dared not be rude to the Chinaman, got a certain satis-
faction out of incivility to Cacilie. But the three elderly
ladies were not content. Two were widows, and one, a
Dutchwoman, was a spinster of masculine appearance;
they paid the smallest possible sum for their pension, and
gave a good deal of trouble, but they were permanent and
therefore had to be put up with. They went to the Frau
Professor and said that something must be done; it was
disgraceful, and the house was ceasing to be respectable.
The Frau Professor tried obstinacy, anger, tears, but the
three old ladies routed her, and with a sudden assumption
of virtuous indignation she said that she would put a stop
to the whole thing.

After luncheon she took Cacilie into her bed-room and
began to talk very seriously to her ; but to her amazement
the girl adopted a brazen attitude; she proposed to go
about as she liked ; and if she chose to walk with the
Chinaman she could not see it was anybody's busines but
her own. The Frau Professor threatened to write to her
uncle.

"Then Onkel Heinrich will put me in a family in Berlin

148 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

for the winter, and that will be much nicer for me. And
Herr Sung will come to Berlin too."

The Frau Professor began to cry. The tears rolled down
her coarse, red, fat cheeks; and Cacilie laughed at her.

"That will mean three rooms empty all through the
winter," she said.

Then the Frau Professor tried another plan. She ap-
pealed to Fraulein Cacilie's better nature: she was kind,
sensible, tolerant ; she treated her no longer as a child, but
as a grown woman. She said that it wouldn't be so dread-
ful, but a Chinaman, with his yellow skin and flat nose,
and his little pig's eyes! That's what made it so horrible.
It filled one with disgust to think of it.

"Bitte, bitte," said Cacilie, with a rapid intake of the
breath. "I won't listen to anything against him."

"But it's not serious?" gasped Frau Erlin.

"I love him. I love him. I love him."

"Gott in Himmel!"

The Frau Professor stared at her with horrified sur-
prise; she had thought it was no more than naughtiness
on the child's part, and innocent folly ; but the passion in
her voice revealed everything. Cacilie looked at her for
a moment with flaming eyes, and then with a shrug of her
shoulders went out of the room.

Frau Erlin kept the details of the interview to herself,
and a day or two later altered the arrangement of the
table. She asked Herr Sung if he would not come and sit
at her end, and he with his unfailing politeness accepted
with alacrity. Cacilie took the change indifferently. But as
if the discovery that the relations between them were
known to the whole household made them more shameless,
they made no secret now of their walks together, and every
afternoon quite openly set out to wander about the hills.
It was plain that they did not care what was said of them.
At last even the placidity of Professor Erlin was moved,
and he insisted that his wife should speak to the Chinaman.
She took him aside in his turn and expostulated; he was
ruining the girl's reputation, he was doing harm to the
house, he must see how wrong and wicked his conduct
was; but she was met with smiling denials; Herr Sung

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 149

did not know what she was talking about, he was not pay-
ing any attention to Fraulein Cacilie, he never walked with
her ; it was all untrue, every word of it.

"Ach, Herr Sung, how can you say such things? You've
been seen again and again."

"No, you're mistaken. It's untrue."

He looked at her with an unceasing smile, which showed
his even, little white teeth. He was quite calm. He denied
everything. He denied with bland effrontery. At last the
Frau Professor lost her temper and said the girl had con-
fessed she loved him. He was not moved. He continued to
smile.

"Nonsense ! Nonsense ! It's all untrue."

She could get nothing out of him. The weather grew
very bad ; there was snow and frost, and then a thaw with
a long succession of cheerless days, on which walking was
a poor amusement. One evening when Philip had just fin-
ished his German lesson with the Herr Professor and war
standing for a moment in the drawing-room, talking to
Frau Erlin, Anna came quickly in.

"Mamma, where is Cacilie?" she said.

"I suppose she's in her room."

"There's no light in it."

The Frau Professor gave an exclamation, and she
looked at her daughter in dismay. The thought which was
in Anna's head had flashed across hers.

"Ring for Emil," she said hoarsely.

This was the stupid lout who waited at table and did
most of the housework. He came in.

"Emil, go down to Herr Sung's room and enter with-
out knocking. If anyone is there say you came in to see
about the stove."

No sign of astonishment appeared on Emil's phlegmatic
face.

He went slowly downstairs. The Frau Professor and
Anna left the door open and listened. Presently they heard
Emil come up again, and they called him.

"Was any one there ?" asked the Frau Professor.

"Yes, Herr Sung was there."

"Was he alone?"

iSo OF HUMAN BONDAGE

The beginning of a cunning smile narrowed his mouth.

"No, Fraulein Cacilie was there."

"Oh, it's disgraceful," cried the Frau Professor.

Now he smiled broadly.

"Fraulein Cacilie is there every evening. She spends
hours at a time there."

Frau Professor began to wring her hands.

"Oh, how abominable! But why didn't you tell me?"

"It was no business of mine," he answered, slowly
shrugging his shoulders.

"I suppose they paid you well. Go away. Go."

He lurched clumsily to the door.

"They must go away, mamma," said Anna.

"And who is going to pay the rent? And the taxes are
falling due. It's all very well for you to say they must go
away. If they go away I can't pay the bills." She turned
to Philip, with tears streaming down her face. "Ach, Herr
Carey, you will not say what you have heard. If Fraulein
Forster — " this was the Dutch spinster — "if Fraulein
Forster knew she would leave at once. And if they all go
we must close the house. I cannot afford to keep it."

"Of course I won't say anything."

"If she stays, I will not speak to her," said Anna.

That evening at supper Fraulein Cacilie, redder than
usual, with a look of obstinacy on her face, took her place
punctually ; but Herr Sung did not appear, and for a while
Philip thought he was going to shirk the ordeal. At last he
came, very smiling, his little eyes dancing with the apolo-
gies he made for his late arrival. He insisted as usual on
pouring out the Frau Professor a glass of his Moselle, and
he offered a glass to Fraulein Forster. The room was very
hot, for the stove had been alight all day and the windows
were seldom opened. Emil blundered about, but succeeded
somehow in serving everyone quickly and with order. The
three old ladies sat in silence, visibly disapproving: the
Frau Professor had scarcely recovered from her tears ; her
husband was silent and oppressed. Conversation lan-
guished. It seemed to Philip that there was something
dreadful in that gathering which he had sat with so often ;
they looked different under the light of the two hanging

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 151

lamps from what they had ever looked before; he was
vaguely uneasy. Once he caught Cacilie's eye, and he
thought she looked at him with hatred and contempt. The
room was stifling. It was as though the beastly passion of
that pair troubled them all ; there was a feeling of Oriental
depravity ; a faint savour of joss-sticks, a mystery of hid-
den vices, seemed to make their breath heavy. Philip could
feel the beating of the arteries in his forehead. He could
not understand what strange emotion distracted him; he
seemed to feel something infinitely attractive, and yet he
was repelled and horrified.

For several days things went on. The air was sickly with
the unnatural passion which all felt about them, and the
nerves of the little household seemed to grow exasperated.
Only Herr Sung remained unaffected; he was no less
smiling, affable, and polite than he had been before: one
could not tell whether his manner was a triumph of civili-
sation or an expression of contempt on the part of the
Oriental for the vanquished West. Cacilie was flaunting
and cynical. At last even the Frau Professor could bear
ihe position no longer. Suddenly panic seized her; for
Professor Erlin with brutal frankness had suggested the
possible consequences of an intrigue which was now mani-
fest to everyone, and she saw her good name in Heidel-
berg and the repute of her house ruined by a scandal which
could not possibly be hidden. For some reason, blinded
perhaps by her interests, this possibility had never occurred
to her ; and now, her wits muddled by a terrible fear, she
could hardly be prevented from turning the girl out of the
house at once. It was due to Anna's good sense that a
cautious letter was written to the uncle in Berlin suggest-
ing that Cacilie should be taken away.

But having made up her mind to lose the two lodgers,
the Frau Professor could not resist the satisfaction of giv-
ing rein to the ill-temper she had curbed so long. She was
free now to say anything she liked to Cacilie.

"I have written to your uncle, Cacilie, to take you away.
I cannot have you in my house any longer."

Her little round eyes sparkled when she noticed the
sudden whiteness of the girl's face.

I52 OF HUM AN BON DACE

"You're shameless. Shameless," she went on.

She called her foul names.

"What did you say to my uncle Heinrich, Frau Pro-
fessor ?" the girl asked, suddenly falling from her attitude
of flaunting independence.

"Oh, he'll tell you himself. I expect to get a letter from
him tomorrow."

Next day, in order to make the humiliation more public,
at supper she called down the table to Cacilie.

"I have had a letter from your uncle, Cacilie. You are to
pack your things tonight, and we will put you in the train
tomorrow morning. He will meet you himself in Berlin at
the Central Bahnhof ."

"Very good, Frau Professor."

Herr Sung smiled in the Frau Professor's eyes, and
notwithstanding her protests insisted on pouring out a
glass of wine for her. The Frau Professor ate her supper
with a good appetite. But she had triumphed unwisely.
Just before going to bed she called the servant.

"Emil, if Fraulein Cacilie's box is ready you had better
take it downstairs tonight. The porter will fetch it before
breakfast."

The servant went away and in a moment came back.

"Fraulein Cacilie is not in her room, and her bag has
gone."

With a cry the Frau Professor hurried along: the box
was on the floor, strapped and locked; but there was no
bag, and neither hat nor cloak. The dressing-table was
empty. Breathing heavily, the Frau Professor ran down-
stairs to the Chinaman's rooms, she had not moved so
quickly for twenty years, and Emil called out after her to
beware she did not fall; she did not trouble to knock,
but burst in. The rooms were empty. The luggage had
gone, and the door into the garden, still open, showed how
it had been got a^y. In an envelope on the table were
notes for the money due on the month's board and an
approximate sum for extras. Groaning, suddenly over-
come by her haste, the Frau Professor sank obesely on to
a sofa. There could be no doubt. The pair had gone off
together. Emil remained stolid and unmoved.

XXXI

HAYWARD, after saying for a month that he was going
South next day and delaying from week to week out of
inability to make up his mind to the bother of packing and
the tedium of a journey, had at last been driven off just
before Christmas by the preparations for that festival. He
could not support the thought of a Teutonic merry-
making. It gave him goose-flesh to think of the season's
aggressive cheerfulness, and in his desire to avoid the
obvious he determined to travel on Christmas Eve.

Philip was not sorry to see him off, for he was a down-
right person and it irritated him that anybody should not
know his own mind. Though much under Hayward's in-
fluence, he would not grant that indecision pointed to a
charming sensitiveness; and he resented the shadow of a
sneer with which Hayward looked upon his straight ways.
They corresponded. Hayward was an admirable letter-
writer, and knowing his talent took pains with his letters.
His temperament was receptive to the beautiful influences
with which he came in contact, and he was able in his let-
ters from Rome to put a subtle fragrance of Italy. He
thought the city of the ancient Romans a little vulgar,
finding distinction only in the decadence of the Empire ;
but the Rome of the Popes appealed to his sympathy, and
in his chosen words, quite exquisitely, there appeared a
Rococo beauty. He wrote of old church music and the
Alban Hills, and of the languor of incense and the charm
of the streets by night, in the rain, when the pavements
shone and the light of the street lamps was mysterious.
Perhaps he repeated these admirable letters to variou?
friends. He did not know what a troubling effect they
had upon Philip; they seemed to makeliis life very hum-
drum. With the spring Hayward grew dithyrambic. He
proposed that Philip should come down to Italy. He was
wasting his time at Heidelberg. The Germans were gross

153

-54 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

and life there was common; how could the soul come
to her own in that prim landscape? In Tuscany the spring
was scattering flowers through the land, and Philip was
nineteen; let him come and they could wander through
the mountain towns of Umbria. Their names sang in
Philip's heart. And Cacilie too, with her lover, had gone to
Italy. When he thought of them Philip was seized with
a restlessness he could not account for. He cursed his fate
because he had no money to travel, and he knew his uncle
would not send him more than the fifteen pounds a month
which had been agreed upon. He had not managed his
allowance very well. His pension and the price of his les-
sons left him very little over, and he had found going
about with Hayward expensive. Hayward had often sug-
gested excursions, a visit to the play, or a bottle of wine,
when Philip had come to the end of his month's money;
and with the folly of his age he had been unwilling to
confess he could not afford an extravagance.

Luckily Hayward's letters came seldom, and in the inter-
vals Philip settled down again to his industrious life. He
had matriculated at the university and attended one or
two courses of lectures. Kuno Fischer was then at the
height of his fame and during the winter had been lectur-
ing brilliantly on Schopenhauer. It was Philip's introduc-
tion to philosophy. He had a practical mind and moved
uneasily amid the abstract; but he found an unexpected
fascination in listening to metaphysical disquisitions ; they
made him breathless; it was a little like watching a tight-
rope dancer doing perilous feats over an abyss ; but it was
very exciting. The pessimism of the subject attracted his
youth; and he believed that the world he was about to
enter was a place of pitiless woe and of darkness. That
made him none the less eager to enter it ; and when, in due
course, Mrs. Carey, acting as the correspondent for his
guardian's views, suggested that it was time for him to
come back to England, he agreed with enthusiasm. He
must make up his mind now what he meant to do. If he
left Heidelberg at the end of July they could talk things
over during August, and it would be a good time to make
arrangements.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 155

The date of his departure was settled, and Mrs. Carey
wrote to him again. She reminded him of Miss Wilkinson,
through whose kindness he had gone to Frau Erlin's house
at Heidelberg, and told him that she had arranged to spend
a few weeks with them at Blackstable. She would be
crossing from Flushing on such and such a day, and if he
travelled at the same time he could look after her and
come on to Blackstable in her company. Philip's shyness
immediately made him write to say that he could not leave
till a day or two afterwards. He pictured himself look-
ing out for Miss Wilkinson, the embarrassment of going
up to her and asking if it were she (and he might so easily
address the wrong person and be snubbed), and then the
difficulty of knowing whether in the train he ought to
talk to her or whether he could ignore her and read his
book.

At last he left Heidelberg. For three months he had
been thinking of nothing but the future; and he went
without regret. He never knew that he had been happy
there. Fraulein Anna gave him a copy of Der Trompeter
lion Sdckingen and in return he presented her with a vol-
ume of William Morris. Very wisely neither of them ever
read the other's present.

XXXII

PHILIP was surprised when he saw his uncle and aunt.
He had never noticed before that they were quite old peo-
ple. The Vicar received him with his usual, not unamiable
indifference. He was a little stouter, a little balder, a little
grayer. Philip saw how insignificant he was. His face was
weak and self-indulgent. Aunt Louisa took him in her arms
and kissed him; and tears of happiness flowed down her
cheeks. Philip was touched and embarrassed; he had not
known with what a hungry love she cared for him.

"Oh, the time has seemed long since you've been away,
Philip," she cried.

She stroked his hands and looked into his face with
glad eyes.

"You've grown. You're quite a man now."

There was a very small moustache on his upper lip. He
had bought a razor and now and then with infinite care
shaved the down off his smooth chin.

"We've been so lonely without you." And then shyly,
with a little break in her voice, she asked : "You are glad
to come back to your home, aren't you ?"

"Yes, rather."

She was so thin that she seemed almost transparent, the
arms she put round his neck were frail bones that re-
minded you of chicken bones, and her faded face was oh !
so wrinkled. The gray curls which she still wore in the
fashion of her youth gave her a queer, pathetic look ; and
her little withered body was like an autumn leaf, you felt
it might be blown away by the first sharp wind. Philip
realised that they had done with life, these two quiet lit-
tle people: they belonged to a past generation, and they
were waiting there patiently, rather stupidly, for death ;
and he, in his vigour and his youth, thirsting for excite-
ment and adventure, was appalled at the waste. *They had
done nothing, and when they went it would be just as if

156

OF HUMAN BONDAGE ib?

they had never been. He felt a great pity for Aunt Louisa,
and he loved her suddenly because she loved him.

Then Miss Wilkinson, who had kept discreetly out of
the way till the Careys had had a chance of welcoming
their nephew, came into the room.

"This is Miss Wilkinson, Philip," said Mrs. Carey.

"The prodigal has returned," she said, holding out her
hand. "I have brought a rose for the prodigal's button-
hole."

With a gay smile she pinned to Philip's coat, the flower
she had just picked in the garden. He blushed and felt
foolish. He knew that Miss Wilkinson was the daughter
of his Uncle William's last rector, and he had a wide
acquaintance with the daughters of clergymen. They wore
ill-cut clothes and stout boots. They were generally dressed
in black, for in Philip's early years at Blackstable home-
spuns had not reached East Anglia, and the ladies of the
clergy did not favour colours. Their hair was done very
untidily, and they smelt aggressively of starched linen.
They considered the feminine graces unbecoming and
looked the same whether they were old or young. They
bore their religion arrogantly. The closeness of their con-
nection with the church made them adopt a slightly dicta-
torial attitude to the rest of mankind.

Miss Wilkinson was very different. She wore a white
muslin gown stamped with gray little bunches of flowers,
and pointed, high-heeled shoes, with open-work stockings.
To Philip's inexperience it seemed that she was wonder-
fully dressed ; he did not see that her frock was cheap and
showy. Her hair was elaborately dressed, with a neat curl
in the middle of the forehead : it was very black, shiny
and hard, and it looked as though it could never be in the
least disarranged. She had large black eyes and her nose
was slightly aquiline ; in profile she had somewhat the look
of a bird of prey, but full face she was prepossessing. She
smiled a great deal, but her mouth was large and when she
smiled she tried to hide her teeth, which were big and
rather yellow. But what embarrassed Philip most was that
she was heavily powdered: he had very strict views on
feminine behaviour and did not think a lady ever

iS8 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

powdered ; but of course Miss Wilkinson was a lady be-
cause she was a clergyman's daughter, and a clergyman
was a gentleman.

Philip made up his mind to dislike her thoroughly. She
spoke with a slight French accent; and he did not know
why she should, since she had been born and bred in the
heart of England. He thought her smile affected, and the
coy sprightliness of her manner irritated him. For two or
three days he remained silent and hostile, but Miss Wil-
kinson apparently did not notice it. She was very affable.
She addressed her conversation almost exclusively to him,
and there was something flattering in the way she appealed
constantly to his sane judgment. She made him laugh too,
and Philip could never resist people who amused him : he
had a gift now and then of saying neat things ; and it was
pleasant to have an appreciative listener. Neither the Vicar
nor Mrs. Carey had a sense of humour, and they never
laughed at anything he said. As he grew used to Miss
Wilkinson, and his shyness left him, he began to like her
better; he found the French accent picturesque; and at a
garden party which the doctor gave she was very much
better dressed than anyone else, She wore a blue foulard
with large white spots, and Philip was tickled at the sensa-
tion it caused.

"I'm certain they think you're no better than you should
be," he told her, laughing.

"It's the dream of my life to be taken for an abandoned
hussy," she answered.

One day when Miss Wilkinson was in her room he
asked Aunt Louisa how old she was.

"Oh, my dear, you should never ask a lady's age; but
she's certainly too old for you to marry."

The Vicar gave his slow, obese smile.

"She's no chicken, Louisa," he said. "She was nearly
grown up when we were in Lincolnshire, and that was
twenty years ago. She wore a pigtail hanging down her
back."

"She may not have been more than ten," said Philip.

"She was older than that," said Aunt Louisa.

OFHUMANBONDAGE 159

"I think she was nearer twenty," said the Vicar.

"Oh no, William. Sixteen or seventeen at the outside."

"That would make her well over thirty," said Philip.

At that moment Miss Wilkinson tripped downstairs,
singing a song by Benjamin Goddard. She had put her
hat on, for she and Philip were going for a walk, and she
held out her hand for him to button her glove. He did it
awkwardly. He felt embarrassed but gallant. Conversa-
tion went easily between them now, and as they strolled
along they talked of all manner of things. She told Philip
about Berlin, and he told her of his year in Heidelberg.
As he spoke, things which had appeared of no importance
gained a new interest: he described the people at Frau
Erlin's house ; and to the conversations between Hayward
and Weeks, which at the time seemed so significant, he
gave a little twist, so that they looked absurd. He war
flattered at Miss Wilkinson's laughter.

"I'm quite frightened of you," she said. "You're sc
sarcastic."

Then she asked him playfully whether he had not had
any love affairs at Heidelberg. Without thinking, he
frankly answered that he had not; but she refused to
believe him.

"How secretive you are!" she said. "At your age is it
likely?"

He blushed and laughed.

"You want to know too much," he said.

"Ah, I thought so," she laughed triumphantly. "Look at
him blushing."

He was pleased that she should think he had been a sad
dog, and he changed the conversation so as to make her
believe he had all "sorts of romantic things to conceal. He
was angry with himself that he had not. There had been
no opportunity.

Miss Wilkinson was dissatisfied with her lot. She re-
sented having to earn her living and told Philip a long
story of an uncle of her mother's, who had been expected
to leave her a fortune but had married his cook and
changed his will. She hinted at the luxury of her

160 OF HUM AN BOND AGE

and compared her life in Lincolnshire, with horses to ride
and carriages to drive in, with the mean dependence of
her present state. Philip was a little puzzled when he
mentioned this afterwards to Aunt Louisa, and she told
him that when she knew the Wilkinsons they had never
had anything more than a pony and a dog-cart; Aunt
Louisa had heard of the rich uncle, but as he was married
and had children before Emily was born she could never
have had much hope of inheriting his fortune. Miss Wil-
kinson had little good to say of Berlin, where she was now
in a situation. She complained of the vulgarity of German
life, and compared it bitterly with the brilliance of Paris,
where she had spent a number of years. She did not say
how many. She had been governess in the family of a
fashionable portrait-painter, who had married a Jewish
wife of means, and in their house she had met many dis-
tinguished people. She dazzled Philip with their names.
Actors from the Comedie Franchise had come to the house
frequently, and Coquelin, sitting next her at dinner, had
told her he had never met a foreigner who spoke such per-
fect French. Alphonse Daudet had come also, and he had
given her a copy of Sapho : he had promised to write her
name in it, but she had forgotten to remind him. She
treasured the volume none the less and she would lend
it to Philip. Then there was Maupassant. Miss Wilkinson
with a rippling laugh looked at Philip knowingly. What a
man, but what a writer ! Hayward had talked of Maupas-
sant, and his reputation was not unknown to Philip.

"Did he make love to you?" he asked.

The words seemed to stick funnily in his throat, but he
asked them nevertheless. He liked Miss Wilkinson very
much now, and was thrilled by her conversation, but he
could not imagine anyone making love to her.

"What a question !" she cried. "Poor Guy, he made
love to every woman he met. It was a habit that he could
not break himself of."

She sighed a little, and seemed to look back tenderly
on the past.

"He was a charming man," she murmured.

A greater experience than Philip's would have guessed

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 161

from these words the probabilities of the encounter: the
distinguished writer invited to luncheon en famille, the
governess coming in sedately with the two tall girls she
was teaching; the introduction:

"Notre Miss Anglaise."

"Mademoiselle!'

And the luncheon during which the Miss Anglaise sat
silent while the distinguished writer talked to his host and
hostess.

But to Philip her words called up much more romantic
fancies.

"Do tell me all about him," he said excitedly.

"There's nothing to tell," she said truthfully, but in such
a manner as to convey that three volumes would scarcely
have contained the lurid facts. "You mustn't be curious."

She began to talk of Paris. She loved the boulevards
and the Bois. There was grace in every street, and the
trees in the Champs Elysees had a distinction which trees
had not elsewhere. They were sitting on a stile now by
the high-road, and Miss Wilkinson looked with disdain
upon the stately elms in front of them. And the theatres ;
the plays were brilliant, and the acting was incomparable.
She often went with Madame Foyot, the mother of the
girls she was educating, when she was trying on clothes.

"Oh, what a misery to be poor !" she cried. "These beau-
tiful things, it's only in Paris they know how to dress, and
not to be able to afford them! Poor Madame Foyot, she
had no figure. Sometimes the dressmaker used to whisper
to me : 'Ah, Mademoiselle, if she only had your figure.' "

Philip noticed then that Miss Wilkinson had a robust
form, and was proud of it.

"Men are so stupid in England. They only think of the
face. The French, who are a nation of lovers, know how
much more important the figure is."

Philip had never thought of such things before, but
he observed now that Miss Wilkinson's ankles were thick
and ungainly. He withdrew his eyes quickly.

"You should go to France. Why don't you go to Paris
for a year? You would learn French, and it would—
deniaiser you."

i6« OFHUMANBONDAGE

"What is that ?" asked Philip.

She laughed slyly.

"You must look it out in the dictionary. Englishmen
do not know how to treat women. They are so shy. Shy-
ness is ridiculous in a man. They don't know how to make
love. They can't even tell a woman she is charming with-
out looking foolish."

Philip felt himself absurd. Miss Wilkinson evidently
expected him to behave very differently; and he would
have been delighted to say gallant and witty things, but
they never occurred to him ; and when they did he was too
much afraid of making a fool of himself to say them.

"Oh, I love Paris," sighed Miss Wilkinson. "But I had
to go to Berlin. I was with the Foyots till the girls mar-
ried, and then I could get nothing to do, and I had the
chance of this post in Berlin. They're relations of Madame
Foyot, and I accepted. I had a tiny apartment in the Rue
Breda, on the cinqui&me: it wasn't at all respectable. You
know about the Rue Breda — ces dames, you know."

Philip nodded, not knowing at all what she meant, but
vaguely suspecting, and anxious she should not think him
too ignorant.

"But I didn't care. Je siiis libre, n'est-ce-pasf" She was
very fond of speaking French, which indeed she spoke
well. "Once I had such a curious adventure there."

She paused a little and Philip pressed her to tell it.

"You wouldn't tell me yours in Heidelberg," she said.

"They were so unadventurous," he retorted.

"I don't know what Mrs. Carey would say if she knew
the sort of things we talk about together."

"You don't imagine I shall tell her."

"Will you promise ?"

When he had done this, she told him how an art-student
who had a room on the floor above her — but she inter-
mpted herself.

"Why don't you go in for art ? You paint so prettily."

"Not well enough for that."

"That is for others to judge. Je m'y connais, and I be-
lieve you have the making of a great artist."

OF HUMAN BONDAGE i6j

"Can't you see Uncle William's face if I suddenly told
him I wanted to go to Paris and study art ?"

"You're your own master, aren't you?"

"You're trying to put me off. Please go on with the
story."

Miss Wilkinson, with a little laugh, went on. The art-
student had passed her several times on the stairs, and she
had paid no particular attention. She saw that he had fine
eyes, and he took off his hat very politely. And one day she
found a letter slipped under her door. It was from him.
He told her that he had adored her for months, and that
he waited about the stairs for her to pass. Oh, it was a
charming letter! Of course she did not reply, but what
woman could help being flattered ? And next day there was
another letter ! It was wonderful, passionate, and touch-
ing. When next she met him on the stairs she did not know
which way to look. And every day the letters came, and
now he begged her to see him. He said he would come in
the evening, vers neuf heures, and she did not know what
to do. Of course it was impossible, and he might ring and
ring, but she would never open the door; and then while
she was waiting for the tinkling of the bell, all nerves,
suddenly he stood before her. She had forgotten to shut
the door when she came in.

"C'etait une fatalite."

"And what happened then?" asked Philip.

"That is the end of the story," she replied, with a ripple
of laughter.

Philip was silent for a moment. His heart beat quickly,
and strange emotions seemed to be hustling one another
in his heart. He saw the dark staircase and the chance
meetings, and he admired the boldness of the letters — oh,
he would never have dared to do that — and then the silent,
almost mysterious entrance. It seemed to him the very
soul of romance. .

"What was he like?"

"Oh, he was handsome. Charmant garfon."

"Do you know him still?"

Philip felt a slight feeling of irritation as he asked this.

164 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

"He treated me abominably. Men are always the same.
You're heartless, all of you."

"I don't know about that," said Philip, not without
embarrassment.

"Let us go home," said Miss Wilkinson.

XXXIII

PHILIP could not get Miss Wilkinson's story out of his
head. It was clear enough what she meant even though
she cut it short, and he was a little shocked. That sort
of thing was all very well for married women, he had read
enough French novels to know that in France it was in-
deed the rule, but Miss Wilkinson was English and un-
married ; her father was a clergyman. Then it struck him
that the art-student probably was neither the first nor the
last of her lovers, and he gasped : he had never looked
upon Miss Wilkinson like that; it seemed incredible that
anyone should make love to her. In his ingenuousness he
doubted her story as little as he doubted what he read in
books, and he was angry that such wonderful things never
happened to him. It was humiliating that if Miss Wilkin-
son insisted upon his telling her of his adventures in
Heidelberg he would have nothing to tell. It was true that
he had some power of invention, but he was not sure
whether he could persuade her that he was steeped in
vice; women were full of intuition, he had read that, and
she might easily discover that he was fibbing. He blushed
scarlet a<s he thought of her laughing up her sleeve.

Miss Wilkinson played the piano and sang in a rather
tired voice ; but her songs, Massenet, Benjamin Goddard,
and Augusta Holmes, were new to Philip; and together
they spent many hours at the piano. One day she wondered
if he had a voice and insisted on trying it. She told him
he had a pleasant baritone and offered to give him lessons.
At first with his usual bashfulness he refused, but she
insisted, and then every morning at a convenient time after
breakfast she gave him an hour's lesson. She had a natural
gift for teaching, and it was clear that she was an excellent
governess. She had method and firmness. Though her
French accent was so much part of her that it remained,
all the mellifluousness of her manner left her when she was

166 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

engaged in teaching. She put up with no nonsense. Her
voice became a little peremptory, and instinctively she sup-
pressed inattention and corrected slovenliness. She knew
what she was about and put Philip to scales and exercises.

When the lesson was over she resumed without effort
her seductive smiles, her voice became again soft and win-
ning, but Philip could not so easily put away the pupil
as she the pedagogue ; and this impression conflicted with
the feelings her stories had aroused in him. He looked at
her more narrowly. He liked her much better in the eve-
ning than in the morning. In the morning she was rather
lined and the skin of her neck was just a little rough. He
wished she would hide it, but the weather was very warm
just then and she wore blouses which were cut low. She
was very fond of white; in the morning it did not suit
her. At night she often looked very attractive, she put on
a gown which was almost a dinner dress, and she wore
a chain of garnets round her neck; the lace about her
bosom and at her elbows gave her a pleasant softness, and
the scent she wore (at Blackstable no one used anything
but Eatt de Cologne, and that only on Sundays or when
suffering from a sick headache) was troubling and exotic.
She really looked very young then.

Philip was much exercised over her age. He added
twenty and seventeen together, and could not bring them
to a satisfactory total. He asked Aunt Louisa more than
once why she thought Miss Wilkinson was thirty-seven:
she didn't look more than thirty, and everyone knew that
foreigners aged more rapidly than English women ; Miss
Wilkinson had lived so long abroad that she might almost
be called a foreigner. He personally wouldn't have thought
her more than twenty-six.

"She's more than that," said Aunt Louisa.

Philip did not believe in the accuracy of the Careys'
statements. All they distinctly remembered was that Miss
Wilkinson had not got her hair up the last time they saw
her in Lincolnshire. Well, she might have been twelve
then : it was so long ago and the Vicar was always so
unreliable. They said it was twenty years ago, but people
used round figures, and it was just as likely to be eighteen

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 167

years, or seventeen. Seventeen and twelve were only
twenty-nine, and hang it all, that wasn't old, was it?
Cleopatra was forty-eight when Antony threw away the
world for her sake.

It was a fine summer. Day after day was hot and cloud-
less ; but the heat was tempered by the neighbourhood of
the sea, and there was a pleasant exhilaration in the air,
so that one was excited and not oppressed by the August
sunshine. There was a pond in the garden in which a foun-
tain played; water lilies grew in it and gold fish sunned
themselves on the surface. Philip and Miss Wilkinson used
to take rugs and cushions there after dinner and lie on the
lawn in the shade of a tall hedge of roses. They talked
and read all the afternoon. They smoked cigarettes, which
the Vicar did not allow in the house ; he thought smoking
a disgusting habit, and used frequently to say that it was
disgraceful for anyone to grow a slave to a habit. He for-
got that he was himself a slave to afternoon tea.

One day Miss Wilkinson gave Philip La Vie de
Boheme. She had found it by accident when she was rum-
maging among the books in the Vicar's study. It had been
bought in a lot with something Mr. Carey wanted and
had remained undiscovered for ten years.

Philip began to read Murger's fascinating, ill-written,
absurd masterpiece, and fell at once under its spell. His
soul danced with joy at that picture of starvation which
is so good-humoured, of squalor which is so picturesque,
of sordid love which is so romantic, of bathos which is so
moving. Rodolphe and Mimi, Musette and Schaunard !
They wander through the gray streets of the Latin
Quarter, finding refuge now in one attic, now in another,
in their quaint costumes of Louis Philippe, with their
tears and their smiles, happy-go-lucky and reckless. Who
can resist them? It is only when you return to the book
with a sounder judgment that you find how gross their
pleasures were, how vulgar their minds; and you feel
the utter worthlessness, as artists and as human beings, of
that gay procession. Philip was enraptured.

"Don't you wish you were going to Paris instead of

168 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

London?" asked Miss Wilkinson, smiling at his enthu-
siasm.

"It's too late now even if I did," he answered.

During the fortnight he had been back from Germany
there had been much discussion between himself and his
uncle about his future. He had refused definitely to go to
Oxford, and now that there was no chance of his getting
scholarships even Mr. Carey came to the conclusion that
he could not afford it. His entire fortune had consisted
of only two thousand pounds, and though it had been in'
vested in mortgages at five per cent, he had not been able
to live on the interest. It was now a little reduced. It would
be absurd to spend two hundred a year, the least he could
live on at a university, for three years at Oxford which
would lead him no nearer to earning his living. He was
anxious to go straight to London. Mrs. Carey thought
there were only four professions for a gentleman, the
Army, the Navy, the Law, and the Church. She had added
medicine because her brother-in-law practised it, but did
not forget that in her young days no one ever considered
the doctor a gentleman. The first two were out of the ques-
tion, and Philip was firm in his refusal to be ordained.
Only the law remained. The local doctor had suggested
that many gentlemen now went in for engineering, but
Mrs. Carey opposed the idea at once.

"I shouldn't like Philip to go into trade," she said.

"No, he must have a profession," answered the Vicar.

"Why not make him a doctor like his father ?"

"I should hate it," said Philip.

Mrs. Carey was not sorry. The Bar seemed out of the
question, since he was not going to Oxford, for the Careys
were under the impression that a degree was still neces-
sary for success in that calling; and finally it was sug-
gested that he should become articled to a solicitor. They
wrote to the family lawyer, Albert Nixon, who was co-
executor with the Vicar of Blackstable for the late Henry
Carey's estate, and asked him whether he would take
Philip. In a day or two the answer came back that he
had not a vacancy, and was very much opposed to the
whole scheme; the profession was greatly overcrowded,

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 169

and without capital or connections a man had small chance
of becoming more than a managing clerk; he suggested,
however, that Philip should become a chartered account-
ant. Neither the Vicar nor his wife knew in the least what
this was, and Philip had never heard of anyone being a
chartered accountant ; but another letter from the solicitor
explained that the growth of modern businesses and the
increase of companies had led to the formation of many
firms of accountants to examine the books and put into
the financial affairs of their clients an order which old-
fashioned methods had lacked. Some years before a Royal
Charter had been obtained, and the profession was becom-
ing every year more respectable, lucrative, and important.
The chartered accountants whom Albert Nixon had em-
ployed for thirty years happened to have a vacancy for an
articled pupil, and would take Philip for a fee of three
hundred pounds. Half of this would be returned during
the five years the articles lasted in the form of salary. The
prospect was not exciting, but Philip felt that he must de-
cide on something, and the thought of living in London
over-balanced the slight shrinking he felt. The Vicar of
Blackstable wrote to ask Mr. Nixon whether it was a pro-
fession suited to a gentleman; and Mr. Nixon replied
that, since the Charter, men were going into it who had
been to public schools and a university ; moreover, if Philip
disliked the work and after a year wished to leave, Her-
bert Carter, for that was the accountant's name, would
return half the money paid for the articles. This settled
it, and it was arranged that Philip should start work on the
fifteenth of September.

"I have a full month before me," said Philip.

"And then you go to freedom and I to bondage," re-
turned Miss Wilkinson.

Her holidays were to last six weeks, and she would bo
leaving Blackstable only a day or two before Philip.

"I wonder if we shall ever meet again," she said.

"I don't know why not."

"Oh, don't speak in that practical way. I never knew
anyone so unsentimental."

Philip reddened. He was afraid that Miss Wilkinson

i?o OF HUMAN BONDAGE

would think him a milksop: after all she was a young
woman, sometimes quite pretty, and he was getting on for
twenty ; it was absurd that they should talk of nothing but
art and literature. He ought to make love to her. They
had talked a good deal of love. There was the art-student
in the Rue Breda, and then there was the painter in whose
family she had lived so long in Paris: he had asked her
to sit for him, and had started to make love to her so vio-
lently that she was forced to invent excuses not to sit to
him again. It was clear enough that Miss Wilkinson was
used to attentions of that sort. She looked very nice now
in a large straw hat : it was hot that afternoon, the hottest
day they had had, and beads of sweat stood in a line on
her upper lip. He called to mind Fraulein Cacilie and Herr
Sung. He had never thought of Cacilie in an amorous way,
she was exceedingly plain; but now, looking back, the
affair seemed very romantic. He had a chance of romance
too. Miss Wilkinson was practically French, and that
added zest to a possible adventure. When he thought of it
at night in bed, or when he sat by himself in the garden
reading a book, he was thrilled by it; but when he saw
Miss Wilkinson it seemed less picturesque.

At all events, after what she had told him, she would
not be surprised if he made love to her. He had a feeling
that she must think it odd of him to make no sign : per-
haps it was only his fancy, but once or twice in the last
day or two he had imagined that there was a suspicion of
contempt in her eyes.

"A penny for your thoughts," said Miss Wilkinson,
looking at him with a smile.

"I'm not going to tell you," he answered.

He was thinking that he ought to kiss her there and
then. He wondered if she expected him to do it ; but after
all he didn't see how he could without any preliminary
business at all. She would just think him mad, or she
might slap his face ; and perhaps she would complain to his
uncle. He wondered how Herr Sung had started with
Fraulein Cacilie. It would be beastly if she told his uncle :
he knew what his uncle was, he would tell the doctor and
Josiah Graves; and he would look a perfect fool. Aunt

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 171

Louisa kept on saying that Miss Wilkinson was thirty-
seven if she was a day ; he shuddered at the thought of the
ridicule he would be exposed to ; they would say she was
old enough to be his mother.

"Twopence for your thoughts," smiled Miss Wilkinson.

"I was thinking about you," he answered boldly.

That at all events committed him to nothing.

"What were you thinking ?"

"Ah, now you want to know too much."

"Naughty boy!" said Miss Wilkinson.

There it was again! Whenever he had succeeded in
working himself up she said something which reminded
him of the governess. She called him playfully a naughty
boy when he did not sing his exercises to her satisfaction.
This time he grew quite sulky.

"I wish you wouldn't treat me as if I were a child."

"Are you cross ?"

"Very."

"I didn't mean to."

She put out her hand and he took it. Once or twice
lately when they shook hands at night he had fancied she
slightly pressed his hand, but this time there was no doubt
about it.

He did not quite know what he ought to say next. Here
at last was his chance of an adventure, and he would be
a fool not to take it; but it was a little ordinary, and he
had expected more glamour. He had read many descrip-
tions of love, and he felt in himself none of that uprush
of emotion which novelists described ; he was not carried
off his feet in wave upon wave of passion ; nor was Miss
Wilkinson the ideal : he had often pictured to himself the
great violet eyes and the alabaster skin of some lovely
girl, and he had thought of himself burying his face in the
rippling masses of her auburn hair. He could not imagine
himself burying his face in Miss Wilkinson's hair, it al-
ways struck him as a little sticky. All the same it would be
very satisfactory to have an intrigue, and he thrilled with
the legitimate pride he would enjoy in his conquest. He
owed it to himself to seduce her. He made up his mind to
kiss Miss Wilkinson; not then, but in the evening; it

T?2 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

would be easier in the dark, and after he had kissed her
the rest would follow. He would kiss her that very eve-
ning. He swore an oath to that effect.

He laid his plans. After supper he suggested that they
should take a stroll in the garden. Miss Wilkinson ac-
cepted, and they sauntered side by side. Philip was very
nervous. He did not know why, but the conversation would
not lead in the right direction ; he had decided that the first
thing to do was to put his arm round her waist; but he
could not suddenly put his arm round her waist when she
was talking of the regatta which was to be held next week.
He led her artfully into the darkest parts of the garden,
but having arrived there his courage failed him. They sat
on a bench, and he had really made up his mind that here
was his opportunity when Miss Wilkinson said she was
sure there were earwigs and insisted on moving. They
walked round the garden once more, and Philip promised
himself he would take the plunge before they arrived at
that bench again ; but as they passed the house, they saw
Mrs. Carey standing at the door.

"Hadn't you young people better come in ? I'm sure the
night air isn't good for you."

"Perhaps we had better go in," said Philip. "I don't
want you to catch cold."

He said it with a sigh of relief. He could attempt noth-
ing more that night. But afterwards, when he was alone
in his room, he was furious with himself. He had been a
perfect fool. He was certain that Miss Wilkinson expected
him to kiss her, otherwise she wouldn't have come into the
garden. She was always saying that only Frenchmen knew
how to treat women. Philip had read French novels. If
he had been a Frenchman he would have seized her in
his arms and told her passionately that he adored her ; he
would have pressed his lips on her nuque. He did not
know why Frenchmen always kissed ladies on the nuque.
He did not himself see anything so very attractive in the
nape of the neck. Of course it was much easier for
Frenchmen to do these things ; the language was such an
aid ; Philip could never help feeling that to say passionate
things in English sounded a little absurd. He wished now

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 173

that he had never undertaken the siege of Miss Wilkin-
son's virtue ; the first fortnight had been so jolly, and now
he was wretched ; but he was determined not to give in, he
would never respect himself again if he did, and he made
up his mind irrevocably that the next night he would kiss
her without fail.

Next day when he got up he saw it was raining, and
his first thought was that they would not be able to go into
the garden that evening. He was in high spirits at break-
fast. Miss Wilkinson sent Mary Ann in to say that she
had a headache and would remain in bed. She did not come
down till tea-time, when she appeared in a becoming wrap-
per and a pale face ; but she was quite recovered by sup-
per, and the meal was very cheerful. After prayers she
said she would go straight to bed, and she kissed Mrs.
Carey. Then she turned to Philip.

"Good gracious!" she cried. "I was just going to kiss
you too."

"Why don't you?" he said.

She laughed and held out her hand. She distinctly
pressed his.

The following day there was not a cloud in the sky, and
the garden was sweet and fresh after the rain. Philip went
down to the beach to bathe and when he came home ate a
magnificent dinner. They were having a tennis party at the
vicarage in the afternoon and Miss Wilkinson put on her
best dress. She certainly knew how to wear her clothes,
and Philip could not help noticing how elegant she looked
beside the curate's wife and the doctor's married daughter.
There were two roses in her waistband. She sat in a garden
chair by the side of the lawn, holding a red parasol over
herself, and the light on her face was very becoming.
Philip was fond of tennis. He served well and as he ran
clumsily played close to the net : notwithstanding his club-
foot he was quick, and it was difficult to get a ball past
him. He was pleased because he won all his sets. At tea he
lay down at Miss Wilkinson's feet, hot and panting.

"Flannels suit you," she said. "You look very nice this
afternoon."

He blushed with delight.

174 OFHUMANBONDAGE

"I can honestly return the compliment. You look per.
fectly ravishing."

She smiled and gave him a long look with her black
eyes.

After supper he insisted that she should come out.

"Haven't you had enough exercise for one day?"

"It'll be lovely in the garden tonight. The stars are
all out."

He was in high spirits.

"D'you know, Mrs. Carey has been scolding me on your
account?" said Miss Wilkinson, when they were saunter-
ing through the kitchen garden. "She says I mustn't flirt
with you."

"Have you been flirting with me? I hadn't noticed it.'*

"She was only joking."

"It was very unkind of you to refuse to kiss me last
night."

"If you saw the look your uncle gave me when I said
what I did !"

"Was that all that prevented you?"

"I prefer to kiss people without witnesses."

"There are no witnesses now."

Philip put his arm round her waist and kissed her lips.
She only laughed a little and made no attempt to with-
draw. It had come quite naturally. Philip was very proud
of himself. He said he would, and he had. It was the
easiest thing in the world. He wished he had done it be-
fore. He did it again.

"Oh, you mustn't," she said.

"Why not?"

u Because I like it," she laughed.

XXXIV

NEXT day after dinner they took their rugs and cushions
to the fountain, and their books; but they did not read.
Miss Wilkinson made herself comfortable and she opened
the red sun-shade. Philip was not at all shy now, but at
first she would not let him kiss her.

"It was very wrong of me last night," she said. "I
couldn't sleep, I felt I'd done so »wrong."

"What nonsense!" he cried. "I'm sure you slept like a
top."

"What do you think your uncle would say if he knew ?"

"There's no reason why he should know."

He leaned over her, and his heart went pit-a-pat.

"Why d'you want to kiss me ?"

He knew he ought to reply : "Because I love you." But
he could not bring himself to say it.

"Why do you think?" he asked instead.

She looked at him with smiling eyes and touched his
face with the tips of her fingers.

"How smooth your face is," she murmured.

"I want shaving awfully," he said.

It was astonishing how difficult he found it to make
romantic speeches. He found that silence helped him much
more than words. He could look inexpressible things. Miss
Wilkinson sighed.

"Do you like me at all ?"

"Yes, awfully."

When he tried to kiss her again she did not resist. He
pretended to be much more passionate than he really was,
and he succeeded in playing a part which looked very well
in his own eyes.

"I'm beginning to be rather frightened of you," said
Miss Wilkinson.

"You'll come out after supper, won't you?" he begged,
"Not unless you promise to behave yourself."

176 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

"I'll promise anything."

He was catching fire from the flame he was partly simu-
lating, and at tea-time he was obstreperously merry. Miss
Wilkinson looked at him nervously.

"You mustn't have those shining eyes," she said to him
afterwards. "What will your Aunt Louisa think?"

"I don't care what she thinks."

Miss Wilkinson gave a little laugh cf pleasure. They
had no sooner finished supper than he said to her :

"Are you going to keep me company while I smoke a
cigarette ?"

"Why don't you let Miss Wilkinson rest?" said Mrs.
Carey. "You must remember she's not as young as you."

"Oh, I'd like to go out, Mrs. Carey," she said, rather
acidly.

"After dinner walk a mile, after supper rest a while,"
said the Vicar.

"Your aunt is very nice, but she gets on my nerves
sometimes," said Miss Wilkinson, as soon as they closed
the side-door behind them.

Philip threw away the cigarette he had just lighted, and
flung his arms round her. She tried to push him away.

"You promised you'd be good, Philip."

"You didn't think I was going to keep a promise like
that?"

"Not so near the house, Philip," she said. "Supposing
someone should come out suddenly ?"

He led her to the kitchen garden where no one was
likely to come, and this time Miss Wilkinson did not think
of earwigs. He kissed her passionately. It was one of the
things that puzzled him that he did not like her at all in the
morning, and only moderately in the afternoon, but at
night the touch of her hand thrilled him. He said things
that he would never have thought himself capable of say-
ing ; he could certainly never have said them in the broad
light of day; and he listened to himself with wonder and
satisfaction.

"How beautifully you make love," she said.

That was what he thought himself.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 177

*'Oh, if I could only say all the things that burn my
heart!" he murmured passionately.

It was splendid. It was the most thrilling game he had
ever played ; and the wonderful thing was that he felt al-
most all he said. It was only that he exaggerated a little.
He was tremendously interested and excited in the effect
he could see it had on her. It was obviously with an effort
that at last she suggested going in.

"Oh, don't go yet," he cried.

"I must," she muttered. "I'm frightened."

He had a sudden intuition what was the right thing to
do then.

"I can't go in yet. I shall stay here and think. My
cheeks are burning. I want the night-air. Good-night."

He held out his hand seriously, and she took it in si-
lence. He thought she stifled a sob. Oh, it was magnificent !
When, after a decent interval during which he had been
rather bored in the dark garden by himself, he went in
he found that Miss Wilkinson had already gone to bed.

After that things were different between them. The next
day and the day after Philip showed himself an eager
lover. He was deliciously flattered to discover that Miss
Wilkinson was in love with him : she told him so in Eng-
lish, and she told him so in French. She paid him compli-
ments. No one had ever informed him before that his eyes
were charming and that he had a sensual mouth. He had
never bothered much about his personal appearance, but
now, when occasion presented, he looked at himself in
the glass with satisfaction. When he kissed her it wa?
wonderful to feel the passion that seemed to thrill her
soul. He kissed her a good deal, for he found it easier to do
that than to say the things he instinctively felt she ex-
pected of him. It still made him feel a fool to say he wor-
shipped her. He wished there were someone to whom he
could boast a little, and he would willingly have discussed
minute points of his conduct. Sometimes she said things
that were enigmatic, and he was puzzled. He wished Hay-
ward had been there so that he could ask him what he
thought she meant, and what he had better do next. He

x78 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

could not make up his mind whether he ought to rush
things or let them take their time. There were only three
weeks more.

"I can't bear to think of that," she said. "It breaks my
heart. And then perhaps we shall never see one another
again."

"If you cared for me at all, you wouldn't be so unkind
to me," he whispered.

"Oh, why can't you be content to let it go on as it is?
Men are always the same. They're never satisfied."

And when he pressed her, she said :

"But don't you see it's impossible. How can we here?"

He proposed all sorts of schemes, but she would not
have anything to do with them.

"I daren't take the risk. It would be too dreadful if your
aunt found out."

A day or two later he had an idea which seemed bril-
liant.

"Look here, if you had a headache on Sunday evening
and offered to stay at home and look after the house, Aunt
Louisa would go to church."

Generally Mrs. Carey remained in on Sunday evening
in order to allow Mary Ann to go to church, but she would
welcome the opportunity of attending evensong.

Philip had not found it necessary to impart to his rela-
tions the change in his views on Christianity which had
occurred in Germany; they could not be expected to un-
derstand ; and it seemed less trouble to go to church quietly.
But he only went in the morning. He regarded this as a
graceful concession to the prejudices of society and his re-
fusal to go a second time as an adequate assertion of free
thought.

When he made the suggestion, Miss Wilkinson did not
speak for a moment, then shook her head.

"No, I won't," she said.

But on Sunday at tea-time she surprised Philip.

"I don't think I'll come to church this evening," she said
suddenly. "I've really got a dreadful headache."

Mrs. Carey, much concerned, insisted on giving her
tome 'drops' which she was herself in the habit of using.

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 179

Miss Wilkinson thanked her, and immediately after tea
announced that she would go to her room and lie down.

"Are you sure there's nothing you'll want ?" asked Mrs.
Carey anxiously.

"Quite sure, thank you."

"Because, if there isn't, I think I'll go to church. I don't
often have the chance of going in the evening."

"Oh yes, do go."

"I shall be in," said Philip. "If Miss Wilkinson wants
anything, she can always call me."

"You'd better leave the drawing-room door open, Philip,
so that if Miss Wilkinson rings, you'll hear."

"Certainly," said Philip.

So after six o'clock Philip was left alone in the house
with Miss Wilkinson. He felt sick with apprehension. He
wished with all his heart that he had not suggested the
plan; but it was too late now; he must take the oppor-
tunity which he had made. What would Miss Wilkinson
think of him if he did not ! He went into the hall and lis-
tened. There was not a sound. He wondered if Miss Wil-
kinson really had a headache. Perhaps she had forgotten
his suggestion. His heart beat painfully. He crept up the
stairs as softly as he could, and he stopped with a start
when they creaked. He stood outside Miss Wilkinson's
room and listened; he put his hand on the knob of the
door-handle. He waited. It seemed to him that he waited
for at least five minutes, trying to make up his mind ; and
his hand trembled. He would willingly have bolted, but he
was afraid of the remorse which he knew would seize him.
It was like getting on the highest diving-board in a
swimming-bath ; it looked nothing from below, but when
you got up there and stared down at the water your heart
sank; and the only thing that forced you to dive was the
shame of coming down meekly by the steps you had
climbed up. Philip screwed up his courage. He turned the
handle softly and walked in. He seemed to himself to be
trembling like a leaf.

Miss Wilkinson was standing at the dressing-table with
her back to the door, and she turned round quickly when
she heard it open.

l8o OF HUM AN BONDAGE

"Oh, it's you. What d'you want ?"

She had taken off her skirt and blouse, and was stand-
ing in her petticoat. It was short and only came down to
the top of her boots ; the upper part of it was black, of
some shiny material, and there was a red flounce. She wore
a camisole of white calico with short arms. She looked
grotesque. Philip's heart sank as he stared at her ; she had
never seemed so unattractive ; but it was too late now. He
closed the door behind him and locked it.

XXXV

PHILIP woke early next morning. His sleep had been
restless ; but when he stretched his legs and looked at the
sunshine that slid through the Venetian blinds, making
patterns on the floor, he sighed with satisfaction. He was
delighted with himself. He began to think of Miss Wilkin-
son. She had asked him to call her Emily, but, he knew not
why, he could not ; he always thought of her as Miss Wil-
kinson. Since she chid him for so addressing her, he
avoided using her name at all. During his childhood he
had often heard a sister of Aunt Louisa, the widow of a
naval officer, spoken of as Aunt Emily. It made him un-
comfortable to call Miss Wilkinson by that name, nor could
he think of any that would have suited her better. She had
begun as Miss Wilkinson, and it seemed inseparable from
his impression of her. He frowned a little: somehow or
other he saw her now at her worst; he could not forget
his dismay when she turned round and he saw her in her
camisole and the short petticoat ; he remembered the slight
roughness of her skin and the sharp, long lines on the side
of the neck. His triumph was short-lived. He reckoned out
her age again, and he did not see how she could be less
than forty. It made the affair ridiculous. She was plain
and old. His quick fancy showed her to him, wrinkled,
haggard, made-up, in those frocks which were too showy
for her position and too young for her years. He shud-
dered ; he felt suddenly that he never wanted to see her
again ; he could not bear the thought of kissing her. He was
horrified with himself. Was that love?

He took as long as he could over dressing in order to
put back the moment of seeing her, and when at last he
went into the dining-room it was with a sinking heart.
Prayers were over, and they were sitting down at break-
fast.

"Lazy bones," Miss Wilkinson cried gaily.

xSx

c8a OF HUMAN BONDAGE

He looked at her and gave a little gasp of relief. She was.
sitting with her back to the window. She was really quite
nice. He wondered why he had thought such things about
her. His self-satisfaction returned to him.

He was taken aback by the change in her. She told him
in a voice thrilling with emotion immediately after break-
fast that she loved him ; and when a little later they went
into the drawing-room for his singing lesson and she sat
down on the music-stool she put up her face in the middle
of a scale and said :

"Embrasse-moi."

When he bent down she flung her arms round his neck.
It was slightly uncomfortable, for she held him in such a
position that he felt rather choked.

"Ah, je t'aime. Je t'aime. Je t'aime," she cried, with her
extravagantly French accent.

Philip wished she would speak English.

"I say, I don't know if it's struck you that the garden-
er's quite likely to pass the window any minute."

"Ah, je m'en fiche du jardinier. Je m'en refiche, el je
m'en contrefiche"

Philip thought it was very like a French novel, and he
did not know why it slightly irritated him.

At last he said :

"Well, I think I'll tootle along to the beach and have a
dip."

"Oh, you're not going to leave me this morning — of all
mornings ?"

Philip did not quite know why he should not, but it did
not matter.

"Would you like me to stay?" he smiled.

"Oh, you darling! But no, go. Go. I want to think of
you mastering the salt sea waves, bathing your limbs in the
broad ocean."

He got his hat and sauntered off.

"What rot women talk!" he thought to himself.

But he was pleased and happy and flattered. She was
evidently frightfully gone on him. As he limped along the
high street of Blackstable he looked with a tinge of super-
ciliousness at the people he passed. He knew a good many

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 183

to nod to, and as he gave them a smile of recognition he
thought to himself, if they only knew ! He did want some-
one to know very badly. He thought he would write to
Hayward, and in his mind composed the letter. He would
talk of the garden and the roses, and the little French
governess, like an exotic flower amongst them, scented and
perverse : he would say she was French, because — well,
she had lived in France so long that she almost was, and
besides it would be shabby to give the whole thing away
too exactly, don't you know ; and he would tell Hayward
how he had seen her first in her pretty muslin dress and of
the flower she had given him. He made a delicate idyl of
it : the sunshine and the sea gave it passion and magic, and
the stars added poetry, and the old vicarage garden was a
fit and exquisite setting. There was something Meredithian
about it: it was not quite Lucy Feverel and not quite
Clara Middleton ; but it was inexpressibly charming. Phil-
ip's heart beat quickly. He was so delighted with his fan-
cies that he began thinking of them again as soon as he
crawled back, dripping and cold, into his bathing-machine.
He thought of the object of his affections. She had the
most adorable little nose and large brown eyes — he would
describe her to Hayward — and masses of soft brown hair,
the sort of hair it was delicious to bury your face in, and a
skin which was like ivory and sunshine, and her cheek was
like a red, red rose. How old was she ? Eighteen perhaps,
and he called her Musette. Her laughter was like a rip-
pling brook, and her voice was so soft, so low, it was the
sweetest music he had ever heard.

"What are you thinking about?"

Philip stopped suddenly. He was walking slowly home.

"I've been waving at you for the last quarter of a mile.
You are absent-minded."

Miss Wilkinson was standing in front of him, laughing
at his surprise.

"I thought I'd come and meet you."

"That's awfully nice of you," he said.

"Did I startle you ?"

"You did a bit," he admitted.

184 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

He wrote his letter to Hayward all the same. There were
eight pages of it.

The fortnight that remained passed quickly, and though
each evening, when they went into the garden after sup-
per, Miss Wilkinson remarked that one day more had
gone, Philip was in too cheerful spirits to let the thought
depress him. One night Miss Wilkinson suggested that it
would be delightful if she could exchange her situation in
Berlin for one in London. Then they could see one an-
other constantly. Philip said it would be very jolly, but
the prospect aroused no enthusiasm in him ; he was looking
forward to a wonderful life in London, and he preferred
not to be hampered. He spoke a little too freely of all he
meant to do, and allowed Miss Wilkinson to see that al-
ready he was longing to be off.

"You wouldn't talk like that if you loved me," she cried.

He was taken aback and remained silent.

"What a fool I've been," she muttered.

To his surprise he saw that she was crying. He had a
tender heart, and hated to see anyone miserable.

"Oh, I'm awfully sorry. What have I done? Don't
cry."

"Oh, Philip, don't leave me. You don't know what you
mean to me. I have such a wretched life, and you've made
me so happy."

He kissed her silently. There really was anguish in her
tone, and he was frightened. It had never occurred to him
that she meant what she said quite, quite seriously.

"I'm awfully sorry. You know I'm frightfully fond of
you. I wish you would come to London."

"You know I can't. Places are almost impossible to get,
and I hate English life."

Almost unconscious that he was acting a part, moved by
her distress, he pressed her more and more. Her tears
vaguely flattered him, and he kissed her with real passion.

But a day or two later she made a real scene. There was
a tennis-party at the vicarage, and two girls came, daugh-
ters of a retired major in an Indian regiment who had
lately settled in Blackstable. They were very pretty, one
v-as Philip's age and the other was a year or two younger.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 185

Being used to the society of young men (they were full
of stories of hill-stations in India, and at that time the
stories of Rudyard Kipling were in every hand) they be-
gan to chaff Philip gaily ; and he, pleased with the novelty
— the young ladies at Blackstable treated the Vicar's
nephew with a certain seriousness — was gay and jolly.
Some devil within him prompted him to start a violent
flirtation with them both, and as he was the only young
man there, they were quite willing to meet him half-way.
It happened that they played tennis quite well and Philip
was tired of pat-ball with Miss Wilkinson (she had only
begun to play when she came to Blackstable), so when he
arranged the sets after tea he suggested that Miss Wilkin-
son should play against the curate's wife, with the curate
as her partner; and he would play later with the new-
comers. He sat down by the elder Miss O'Connor and
said to her in an undertone :

"We'll get the duffers out of the way first, and then
we'll have a jolly set afterwards."

Apparently Miss Wilkinson overheard him, for she
threw down her racket, and, saying she had a headache,
went away. It was plain to everyone that she was offended
Philip was annoyed that she should make the fact public.
The set was arranged without her, but presently Mrs
Carey called him.

"Philip, you've hurt Emily's feelings. She's gone to her
room and she's crying."

"What about?"

"Oh, something about a duffer's set. Do go to her, and
say you didn't mean to be unkind, there's a good boy."

"All right."

He knocked at Miss Wilkinson's door, but receiving no
answer went in. He found her lying face downwards on
her bed, weeping. He touched her on the shoulder.

"I say, what on earth's the matter?"

"Leave me alone. I never want to speak to you again."

"What have I done ? I'm awfully sorry if I've hurt your
feelings. I didn't mean to. I say, do get up."

"Oh, I'm so unhappy. How could you be cruel to me?

186 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

You know I hate that stupid game. I only play because I
want to play with you."

She got up and walked towards the dressing-table, but
after a quick look in the glass sank into a chair. She made
her handkerchief into a ball and dabbed her eyes with it.

"I've given you the greatest thing a woman can give a
man — oh, what a fool I was — and you have no gratitude.
You must be quite heartless. How could you be so cruel
as to torment me by flirting with those vulgar girls. We've
only got just over a week. Can't you even give me that?"

Philip stood over her rather sulkily. He thought her be-
haviour childish. He was vexed with her for having shown
her ill-temper before strangers.

"But you know I don't care twopence about either of the
O'Connors. Why on earth should you think I do?"

Miss Wilkinson put away her handkerchief. Her tears
had made marks on her powdered face, and her hair was
somewhat disarranged. Her white dress did not suit her
very well just then. She looked at Philip with hungry,
passionate eyes.

"Because you're twenty and so's she," she said hoarsely.
"And I'm old."

Philip reddened and looked away. The anguish of her
tone made him feel strangely uneasy. He wished with all
his heart that he had never had anything to do with Miss
Wilkinson.

"I don't want to make you unhappy," he said awkwardly.
"You'd better go down and look after your friends. They'll
wonder what has become of you."

"All right."

He was glad to leave her.

The quarrel was quickly followed by a reconciliation, but
the few days that remained were sometimes irksome to
Philip. He wanted to talk of nothing but the future, and
the future invariably reduced Miss Wilkinson to tears. At
first her weeping affected him. and feeling himself a beast
he redoubled his protestations of undying passion; but
now it irritated him: it would have been all very well if
she had been a girl, but it was silly of a grown-up woman
to cry so much. She never ceased reminding him that he

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 187

was under a debt of gratitude to her which he could never
repay. He was willing to acknowledge this since she made
a point of it, but he did not really know why he should be
any more grateful to her than she to him. He was expected
to show his sense of obligation in ways which were rather
a nuisance : he had been a good deal used to solitude, and
it was a necessity to him sometimes; but Miss Wilkinson
looked upon it as an unkindness if he was not always at
her beck and call. The Miss O'Connors asked them both
to tea, and Philip would have liked to go, but Miss Wil-
kinson said she only had five days more and wanted him
entirely to herself. It was flattering, but a bore. Miss Wil-
kinson told him stories of the exquisite delicacy of French-
men when they stood in the same relation to iair ladies as
he to Miss Wilkinson. She praised their courtesy, their
passion for self-sacrifice, their perfect tact. Miss Wilkin-
son seemed to want a great deal.

Philip listened to her enumeration of the qualities which
must be possessed by the perfect lover, and he could not
help feeling a certain satisfaction that she lived in Berlin.

"You will write to me, won't you? Write to me every
day. I want to know everything you're doing. You must
keep nothing from me."

"I shall be awfully busy," he answered. "I'll write as
often as I can."

She flung her arms passionately round his neck. He was
embarrassed sometimes by the demonstrations of her
affection. He would have preferred her to be more passive.
It shocked him a little that she should give him so marked
a lead : it did not tally altogether with his prepossessions
about the modesty of the feminine temperament.

At length the day came on which Miss Wilkinson was
to go, and she came down to breakfast, pale and subdued,
in a serviceable travelling dress of black and white check.
She looked a very competent governess. Philip was silent
too, for he did not quite know what to say that would fit
the circumstance; and he was terribly afraid that, if he
said something flippant, Miss Wilkinson would break down
before his uncle and make a scene. They had said their
last good-bye to one another in the garden the night

i88 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

before, and Philip was relieved that there was now no op-
portunity for them to be alone. He remained in the dining-
room after breakfast in case Miss Wilkinson should insist
on kissing him on the stairs. He did not want Mary Ann,
now a woman hard upon middle age with a sharp tongue,
to catch them in a compromising position. Mary Ann did
not like Miss Wilkinson and called her an old cat. Aunt
Louisa was not very well and could not come to the sta-
tion, but the Vicar and Philip saw her off. Just as the
train was leaving she leaned out and kissed Mr. Carey.

"I must kiss you too, Philip," she said.

"All right," he said, blushing.

He stood up on the step and she kissed him quickly.
The train started, and Miss Wilkinson sank into the corner
of her carriage and wept disconsolately. Philip as he
walked back to the vicarage felt a distinct sensation of
relief.

"Well, did you see her safely off?" asked Aunt Louisa,
when they got in.

"Yes, she seemed rather weepy. She insisted on kissing
me and Philip."

"Oh, well, at her age it's not dangerous." Mrs. Carey
pointed to the sideboard. "There's a letter for you, Philip.
It came by the second post."

It was from Hayward and ran as follows :

My dear boy,

I answer your letter at once. I ventured to read it to a
great friend of mind, a charming woman whose help and
sympathy have been very precious to me, a woman withal
with a real feeling for art and literature; and we agreed
that it was charming. You wrote from your heart and you
do not know the delightful naivete which is in every line.
And because you love you write like a poet. Ah, dear boy,
that is the real thing: I felt the glow of your young pas-
sion, and your prose was musical from the sincerity of
your emotion. You must be happy! I wish I could have
been present unseen in that enchanted garden while you
wandered hand in hand, like Daphnis and Chloe, amid the
flowers. I can see you, my Daphnis, with the light of young

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 189

love in your eyes, tender, enraptured, and ardent; while
Chloe in your arms, so young and soft and fresh, vowing
she would ne'er consent — consented. Roses and violets and
honeysuckle! Oh, my friend, I envy you. It is so good to
think that your first love should have been pure poetry. ^
Treasure the moments, for the immortal gods have given
you the Greatest Gift of All, and it will be a sweet, sad
memory till your dying day. You will never again enjoy
that careless rapture. First love is best love; and she is
beautiful arid you are young, and all the world is yours. I
felt my pulse go faster when with your adorable simplicity
you told me that you buried your face in her long hair. I
am sure that it is that exquisite chestnut which seems just
touched with gold. I would have you sit under a leafy tree
side by side, and read together Romeo and Juliet ; and then
I would have you fall on your knees and on my behalf kiss
the ground on which her foot has left its imprint; then tell
her it is the homage of a poet to her radiant youth and to
your love for her.

Yours always,

G. Ei-heridge Hay ward.

"What damned rot !" said Philip, when he finished the
letter.

Miss Wilkinson oddly enough had suggested that they
should read Romeo and Juliet together; but Philip had
firmly declined. Then, as he put the letter in his pocket, he
felt a queer little pang of bitterness because reality seemed :
so different from the ideal.

XXXVI

A FEW days later Philip went to London. The curate had
recommended rooms in Barnes, and these Philip engaged
by letter at fourteen shillings a week. He reached them in
the evening; and the landlady, a funny little old woman
with a shrivelled body and a deeply wrinkled face, had
prepared high tea for him. Most of the sitting-room was
taken up by the sideboard and a square table ; against one
wall was a sofa covered with horsehair, and by the fire-
place an arm-chair to match : there was a white antimacas-
sar over the back of it, and on the seat, because the springs
were broken, a hard cushion.

After having his tea he unpacked and arranged his
books, then he sat down and tried to read; but he was
depressed. The silence in the street made him slightly un-
comfortable, and he felt very much alone.

Next day he got up early. He put on his tail-coat and
the tall hat which he had worn at school ; but it was very
shabby, and he made up his mind to stop at the Stores on
his way to the office and buy a new one. When he had done
this he found himself in plenty of time and so walked
along the Strand. The office of Messrs. Herbert Carter &
Co. was in a little street off Chancery Lane, and he had to
ask his way two or three times. He felt that people were
staring at him a great deal, and once he took off his hat to
see whether by chance the label had been left on. When
he arrived he knocked at the door; but no one answered,
and looking at his watch he found it was barely half past
nine; he supposed he was too early. He went away and
ten minutes later returned to find an office-boy, with a long
nose, pimply face, and a Scotch accent, opening the door.
Philip asked for Mr. Herbert Carter. He had not come yet.

"When will he be here?"

"Between ten and half past."

"I'd better wait," said Philip.

IQO

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 191

"What are you wanting?" asked the office-boy.

Philip was nervous, but tried to hide the fact by a jo*
cose manner.

"Well, I'm going to work here if you have no objec-
tion."

"Oh, you're the new articled clerk? You'd better come
in. Mr. Goodworthy'll be here in a while."

Philip walked in, and as he did so saw the office-boy —
he was about the same age as Philip and called himself a
junior clerk — look at his foot. He flushed and, sitting
down, hid it behind the other. He looked round the room.
It was dark and very dingy. It was lit by a skylight. There
were three rows of desks in it and against them high
stools. Over the chimney-piece was a dirty engraving of a
prize-fight. Presently a clerk came in and then another;
they glanced at Philip and in an undertone asked the office-
boy (Philip found his name was Macdougal) who he was.
A whistle blew, and Macdougal got up.

"Mr. Goodworthy's come. He's the managing clerk.
Shall I tell him you're here ?"

"Yes, please," said Philip.

The office-boy went out and in a moment returned.

"Will you come this way?"

Philip followed him across the passage and was shown
into a room, small and barely furnished, in which a little,
thin man was standing with his back to the fireplace. He
was much below the middle height, but his large head,
which seemed to hang loosely on his body, gave him an
odd ungainliness. His features were wide and flattened,
and he had prominent, pale eyes ; his thin hair was sandy ;
he wore whiskers that grew unevenly on his face, and in
places where you would have expected the hair to grow
thickly there was no hair at all. His skin was pasty and
yellow. He held out his hand to Philip, and when he smiled
showed badly decayed teeth. He spoke with a patronising
and at the same time a timid air, as though he sought to
assume an importance which he did not feel. He said he
hoped Philip would like the work; there was a good deal
of drudgery about it, but when you got used to it, it was
interesting ; and one made money, that was the chief thing,

I9» OF HUMAN BOND AGE

wasn't it ? He laughed with his odd mixture of superiority
and shyness.

"Mr. Carter will be here presently," he said. "He's a lit-
tle late on Monday mornings sometimes. I'll call you when
he comes. In the meantime I must give you something to
do. Do you know anything about book-keeping or ac-
counts ?"

"I'm afraid not," answered Philip.

"I didn't suppose you would. They don't teach you
things at school that are much use in business, I'm afraid."
He considered for a moment. "I think I can find you some-
thing to do."

He went into the next room and after a little while came
out with a large cardboard box. It contained a vast num-
ber of letters in great disorder, and he told Philip to sort
them out and arrange them alphabetically according to the
names of the writers.

"I'll take you to the room in which the articled clerk
generally sits. There's a very nice fellow in it. His name is
Watson. He's a son of Watson, Crag, and Thompson —
you know — the brewers. He's spending a year with us to
learn business."

Mr. Goodworthy led Philip through the dingy office,
where now six or eight clerks were working, into a narrow
room behind. It had been made into a separate apartment
by a glass partition, and here they found Watson sitting
back in a chair, reading The Sportsman. He was a large,
stout young man, elegantly dressed, and he looked up as
Mr. Goodworthy entered. He asserted his position by call-
ing the managing clerk Goodworthy. The managing clerk
objected to the familiarity, and pointedly called him Mr.
Watson, but Watson, instead of seeing that it was a re-
buke, accepted the title as a tribute to his gentlemanliness.

"I see they've scratched Rigoletto," he said to Philip,
as soon as they were left alone.

"Have they?" said Philip, who knew nothing about
horse-racing.

He looked with awe upon Watson's beautiful clothes.
His tail-coat fitted him perfectly, and there was a valuable
pin artfully stuck in the middle of an enormous tie. On

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 193

the chimney-piece rested his tall hat; it was saucy and
bell-shaped and shiny. Philip felt himself very shabby.
Watson began to talk of hunting — it was such an infernal
bore having to waste one's time in an infernal office, he
would only be able to hunt on Saturdays — and shooting:
he had ripping invitations all over the country and of
course he had to refuse them. It was infernal luck, but he
wasn't going to put up with it long; he was only in this
infernal hole for a year, and then he was going into the
business, and he would hunt four days a week and get all
the shooting there was.

"You've got five years of it, haven't you ?" he said, wav-
ing his arm round the tiny room.

"I suppose so," said Philip.

"I daresay I shall see something of you. Carter does
our accounts, you know."

Philip was somewhat overpowered by the young gentle-
man's condescension. At Blackstable they had always
looked upon brewing with civil contempt, the Vicar made
little jokes about the beerage, and it was a surprising ex-
perience for Philip to discover that Watson was such an
important and magnificent fellow. He had been to Win-
chester and to Oxford, and his conversation impressed the
fact upon one with frequency. When he discovered the
details of Philip's education his manner became more pat-
ronising still.

"Of course, if one doesn't go to a public school those
sort of schools are the next best thing, aren't they ?"

Philip asked about the other men in the office.

"Oh, I don't bother about them much, you know," said
Watson. "Carter's not a bad sort. We have him to dine
now and then. All the rest are awful bounders."

Presently Watson applied himself to some work he
had in hand, and Philip set about sorting his letters. Then
Mr. Goodworthy came in to say that Mr. Carter had ar-
rived. He took Philip into a large room next door to his
own. There was a big desk in it, and a couple of big arm-
chairs; a Turkey carpet adorned the floor, and the walls
were decorated with sporting prints. Mr. Carter was sit-
ting at the desk and got up to shake hands with Philip.

i<M OF HUM AN BONDAGE

He was dressed in a long frock coat. He looked like »
military man ; his moustache was waxed, his gray hair was
short and neat, he held himself upright, he talked in a
breezy way, he lived at Enfield. He was very keen on
games and the good of the country. He was an officer in
the Hertfordshire Yeomanry and chairman of the Con-
servative Association. When he was told that a local mag-
nate had said no one would take him for a City man, he
felt that he had not lived in vain. He talked to Philip in
a pleasant, off-hand fashion. Mr. Goodworthy would look
after him. Watson was a nice fellow, perfect gentleman,
good sportsman — did Philip hunt ? Pity, the sport for gen-
tlemen. Didn't have much chance of hunting now, had to
leave that to his son. His son was at Cambridge, he'd sent
him to Rugby, fine school Rugby, nice class of boys there,
in a couple of years his son would be articled, that would
be nice for Philip, he'd like his son, thorough sportsman.
He hoped Philip would get on well and like the work, he
mustn't miss his lectures, they were getting up the tone of
the profession, they wanted gentlemen in it. Well, well,
Mr. Goodworthy was there. If he wanted to know any-
thing Mr. Goodworthy would tell him. What was his hand-
writing like? Ah well, Mr. Goodworthy would see about
that.

Philip was overwhelmed by so much gentlemanliness : in
East Anglia they knew who were gentlemen and who
weren't, but the gentlemen didn't talk about it.

XXXVII

AT first the novelty of the work kept Philip interested.
Mr. Carter dictated letters to him, and he had to make fair
copies of statements of accounts.

Mr. Carter preferred to conduct the office on gentle-
manly lines ; he would have nothing to do with typewriting
and looked upon shorthand with disfavour : the office-boy
knew shorthand, but it was only Mr. Goqdworthy who
made use of his accomplishment. Now and then Philip
with one of the more experienced clerks went out to audit
the accounts of some firm : he came to know which of the
clients must be treated with respect and which were in
low water. Now and then long lists of figures were given
him to add up. He attended lectures for his first examina-
tion. Mr. Goodworthy repeated to him that the work was
dull at first, but he would grow used to it. Philip left the
office at six and walked across the river to Waterloo. His
supper was waiting for him when he reached his lodgings
and he spent the evening reading. On Saturday after-
noons he went to the National Gallery. Hayward had
recommended to him a guide which had been compiled out
of Ruskin's works, and with this in hand he went indus-
triously through room after room : he read carefully what
the critic had said about a picture and then in a deter-
mined fashion set himself to see the same things in it. His
Sundays were difficult to get through. He knew no one in
London and spent them by himself. Mr. Nixon, the so-
licitor, asked him to spend a Sunday at Hampstead, and
Philip passed a happy day with a set of exuberant stran-
gers ; he ate and drank a great deal, took a walk on the
heath, and came away with a general invitation to come
again whenever he liked; but he was morbidly afraid of
being in the way, so waited for a formal invitation. Natur-
ally enough it never came, for with numbers of friends
of their own the Nixons did not think of the lonely, silent

195

196 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

boy whose claim upon their hospitality was so small. So
on Sundays he got up late and took a walk along the
tow-path. At Barnes the river is muddy, dingy, and tidal ;
it has neither the graceful charm of the Thames above the
locks nor the romance of the crowded stream below Lon-
don Bridge. In the afternoon he walked about the com-
Aion ; and that is gray and dingy too ; it is neither country
nor town ; the gorse is stunted ; and all about is the litter
of civilisation. He went to a play every Saturday nigh*
and stood cheerfully for an hour or more at the gallery-
door. It was not worth while to go back to Barnes for
the interval between the closing of the Museum and his
meal in an A. B. C. shop, and the time hung heavily on his
hands. He strolled up Bond Street or through the Burling-
ton Arcade, and when he was tired went and sat down
in the Park or in wet weather in the public library in St.
Martin's Lane. He looked at the people walking about and
envied them because they had friends; sometimes his
envy turned to hatred because they were happy and he
was miserable. He had never imagined that it was possi-
ble to be so lonely in a great city. Sometimes when he was
standing at the gallery-door the man next to him would
attempt a conversation ; but Philip had the country boy's
suspicion of strangers and answered in such a way as to
prevent any further acquaintance. After the play was over,
obliged to keep to himself all he thought about it, he hur-
ried across the bridge to Waterloo. When he got back to
his rooms, in which for economy no fire had been lit, his
heart sank. It was horribly cheerless. He began to loathe
his lodgings and the long solitary evenings he spent in
them. Sometimes he felt so lonely that he could not read,
and then he sat looking into the fire hour after hour in
bitter wretchedness.

He had spent three months in London now, and except
for that one Sunday at Hampstead had never talked to
anyone but his fellow-clerks. One evening Watson asked
him to dinner at a restaurant and they went to a music-
hall together ; but he felt shy and uncomfortable. Watson
talked all the time of things he did not care about, and
while he looked upon Watson as a Philistine he could not

OF HUM AN BONDAGE I97

help admiring him. He was angry because Watson obvi-
ously set no store on his culture, and with his way of tak-
ing himself at the estimate at which he saw others held
him he began to despise the acquirements which till then
had seemed to him not unimportant. He felt for the first
time the humiliation of poverty. His uncle sent him four-
teen pounds a month and he had had to buy a good many
clothes. His evening suit cost him five guineas. He had
not dared tell Watson that it was bought in the Strand
Watson said there was only one tailor in London.

"I suppose you don't dance," said Watson, one day,
with a glance at Philip's club-foot.

"No," said Philip.

"Pity. I've been asked to bring some dancing men to a
ball. I could have introduced you to some jolly girls."

Once or twice, hating the thought of going back to
Barnes, Philip had remained in town, and late in the eve-
ning wandered through the West End till he found some
house at which there was a party. He stood among the
little group of shabby people, behind the footmen, watch-
ing the guests arrive, and he listened to the music that
floated through the window. Sometimes, notwithstanding
the cold, a couple came on to the balcony and stood for a
moment to get some fresh air ; and Philip, imagining that
they were in love with one another, turned away and
limped along the street with a heavy heart. He would
never be able to stand in that man's place. He felt that no
woman could ever really look upon him without distaste
for his deformity.

That reminded him of Miss Wilkinson. He thought of
her without satisfaction. Before parting they had made an
arrangement that she should write to Charing Cross Post
Office till he was able to send her an address, and when
he went there he found three letters from her. She wrote
on blue paper with violet ink, and she wrote in French.
Philip wondered why she could not write in English like
a sensible woman, and her passionate expressions, because
they reminded him of a French novel, left him cold. She
upbraided him for not having written, and when he an-
swered he excused himself by saying that he had been

198 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

busy. He did not quite know how to start the letter. He
could not bring himself to use dearest or darling, and he
hated to address her as Emily, so finally he began with
the word dear. It looked odd, standing by itself, and rather
silly, but he made it do. It was the first love letter he had
ever written, and he was conscious of its lameness ; he felt
that he should say all sorts of vehement things, how he
thought of her every minute of the day and how he longed
to kiss her beautiful hands and how he trembled at the
thought of her red lips, but some inexplicable modesty
prevented him ; and instead he told her of his new rooms
and his office. The answer came by return of post, angry,
heart-broken, reproachful : how could he be so cold ? Did
he not know that she hung on his letters? She had given
him all that a woman could give, and this was her re-
ward. Was he tired of her already? Then, because he did
not reply for several days, Miss Wilkinson bombarded
him with letters. She could not bear his unkindness, she
waited for the post, and it never brought her his letter,
she cried herself to sleep night after night, she was look-
ing so ill that everyone remarked on it : if he did not love
her why did he not say so? She added that she could not
live without him, and the only thing was for her to com-
mit suicide. She told him he was cold and selfish and un-
grateful. It was all in French, and Philip knew that she
wrote in that language to show off, but he was worried
all the same. He did not want to make her unhappy. In
a little while she wrote that she could not bear the separa-
tion any longer, she would arrange to come over to Lon-
don for Christmas. Philip wrote back that he would like
nothing better, only he had already an engagement to spend
Christmas with friends in the country, and he did not see
how he could break it. She answered that she did not wish
to force herself on him, it was quite evident that he did
not wish to see her; she was deeply hurt, and she never
thought he would repay with such cruelty all her kind-
ness. Her letter was touching, and Philip thought he
saw marks of her tears on the paper ; he wrote an impul-
sive reply saying that he was dreadfully sorry and im-
ploring her to come; but it was with relief that he

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 199

received her answer in which she said that she found it
would be impossible for her to get uway. Presently when
her letters came his heart sank : he delayed opening them,
for he knew what they would contain, angry reproaches
and pathetic appeals ; they would make him feel a perfect
beast, and yet he did not see with what he had to blame
himself. He put off his answer from day to day, and then
another letter would come, saying she was ill and loneh
and miserable.

"I wish to God I'd never had anything to do with her/
he said.

He admired Watson because he arranged these things
so easily. The young man had been engaged in an intrigue
with a girl who played in touring companies, and his ac-
count of the affair filled Philip with envious amazement.
But after a time Watson's young affections changed, and
one day he described the rupture to Philip.

"I thought it was no good making any bones about it so
I just told her I'd had enough of her," he said.

"Didn't she make an awful scene?" asked Philip.

"The usual thing, you know, but I told her it was no
good trying on that sort of thing with me."

"Did she cry?"

"She began to, but I can't stand women when they cry,
so I said she'd better hook it."

Philip's sense of humour was growing keener with ad-
vancing years.

"And did she hook it ?" he asked smiling.

"Well, there wasn't anything else for her to do, was
there ?"

Meanwhile the Christmas holidays approached. Mrs.
Carey had been ill all through November, and the doctor
suggested that she and the Vicar should go to Cornwall
for a couple of weeks round Christmas so that she should
get back her strength. The result was that Philip had no-
where to go, and he spent Christmas Day in his lodgings.
Under Hayward's influence he had persuaded himself
that the festivities that attend this season were vulgar
and barbaric, and he made up his mind that he would take
no notice of the day; but when it came, the jollity of all

300 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

around affected him strangely. His landlady and her hus-
band were spending the day with a married daughter, and
to save trouble Philip announced that he would take his
meals out. He went up to London towards mid-day and
ate a slice of turkey and some Christmas pudding by him-
self at Gatti's, and since he had nothing to do afterwards
went to Westminster Abbey for the afternoon service. The
streets were almost empty, and the people who went along
had a preoccupied look; they did not saunter but walked
with some definite goal in view, and hardly anyone was
alone. To Philip they all seemed happy. He felt himself
more solitary than he had ever done in his life. His inten-
tion had been to kill the day somehow in the streets and
then dine at a restaurant, but he could not face again the
sight of cheerful people, talking, laughing, and making
merry; so he went back to Waterloo, and on his way
through the Westminster Bridge Road bought some ham
and a couple of mince pies and went back to Barnes. He
ate his food in his lonely little room and spent the eve-
ning with a book. His depression was almost intolerable.

When he was back at the office it made him very sore to
listen to Watson's account of the short holiday. They had
had some jolly girls staying with them, and after dinner
they had cleared out the drawing-room and had a dance.

"I didn't get to bed till three and I don't know how I
got there then. By George, I was squiffy."

At last Philip asked desperately :

"How does one get to know people in London ?"

Watson looked at him with surprise and with a slightly
contemptuous amusement.

"Oh, I don't know, one just knows them. If you go to
dances you soon get to know as many people as you can
do with."

Philip hated Watson, and yet he would have given any-
thing to change places with him. The old feeling that he
had had at school came back to him, and he tried to throw
himself into the other's skin, imagining what life would
be if he were Watson.

XXXVIII

AT the end of the year there was a great deal to
do. Philip went to various places with a clerk named
Thompson and spent the day monotonously calling out
items of expenditure, which the other checked ; and some-
times he was given long pages of figures to add up. He
had never had a head for figures, and he could only do this
slowly. Thompson grew irritated at his mistakes. His
fellow-clerk was a long, lean man of forty, sallow, with
black hair and a ragged moustache ; he had hollow cheeks
and deep lines on each side of his nose. He took a dislike
to Philip because he was an articled clerk. Because he could
put down three hundred guineas and keep himself for five
years Philip had the chance of a career ; while he, with his
experience and ability, had no possibility of ever being
more than a clerk at thirty-five shillings a week. He was a
cross-grained man, oppressed by a large family, and he
resented the superciliousness which he fancied he saw in
Philip. He sneered at Philip because he was better edu-
cated than himself, and he mocked at Philip's pronuncia-
tion; he could not forgive him because he spoke without
a cockney accent, and when he talked to him sarcastically
exaggerated his aitches. At first his manner was merely
gruff and repellent, but as he discovered that Philip had
no gift for accountancy he took pleasure in humiliating
him ; his attacks were gross and silly, but they wounded
Philip, and in self-defence he assumed an attitude of su-
periority which he did not feel.

"Had a bath this morning?" Thompson said when Philip
came to the office late, for his early punctuality had not
lasted.

"Yes, haven't you ?"

"No, I'm not a gentleman, I'm only a clerk. I have a
bath on Saturday night."

2OI

202 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

"I suppose that's why you're more than usually dis-
agreeable on Monday."

"Will you condescend to do a few sums in simple ad-
dition today? I'm afraid it's asking a great deal from a
gentleman who knows Latin and Greek."

"Your attempts at sarcasm are not very happy."

But Philip could not conceal from himself that the other
clerks, ill-paid and uncouth, were more useful than him-
self. Once or twice Mr. Goodworthy grew impatient with
him.

."You really ought to be able to do better than this by
now," he said. "You're not even as smart as the office-
boy."

Philip listened sulkily. He did not like being blamed,
and it humiliated him, when, having been given accounts
to make fair copies of, Mr. Goodworthy was not satisfied
and gave them to another clerk to do. At first the work
had been tolerable from its novelty, but now it grew irk-
some ; and when he discovered that he had no aptitude for
it, he began to hate it. Often, when he should have been
doing something that was given him, he wasted his time
drawing little pictures on the office note-paper. He made
sketches of Watson in every conceivable attitude, and
Watson was impressed by his talent. It occurred to him to
take the drawings home, and he came back next day with
the praises of his family.

"I wonder you didn't become a painter," he said. "Only
of course there's no money in it."

It chanced that Mr. Carter two or three days later was
dining with the Watsons, and the sketches were shown
him. The following morning he sent for Philip. Philip saw
him seldom and stood in some awe of him.

"Look here, young fellow, I don't care what you do out
of office-hours, but I've seen those sketches of yours and
they're on office-paper, and Mr. Goodworthy tells me
you're slack. You won't do any good as a chartered ac-
countant unless you look alive. It's a fine profession, and
we're getting a very good class of men in it, but it's a pro-
fession in which you have to . . ." he looked for the ter-
mination of his phrase, but could not find exactly what he

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 205

wanted, so finished rather tamely, "in which you have to
look alive."

Perhaps Philip would have settled down but for the
agreement that if he did not like the work he could leave
after a year, and get back half the money paid for his
articles. He felt that he was fit for something better than
to add up accounts, and it was humiliating that he did so
ill something which seemed contemptible. The vulgar
scenes with Thompson got on his nerves. In March Wat-
son ended his year at the office and Philip, though he did
not care for him, saw him go with regret. The fact that
the other clerks disliked them equally, because they be-
longed to a class a little higher than their own, was a bond
of union. When Philip thought that he must spend over
four years more with that dreary set of fellows his heart
sank. He had expected wonderful things from London
and it had given him nothing. He hated it now. He did not
know a soul, and he had no idea how he was to get to know
anyone. He was tired of going everywhere by himself. He
began to feel that he could not stand much more of such
a life. He would lie in bed at night and think of the joy
of never seeing again that dingy office or any of the men
in it, and of getting away from those drab lodgings.

A great disappointment befell him in the spring. Hay-
ward had announced his intention of coming to London
for the season, and Philip had looked forward very much
to seeing him again. He had read so much lately and
thought so much that his mind was full of ideas which he
wanted to discuss, and he knew nobody who was willing
to interest himself in abstract things. He was quite ex-
cited at the thought of talking his fill with someone, and
he was wretched when Hayward wrote to say that the
spring was lovelier than ever he had known it in Italy,
and he could not bear to tear himself away. He went on
to ask why Philip did not come. What was the use of
squandering the days of his youth in an office when the
world was beautiful? The letter proceeded.

I wonder you can bear it. I think of Fleet Street and Lin-
coln's Inn now with a shudder of disgust. There are only

»04 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

two things in the world that make life worth living, love
and art. I cannot imagine you sitting in an office over a
ledger, vnd do you wear a tall hat and an umbrella and a
little black bag? My feeling is that one should look upon
life as an adventure, one should burn with the hard, gem-
like flame, and one should take risks, one should expose
oneself to danger. Why do you not go to Paris and study
art? I always thought you had talent.

The suggestion fell in with the possibility that Philip
for some time had been vaguely turning over in his mind.
It startled him at first, but he could not help thinking of
it, and in the constant rumination over it he found his only
escape from the wretchedness of his present state. They
all thought he had talent ; at Heidelberg they had admired
his water colours, Miss Wilkinson had told him over and
over again that they were charming; even strangers like
the Watsons had been struck by his sketches. La Vie de
Boh erne had made a deep impression on him. He had
brought it to London and when he was most depressed he
had only to read a few pages to be transported into those
charming attics where Rodolphe and the rest of them
danced and loved and sang. He began to think of Paris as
before he had thought of London, but he had no fear of a
second disillusion ; he yearned for romance and beauty and
love, and Paris seemed to offer them all. He had a passion
for pictures, and why should he not be able to paint as well
as anybody else? He wrote to Miss Wilkinson and asked
her how much she thought he could live on in Paris. She
told him that he could manage easily on eighty pounds a
year, and she enthusiastically approved of his project. She
told him he was too good to be wasted in an office. Who
would be a clerk when he might be a great artist, she asked
dramatically, and she besought Philip to believe in him-
self : that was the great thing. But Philip had a cautious
nature. It was all very well for Hayward to talk of taking
risks, he had three hundred a year in gilt-edged securities ;
Philip's entire fortune amounted to no more than
eighteen-hundred pounds. He hesitated.

Then it chanced that one day Mr. Goodworthy asked

OF HUM AN BOND AGE 205

him suddenly if he would like to go to Paris. The firm did
the accounts for a hotel in the Faubourg St. Honore, which
was owned by an English company, and twice a year Mr.
Goodworthy and a clerk went over. The clerk who gener-
ally went happened to be ill, and a press of work prevented
any of the others from getting away. Mr. Goodworthy
thought of Philip because he could best be spared, and his
articles gave him some claim upon a job which was one of
the pleasures of the business. Philip was delighted. '

"You'll 'ave to work all day," said Mr. Goodworthy,
"but we get our evenings to ourselves, and Paris is Paris."
He smiled in a knowing way. "They do us very well at the
hotel, and they give us all our meals, so it don't cost one
anything. That's the way I like going to Paris, at other
people's expense."

When they arrived at Calais and Philip saw the crowd
of gesticulating porters his heart leaped.

"This is the real thing," he said to himself.

He was all eyes as the train sped through the country;
he adored the sand dunes, their colour seemed to him more
lovely than anything he had ever seen; and he was en-
chanted with the canals and the long lines of poplars.
When they got out of the Gare du Nord, and trundled
along the cobbled streets in a ramshackle, noisy cab, it
seemed to him that he was breathing a new air so intoxi-
cating that he could hardly restrain himself from shouting
aloud. They were met at the door of the hotel by the man-
ager, a stout, pleasant man, who spoke tolerable English;
Mr. Goodworthy was an old friend and he greeted them
effusively; they dined in his private room with his wife,
and to Philip it seemed that he had never eaten anything
so delicious as the beefsteak aux pomines, nor drunk such
nectar as the vin ordinaire, which were set before them.

To Mr. Goodworthy, a respectable householder with ex-
cellent principles, the capital of France was a paradise of
the joyously obscene. He asked the manager next morn-
ing what tliQre was to be seen that was 'thick.' He thor-
oughly enjoyed these visits of his to Paris; he said they
kept you from growing rusty. In the evenings, after their
work was over and they had dined, he took Philip to the

*o6 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

Moulin Rouge and the Folies Bergeres. His little eyes
twinkled and his face wore a sly, sensual smile as he
sought out the pornographic. He went into all the haunts
which were specially arranged for the foreigner, and after-
wards said that a nation could come to no good which per-
mitted that sort of thing. He nudged Philip when at some
revue a woman appeared with practically nothing on, and
pointed out to him the most strapping of the courtesans
who walked about the hall. It was a vulgar Paris that he
showed Philip, but Philip saw it with eyes blinded with il-
lusion. In the early morning he would rush out of the hotel
and go to the Champs Elysees, and stand at the Place de
la Concorde. It was June, and Paris was silvery with the
delicacy of the air. Philip felt his heart go out to the peo-
ple. Here he thought at last was romance.

They spent the inside of a week there, leaving on Sun-
day, and when Philip late at night reached his dingy rooms
in Barnes his mind was made up ; he would surrender his
articles, and go to Paris to study art ; but so that no one
should think him unreasonable he determined to stay at the
office till his year was up. He was to have his holiday dur-
ing the last fortnight in August, and when he went away
he would tell Herbert Carter that he had no intention of
returning. But though Philip could force himself to go to
the office every day he could not even pretend to show any
interest in the work. His mind was occupied with the fu-
ture. After the middle of July there was nothing much to
do and he escaped a good deal by pretending he had to go
to lectures for his first examination. The time he got in
this way he spent in the National Gallery. He read books
about Paris and books about painting. He was steeped in
Ruskin. He read many of Vasari's lives of the painters.
He liked that story of Correggio, and he fancied himself
standing before some great masterpiece and crying : Anch
'io son' pittore. His hesitation had left him now, and he
was convinced that he had in him the makings of a great
painter.

"After all, I can only try," he said to himself. "The
great thing in life is to take risks."

At last came the middle of August. Mr. Carter was

OFHUMANBONDAGE 207

spending the month in Scotland, and the managing clerk
was in charge of the office. Mr. Goodworthy had seemed
pleasantly disposed to Philip since their trip to Paris, and
no\v that Philip knew he was so soon to be free, he could
look upon the funny little man with tolerance.

"You're going for your holiday tomorrow, Carey?" he
said to him in the evening.

All day Philip had been telling himself that this was the
last time he would ever sit in that hateful office.

"Yes, this is the end of my year."

"I'm afraid you've not done very well. Mr. Carter's very
dissatisfied with you."

"Not nearly so dissatisfied as I am with. Mr. Carter,"
returned Philip cheerfully.

"I don't think you should speak like that, Carey."

"I'm not coming back. I made the arrangement that if I
didn't like accountancy Mr. Carter would return me half
the money I paid for my articles and I could chuck it at
the end of a year."

"You shouldn't come to such a decision hastily."

"For ten months I've loathed it all, I've loathed the
\vork, I've loathed the office, I loathe London. I'd rather
sweep a crossing than spend my days here."

"Well, I must say, I don't think you're very fitted for ac-
countancy."

"Good-bye," said Philip, holding out his hand. "I want
to thank you for your kindness to me. I'm sorry if I've
been troublesome. I knew almost from the beginning I was
no good."

"Well, if you really do make up your mind it is good-
bye. I don't know what you're going to do, but if you're
ir> the neighbourhood at any time come in and see us."

Philip gave a little laugh.

"I'm afraid it sounds very rude, but I hope from the
bottom of my heart that I shall never set eyes on any of
you again."

XXXIX

THE Vicar of Black-stable would have nothing to do with
the scheme which Philip laid before him. He had a great
idea that one should stick to whatever one had begun. Like
all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not chang-
ing one's mind.

"You chose to be an accountant of your own free will/'
he said.

"I just took that because it was the only chance I saw
of getting up to town. I hate London, I hate the work, and
n )thing will induce me to go back to it."

Mr. and Mrs. Carey were frankly shocked at Philip's
idea of being an artist. He should not forget, they said,
that his father and mother were gentlefolk, and painting
wasn't a serious profession ; it was Bohemian, disreputa-
ble, immoral. And then Paris !

"So long as I have anything to say in the matter, I shall
not allow you to live in Paris," said the Vicar firmly.

It was a sink of iniquity. The scarlet woman and she of
Babylon flaunted their vileness there; the cities of the
plain were not more wicked.

"You've been brought up like a gentleman and Chris-
tian, and I should be .false to the trust laid upon me by
your dead father and mother if I allowed you to expose
yourself to such temptation."

"Well, I know I'm not a Christian and I'm beginning to
doubt whether I'm a gentleman," said Philip.

The dispute grew more violent. There was another year
before Philip took possession of his small inheritance, and
during that time Mr. Carey proposed only to give him an
allowance if he remained at the office. It was clear to Philip
that if he meant not to continue with accountancy he must
leave it while he could still get back half the money that
he had been paid for his articles. The Vicar would not lis-

208

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 209

ten. Philip, losing all reserve, said things to wound and
irritate.

"You've got no right to waste my money," he said at
last. "After all it's my money, isn't it ? I'm not a child. You
can't prevent me from going to Paris if I make up my
mind to. You can't force me to go back to London."

"All I can do is to refuse you money unless you do what
I think fit."

"Well, I don't care, I've made up my mind to go to
Paris. I shall sell my -lothes, and my books, and my
father's jewellery."

Aunt Louisa sat by in .lence, anxious and unhappy : she
saw that Philip was beside himself, and anything she said
then would but increase his anger. Finally the Vicar an-
nounced that he wished to hear nothing more about it and
with dignity left the room. For the next three days neither
Philip nor he spoke to one another. Philip wrote to Hay-
ward for information about Paris, and made up his mind
to set out as soon as he got a reply. Mrs. Carey turned the
matter over in her mind incessantly; she felt that Philip
included her in the hatred he bore her husband, and the
thought tortured her. She loved him with all her heart. At
length she spoke to him; she listened , attentively while he
poured out all his disillusionment of London and his eager
ambition for the future.

"I may be no good, but at least let me have a try. I can't
be a worse failure than I was in that beastly office. And I
feel that I can paint. I know I've got it in me."

She was not so sure as her husband that they did right
in thwarting so strong an inclination. She had read of great
painters whose parents had opposed their wish to study,
the event had shown with what folly ; and after all it was
just as possible for a painter to lead a virtuous life to the
glory of God as for a chartered accountant.

"I'm so afraid of your going to Paris," she said pite-
ously. "It wouldn't be so bad if you studied in London."

"If. I'm going in for painting I must do it thoroughly,
and it's only in Paris that you can get the real thing."

At his suggestion Mrs. Carey wrote to the solicitor, say-
ing that Philip was discontented with his work in London,

2io OF HUMAN BONDAGE

and asking what he thought of a change. Mr. Nixon an-
swered as follows:

Dear Mrs. Carey,

I have seen Mr. Herbert Carter, and I can afraid I must
tell you that Philip has not done so well as one could have
wished. If he is very strongly set against the work, perhaps
it is better that he should take the opportunity there is now
to break his articles. I am naturally very disappointed, buf.
as you know you can take a hor to the water, but you
can't make him drink.

Yours vei sincerely,

Albert Nixon.

The letter was shown to the Vicar, but served only to in-
crease his obstinacy. He was willing enough that Philip
should take up some other profession, he suggested his
father's calling, medicine, but nothing would induce him to
pay an allowance if Philip went to Paris.

"It's a mere excuse for self-indulgence and sensuality,"
he said.

"I'm interested to hear you blame self-indulgence in
others," retorted Philip acidly.

But by this time an answer had come from Hayward,
giving the name of a hotel where Philip could get a room
for thirty francs a month and enclosing a note of introduc-
tion to the massiere of a school. Philip read the letter to
Mrs. Carey and told her he proposed to start on the first
of September.

"But you haven't got any money ?" she said.

"I'm going into Tercanbury this afternoon to sell the
jewellery."

He had inherited from his father a gold watch and chain,
two or three rings, some links, and two pins. One of them
was a pearl and might fetch a considerable sum.

"It's a very different thing, what a thing's worth and
what it'll fetch," said Aunt Louisa.

Philip smiled, for this was one of his uncle's stock
phrases.

"I know, but at the worst I think I can get a hundred

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 211

pounds on the lot, and that'll keep me till I'm twenty-one."

Mrs. Carey did not answer, but she went upstairs, put
on her little black bonnet, and went to the bank. In an hour
she came back. She went to Philip, who was reading in the
drawing-room, and handed him an envelope.

"What's this?" he asked.

"It's a little present for you," she answered, smiling
shyly.

He opened it and found eleven five-pound notes and a
little paper sack bulging with sovereigns.

"I couldn't bear to let you sell your father's jewellery.
It's the money I had in the bank. It comes to very nearly
a hundred pounds."

Philip blushed, and, he knew not why, tears suddenly
filled his eyes.

"Oh, my dear, I can't take it," he said. "It's most aw-
fully good of you, but I couldn't bear to take it."

When Mrs. Carey was married she had three hundred
pounds, and this money, carefully watched, had been used
by her to meet any unforeseen expense, any urgent charity,
or to buy Christmas and birthday presents for her hus-
band and for Philip. In the course of years it had dimin-
ished sadly, but it was still with the Vicar a subject for jest-
ing. He talked of his wife as a rich woman and he con-
stantly spoke of the 'nest egg.'

"Oh. please take it, Philip. I'm so sorry I've been ex-
travagant, and there's only that left. But it'll make me so
happy if you'll accept it."

"But you'll want it," said Philip.

"No, I don't think I shall. I was keeping it in case your
uncle died before me. I thought it would be useful to have
a little something I could get at immediately if I wanted it,
but I don't think I shall live very much longer now."

"Oh, my dear, don't say that. Why, of course you're go-
ing to live for ever. I can't possibly spare you."

"Oh, I'm not sorry." Her voice broke and she hid her
eyes, but in a moment, drying them, she smiled bravely.
"At first, I used to pray to God that He might not take me
first, because I didn't want your uncle to be left alone, I
didn't want him to have all the suffering, but now I know

2i2 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

that it wouldn't mean so much to your uncle as it would
mean to me. He wants to live more than I do, I've never
been the wife he wanted, and I daresay he'd marry again
if anything happened to me. So I should like to go first.
You don't think it's selfish of me, Philip, do you? But I
couldn't bear it if he went."

Philip kissed her wrinkled, thin cheek. He did not know
why the sight he had of that overwhelming love made him
feel strangely ashamed. It was incomprehensible that she
should care so much for a man who was so indifferent, so
selfish, so grossly self-indulgent ; and he divined dimly that
in her heart she knew his indifference and his selfishness,
knew them and loved him humbly all the same.

"You will take the money, Philip?" she said, gently
stroking his hand. "I know you can do without it, but it'll
give me so much happiness. I've always wanted to do some-
thing for you. You see, I never had a child of my own, and
I've loved you as if you were my son. When you were a
little boy, though I knew it was wicked, I used to wish
almost that you might be ill, so that I could nurse you day
and night. But you were only ill once and then it was at
school. I should so like to help you. It's the only chance
I shall ever have. And perhaps some day when you're a
great artist you won't forget me, but you'll remember that
I gave you your start."

"It's very good of you," said Philip. "I'm very grate-
ful."

A smile came into her tired eyes, a smile of pure happi-
ness.

"Oh, I'm so glad."

XL

A FEW days later Mrs. Carey went to the station to see
Philip off. She stood at the door of the carriage, trying to
keep back her tears. Philip was restless and eager. He
wanted to be gone.

"Kiss me once more," she said.

He leaned out of the window and kissed her. The train
started, and she stood on the wooden platform of the little
station, waving her handkerchief till it was out of sight.
Her heart was dreadfully heavy, and the few hundred
yards to the vicarage seemed very, very long. It was nat-
ural enough that he should be eager to go, she thought, he
was a boy and the future beckoned to him ; but she — she
clenched her teeth so that she should not cry. She uttered
a little inward prayer that God would guard him, and keep
him out of temptation, and give him happiness and good
fortune.

But Philip ceased to think of her a moment after he had
settled down in his carriage. He thought only of the fu-
ture. He had written to Mrs. Otter, the massiere to whom
Hayward had given him an introduction, and had in his
pocket an invitation to tea on the following day. When he
arrived in Paris he had his luggage put on a cab, and trun-
dled off slowly through the gay streets, over the bridge,
and along the narrow ways of the Latin Quarter. He had
taken a room at the Hotel des Deux Ecoles, which was in
a shabby street off the Boulevard du Montparnasse ; it was
convenient for Amitrano's School at which he was going
to work. A waiter took his box up five flights of stairs, and
Philip was shown into a tiny room, fusty from unopened
windows, the greater part of which was taken up by a large
wooden bed with a canopy over it of red rep; there were
heavy curtains on the windows of the same dingy ma-
terial; the chest of drawers served also as a washing-

*i4 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

stand ; and there \yas a massive wardrobe of the style
which is connected with the good King Louis Philippe.
The wall-paper was discoloured with age; it was dark
gray, and there could be vaguely seen on it garlands of
brown leaves. To Philip the room seemed quaint and
charming.

Though it was late he felt too excited to sleep and, go-
ing out, made his way into the boulevard and walked
towards the light. This led him to the station ; and the
square in front of it, vivid with arc-lamps, noisy with the
yellow trams that seemed to cross it in all directions, made
him laugh aloud with joy. There were cafes all round, and
by chance, thirsty and eager to get a nearer sight of the
crowd, Philip installed himself at a little table outside the
Cafe de Versailles. Every other table was taken, for it
was a fine night ; and Philip looked curiously at the people,
here little family groups, there a knot of men with odd-
shaped hats and beards talking loudly and gesticulating;
next to him were two men who looked like painters with
women who Philip hoped were not their lawful wives ; be-
hind him he heard Americans loudly arguing on art. His
soul was thrilled. He sat till very late, tired out but too
happy to move, and when at last he went to bed he was
wide awake; he listened to the manifold noise of Paris.

Next day about tea-time he made his way to the Lion
de Bel fort, and in a new street that led out of the Boule-
vard Raspail found Mrs. Otter. She was an insignificant
woman of thirty, with a provincial air and a deliberately
lady-like manner; she introduced him to her mother. He
discovered presently that she had been studying in Paris
for three years and later that she was separated from her
husband. She had in her small drawing-room one or two
portraits which she had painted, and to Philip's inexperi-
ence they seemed extremely accomplished.

"I wonder if I shall ever be able to paint as well a?
that," he said to her.

"Oh, I expect so," she replied, not without self-
satisfaction. "You can't expect to do everything all at
once, of course."

She was very kind. She gave him the address of a shop

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 215

where he could get a portfolio, drawing-paper, and char-
coal.

"I shall be going to Amitrano's about nine tomorrow,
and if you'll be there then I'll see that you get a good place
and all that sort of thing."

She asked him what he wanted to do, and Philip felt
that he should not let her see how vague he was about the
whole matter.

"Well, first I want to learn to draw," he said.

"I'm so glad to hear you say that. People always want
to do things in such a hurry. I never touched oils till I'd
been here for two years, and look at the result."

She gave a glance at the portrait of her mother, a sticky
piece of painting that hung over the piano.

"And if I were you, I would be very careful about the
people you get to know. I wouldn't mix myself up with
any foreigners. I'm very careful myself."

Philip thanked her for the suggestion, but it seemed to
him odd. He did not know that he particularly wanted to
be careful.

"We live just as we would if we were in England," said
Mrs. Otter's mother, who till then had spoken little.
"When we came here we brought all our own furniture
over."

Philip looked round the room. It was filled with a mas-
sive suite, and at the window were the same sort of white
lace curtains which Aunt Louisa put up at the vicarage in
summer. The piano was draped in Liberty silk and so was
the chimney-piece. Mrs. Otter followed his wandering
eye.

"In the evening when we close the shutters one might
really feel one was in England."

"And we have our meals just as if we were at home,"
added her mother. "A meat breakfast in the morning and
dinner in the middle of the day."

When he left Mrs. Otter Philip went to buy drawing
materials ; and next morning at the stroke of nine, trying
to seem self-assured, he presented himself at the school.
Mrs. Otter was already there, and she came forward with
a friendly smile. He had been anxious about the recep-

ai6 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

tion he would have as a noureait, for he had read a good
deal of the rough joking to which a newcomer was exposed
at some of the studios ; but Mrs. Otter had reassured him.

"Oh, there's nothing like that here," she said. "You see,
about half our students are ladies, and they set a tone to
the place."

The studio was large and bare, with gray walls, on which
were pinned the studies that had received prizes. A model
was sitting in a chair with a loose wrap thrown over her,
and about a dozen men and women were standing about,
some talking and others still working on their sketch. It
was the first rest of the model.

"You'd better not try anything too difficult at first," said
Mrs. Otter. "Put your easel here. You'll find that's the
easiest pose."

Philip placed an easel where she indicated, and Mrs.
Otter introduced him to a young woman who sat next to
him.

"Mr. Carey, — Miss Price. Mr. Carey's never studied
before, you won't mind helping him a little just at first,
will you ?" Then she turned to the model. "La Pose"

The model threw aside the paper she had been reading,
La Petite Republique, and sulkily, throwing off her gown,
got on to the stand. She stood, squarely on both feet, with
her hands clasped behind her head.

"It's a stupid pose," said Miss Price. "I can't imagine
why they chose it."

When Philip entered, the people in the studio had
looked at him curiously, and the model gave him an in-
different glance, but now they ceased to pay attention to
him. Philip, with his beautiful sheet of paper in front of
him, stared awkwardly at the model. He did not know how
to begin. He had never seen a naked woman before. She
was not young and her breasts were shrivelled. She had
colourless, fair hair that fell over her forehead untidily,
and her face was covered with large freckles. He glanced
at Miss Price's work. She had only been working on it two
days, and it looked as though she had had trouble; her
paper was in a mess from constant rubbing out, and to
Philip's eyes the figure looked strangely distorted.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 217

"I should have thought I could do as well as that," he
said to himself.

He began on the head, thinking that he would work
slowly downwards, but, he could not understand why, he
found it infinitely more difficult to draw a head from the
model than to draw one from his imagination. He got into
difficulties. He glanced at Miss Price. She was working
with vehement gravity. Her brow was wrinkled with
eagerness, and there was an anxious look in her eyes. It
was hot in the studio, and drops of sweat stood on her
forehead. She was a girl of twenty-six, with a great deal of
dull gold hair ; it was handsome hair, but it was carelessly
done, dragged back from her forehead and tied in a hur-
ried knot. She had a large face, with broad, flat features
and small eyes; her skin was pasty, with a singular un-
healthiness of tone, and there was no colour in the cheeks.
She had an unwashed air and you could not help wonder-
ing if she slept in her clothes. She was serious and silent.
When the next pause came, she stepped back to look at her
work.

"I don't know why I'm having so much bother," she
said. "But I mean to get it right." She turned to Philip.
"How are you getting on?"

"Not at all," he answered, with a rueful smile.

She looked at what he had done.

"You can't expect to do anything that way. You must
take measurements. And you must square out your pa-
per."

She showed him rapidly how to set about the business.
Philip was impressed by her earnestness, but repelled by
her want of charm. He was grateful for the hints she gave
him and set to work again. Meanwhile other people had
come in, mostly men, for the women always arrived first,
and the studio for the time of year (it was early yet) was
fairly full. Presently there came in a young man with thin,
black hair, an enormous nose, and a face so long that it
reminded you of a horse. He sat down next to Philip and
nodded across him to Miss Price.

"You're very late," she said. "Are you only just up ?"

«8 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

"It was such a splendid day, I thought I'd lie in bed and
think how beautiful it was out."

Philip smiled, but Miss Price took the remark seriously.

"That seems a funny thing to do, I should have thought
it would be more to the point to get up and enjoy it."

"The way of the humorist is very hard," said the young
man gravely.

He did not seem inclined to work. He looked at his can-
vas; he was working in colour, and had sketched in the
day before the model who was posing. He turned to Philip.

"Have you just come out from England?"

"Yes."

"How did you find your way to Amitrano's ?"

"It was the only school I knew of."

"I hope you haven't come with the idea that you will
learn anything here which will be of the smallest use to
you."

"It's the best school in Paris," said Miss Price. "It's the
only one where they take art seriously."

"Should art be taken seriously?" the young man asked;
and since Miss Price replied only with a scornful shrug, he
added: "But the point is, all schools are bad. They are
academical, obviously. Why this is less injurious than
most is that the teaching is more incompetent than else-
where. Because you learn nothing. . . ."

"But why d'you come here then ?" interrupted Philip.

"I see the better course, but do not follow it. Miss Price,
who is cultured, will remember the Latin of that."

"I wish you would leave me out of your conversation,
Mr. Glutton," said Miss Price brusquely.

"The only way to learn to paint," he went on, imper-
turbable, "is to take a studio, hire a model, and just% fight
it out for yourself."

"That seems a simple thing to do," said Philip.

"It only needs money," replied Glutton.

He began to paint, and Philip looked at him from the
corner of his eye. He was long and desperately thin; his
huge bones seemed to protrude from his body ; his elbows
were so sharp that they appeared to jut out through the
arms of his shabby coat. His trousers were frayed at the

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 219

bottom, and on each of his boots was a clumsy patch. Miss
Price got up and went over to Philip's easel.

"If Mr. Glutton will hold his tongue for a moment, I'll
just help you a little," she said.

"Miss Price dislikes me because I have humour," said
Glutton, looking meditatively at his canvas, "but she de-
tests me because I have genius."

He spoke with solemnity, and his colossal, misshapen
nose made what he said very quaint. Philip was obliged to
laugh, but Miss Price grew darkly red with anger.

"You're the only person who has ever accused you of
genius."

"Also I am the only person whose opinion is of the least
value to me."

Miss Price began to criticise what Philip had done. She
talked glibly of anatomy and construe tion, planes and lines,
and of much else which Philip did not understand. She
had been at the studio a long time and knew the main
points which the masters insisted upon, but though she
could show what was wrong with Philip's work she could
not tell him how to put it right.

"It's awfully kind of you to take so much trouble with
me," said Philip.

"Oh, it's nothing," she answered, flushing awkwardly.
"People did the same for me when I first came, I'd do it
for anyone."

"Miss Price wants to indicate that she is giving you the
advantage of her knowledge from a sense of duty rather
than on account of any charms of your person," said Glut-
ton.

Miss Price gave him a furious look, and went back to
her own drawing. The clock struck twelve, and the model
with a cry of relief stepped down from the stand.

Miss Price gathered up her things.

"Some of us go to Gravier's for lunch," she said to
Philip, with a look at Glutton. "I always go home myself."

"I'll take you to Gravier's if you like," said Glutton.

Philip thanked him and made ready to go. On his way
out Mrs. Otter asked him how he had been getting on.

"Did Fanny Price help you?" she asked. "I put you

220 OF HUM AN BOND AGE

there because I know she can do it if she likes. She's a dis-
agreeable, ill-natured girl, and she can't draw herself at
all, but she knows the ropes, and she can be useful to a
newcomer if she cares to take the trouble."

On the way down the street Glutton said to him:

"You've made an impression on Fanny Price. You'd
better look out."

Philip laughed. He had never seen anyone on whom he
wished less to make an impression. They came to the cheap
little restaurant at which several of the students ate, and
Glutton sat down at a table at which three or four men
were already seated. For a franc, they got an egg, a plate
of meat, cheese, and a small bottle of wine. Coffee was
extra. They sat on the pavement, and yellow trams passed
up and down the boulevard with a ceaseless ringing of
bells.

"By the way, what's your name ?" said Glutton, as they
took their seats.

"Carey."

"Allow me to introduce an old and trusted friend, Carey
by name," said Glutton gravely. "Mr. Flanagan, Mr. Law-
son."

They laughed and went on with their conversation. They
talked of a thousand things, and they all talked at once.
No one paid the smallest attention to anyone else. They
talked of the places they had been to in the summer, of
studios, of the various schools; they mentioned names
which were unfamiliar to Philip, Monet, Manet, Renoir,
Pizarro, Degas. Philip listened with all his ears, and
though he felt a little out of it, his heart leaped with
exultation. The time flew. When Glutton got up he said :

"I expect you'll find me here this evening if you care
to come. You'll find this about the best place for getting
dyspepsia at the lowest cost in the Quarter."

XLI

PHILIP walked down the Boulevard du Montparnasse.
It was not at all like the Paris he had seen in the spring
during his visit to do the accounts of the Hotel St. Georges
— he thought already of that part of his life with a shud-
der— but reminded him of what he thought a provincial
town must be. There was an easy-going air about it, and a
sunny spaciousness which invited the mind to day-dream-
ing. The trimness of the trees, the vivid whiteness of the
houses, the breadth, were very agreeable; and he felt
himself already thoroughly at home. He sauntered along,
staring at the people ; there seemed an elegance about the
most ordinary, workmen with their broad red sashes and
their wide trousers, little soldiers in dingy, charming uni-
forms. He came presently to the Avenue de 1'Observa-
toire, and he gave a sigh of pleasure at the magnificent,
yet so graceful, vista. He came to the gardens of the Lux-
embourg : children were playing, nurses with long ribbons
walked slowly two by two, busy men passed through with
satchels under their arms, youths strangely dressed. The
scene was formal and dainty; nature was arranged and
ordered, but so exquisitely, that nature unordered and
unarranged seemed barbaric. Philip was enchanted. It ex-
cited him to stand on that spot of which he had read so
much ; it was classic ground to him ; and he felt the awe
and the delight which some old don might feel when for
the first time he looked on the smiling plain of Sparta.

As he wandered he chanced to see Miss Price sitting by
herself on a bench. He hesitated, for he did not at that
moment want to see anyone, and her uncouth way seemed
out of place amid the happiness he felt around him; but
he had divined her sensitiveness to affront, and since she
had seen him thought it would be polite to speak to her.

"What are you doing here ?" she said, as he came up.

«22 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

"Enjoying myself. Aren't you?"

"Oh, I come here every day from four to five. I don't
think one does any good if one works straight through."

"May I sit down for a minute ?" he said.

"If you want to."

"That doesn't sound very cordial," he laughed.

"I'm not much of a one for saying pretty things."

Philip, a little disconcerted, was silent as he lit a ciga-
rette.

"Did Glutton say anything about my work?" she asked
suddenly.

"No, I don't think he did," said Philip.

"He's no good, you know. He thinks he's a genius, but
he isn't. He's too lazy, for one thing. Genius is an infinite
capacity for taking pains. The only thing is to peg away.
If one only makes up one's mind badly enough to do a
thing one can't help doing it."

She spoke with a passionate strenuousness which was
rather striking. She wore a sailor hat of black straw, a
white blouse which was not quite clean, and a brown skirt
She had no gloves on, and her hands wanted washing. She
was so unattractive that Philip wished he had not begun
to talk to her. He could not make out whether she wanted
him to stay or go.

"I'll do anything I can for you," she said all at once,
without reference to anything that had gone before. "I
know how hard it is."

"Thank you very much," said Philip, then in a moment :
"Won't you come and have tea with me somewhere?"

She looked at him quickly and flushed. When she red-
dened her pasty skin acquired a curiously mottled look,
like strawberries and cream that had gone bad.

"No, thanks. What d'you think I want tea for? I've
only just had lunch."

''I thought it would pass the time," said Philip.

"If you find it long you needn't bother about me, you
know. I don't mind being left alone."

At that moment two men passed, in brown velveteens,
enormous trousers, and basque caps. They were young,
but both wore beards.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 223

"I say, are those art-students?" said Philip. "They
might have stepped out of the Vie de Bohcine."

"They're Americans," said Miss Price scornfully.
"Frenchmen haven't worn things like that for thirty years,
but the Americans from the Far West buy those clothes
and have themselves photographed the day after they
arrive in Paris. That's about as near to art as they ever
get. But it doesn't matter to them, they've all got money."

Philip liked the daring picturesqueness of the Ameri-
cans' costume; he thought it showed the romantic spirit.
Miss Price asked him the time.

"I must be getting along to the studio," she said. "Are
you going to the sketch classes ?"

Philip did not know anything about them, and she told
him that from five to six every evening a model sat, from
whom anyone who liked could go and draw at the cost of
fifty centimes. They had a different model every day, and
it was very good practice.

"I don't suppose you're good enough yet for that. You'd
better wait a bit."

"I don't see why I shouldn't try. I haven't got anything
else to do."

They got up and walked to the studio. Philip could not
tell from her manner whether Miss Price wished him to
walk with her or preferred to walk alone. He remained
from sheer embarrassment, not knowing how to leave her ;
but she would not talk; she answered his questions in an
ungracious manner.

A man was standing at the studio door with a large dish
into which each person as he went- in dropped his half
franc. The studio was much fuller than it had been in the
morning, and there was not the preponderance of English
and Americans ; nor were women there in so large a pro-
portion. Philip felt the assemblage was more the sort of
thing he had expected. It was very warm, and the air
quickly grew fetid. It was an old man who sat this time,
with a vast gray beard, and Philip tried to put into prac-
tice the little he had learned in the morning ; but he made a
poor job of it; he realised that he could not draw nearly
as well as he thought. He glanced enviously at one or tw<?

S24 OFHUMANBONDAGE

sketches of men who sat near him, and wondered whether
he would ever be able to use the charcoal with that
mastery. The hour passed quickly. Not wishing to press
himself upon Miss Price he sat down at some distance
from her, and at the end, as he passed her on his way out,
she asked him brusquely how he had got on.

"Not very well," he smiled.

"If you'd condescended to come and sit near me I could
have given you some hints. I suppose you thought your-
self too grand."

"No, it wasn't that. I was afraid you'd think me a
nuisance."

"When I do that I'll tell you sharp enough."

Philip saw that in her uncouth way she was offering him
help.

"Well, tomorrow I'll just force myself upon you."

"I don't mind," she answered.

Philip went out and wondered what he should do with
himself till dinner. He was eager to do something char-
acteristic. Absinthe! Of course it was indicated, and so,
sauntering towards the station, he seated himself outside
a cafe and ordered it. He drank with nausea and satis-
faction. He found the taste disgusting, but the moral effect
magnificent; he felt every inch an art-student; and since
he drank on an empty stomach his spirits presently grew
very high. He watched the crowds, and felt all men were
his brothers. He was happy. When he reached Gravier's
the table at which Glutton sat was full, but as soon as he
saw Philip limping along he called out to him. They made
room. The dinner was frugal, a plate of soup, a dish of
meat, fruit, cheese, and half a bottle of wine ; but Philip
paid no attention to what he ate. He took note of the men
at the table. Flanagan was there again : he was an Ameri-
can, a short, snub-nosed youth with a jolly face and a
laughing mouth. He wore a Norfolk jacket of bold pat-
tern, a blue stock round his neck, and a tweed cap of
fantastic shape. At that time impressionism reigned in the
Latin Quarter, but its victory over the older schools was
still recent; and Carolus-Duran, Bouguereau, and their

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 225

like were set up against Manet, Monet, and Degas. To
appreciate these was still a sign of grace. Whistler was an
influence strong with the English and his compatriots, and
the discerning collected Japanese prints. The old masters
were tested by new standards. The esteem in which
Raphael had been for centuries held was a matter of deri-
sion to wise young men. They offered to give all his works
for Velasquez' head of Philip IV in the National Gallery.
Philip found that a discussion on art was raging. Lawson,
whom he had met at luncheon, sat opposite to him. He was
a thin youth with a freckled face and red hair. He had
very bright green eyes. As Philip sat down he fixed them
on him and remarked suddenly :

"Raphael was only tolerable when he painted other peo-
ple's pictures. When he painted Peruginos or Pinturic-
chios he was charming; when he painted Raphaels he
was," with a scornful shrug, "Raphael."

Lawson spoke .so aggressively that Philip was taken
aback, but he was not obliged to answer because Flanagan
broke in impatiently.

"Oh, to hell with art!" he cried. "Let's get ginny."

"You were ginny last night, Flanagan," said Lawson.

"Nothing to what I mean to be tonight," he answered.
"Fancy being in Pa-ris and thinking of nothing but art
all the time." He spoke with a broad Western accent. "My,
it is good to be alive." He gathered himself together and
then banged his fist on the table. "To hell with art, I say."

"You not only say it, but you say it with tiresome itera-
tion," said Glutton severely.

There was another American at the table. He was
dressed like those fine fellows whom Philip had seen that
afternoon in the Luxembourg. He had a handsome face,
thin, ascetic, with dark eyes; he wore his fantastic garb
with the dashing air of a buccaneer. He had a vast quan-
tity of dark hair which fell constantly over his eyes, and
his most frequent gesture was to throw back his head
dramatically to get some long wisp out of the way. He
began to talk of the Olympia by Manet, which then hung
in the Luxembourg.

2*6 O F H U M A N B O N D A G E

"I stood in front of it for an hour today, and I tell you
it's not a good picture."

Lawson put down his knife and fork. His green eyes
Hashed fire, he gasped with rage; but he could be seen
imposing calm upon himself.

"It's very interesting to hear the mind of the untutored
savage," he said. "Will you tell us why it isn't a good pic-
ture?"

Before the American could answer someone else broke
in vehemently.

','D'you mean to say you can look at the painting of that
flesh and say it's not good?"

"I don't say that. I think the right breast is very well
painted."

"The right breast be damned," shouted Lawson. "The
whole thing's a miracle of painting."

He began to describe in detail the beauties of the pic-
ture, but at this table at Gravier's they who spoke at length
spoke for their own edification. No one listened to him.
The American interrupted angrily.

"You don't mean to say you think the head's good?"

Lawson, white with passion now, began to defend the
head ; but Glutton, who had been sitting in silence with a
look on his face of good-humoured scorn, broke in.

"Give him the head. We don't want the head. It doesn't
affect the picture."

"All right, I'll give you the head," cried Lawson. "Take
the head and be damned to you."

"What about the black line ?" cried the American, trium-
phantly pushing back a wisp of hair which nearly fell in
his soup. "You don't see a black line round objects in
nature."

"Oh, God, send down fire from heaven to consume the
blasphemer," said Lawson. "What has nature got to do
with it? No one knows what's in nature and what isn't!
The world sees nature through the eyes of the artist. Why,
for centuries it saw horses jumping a fence with all their
legs extended, and by Heaven, sir, they were extended.
It saw shadows black until Monet discovered they were
coloured, and by Heaven, sir, they were black. If we

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 227

choose to surround objects with a black line, the world
will see the black line, and there will be a black line ; and
if we paint grass red and cows blue, it'll see them red and
blue, and, by Heaven, they will be red and blue."

"To hell with art," murmured Flanagan. "I want to get
ginny."

Lawson took no notice of the interruption.

"Now look here, when Olyinpia was shown at the Salon,
Zola — amid the jeers of the philistines and the hisses of
the pompiers, the academicians, and the public, Zola said :
'I look forward to the day when Manet's picture will hang
in the Louvre opposite the Odalisque of Ingres, and it will
not be the Odalisque which will gain by comparison.' It'll
be there. Every day I see the time grow nearer. In ten
years the Olympia will be in the Louvre."

"Never," shouted the American, using both hands now
with a sudden desperate attempt to get his hair once for
all out of the way. "In ten years that picture will be dead.
It's only a fashion of the moment. No picture can live that
hasn't got something which that picture misses by a million
miles."

"And what is that?"

"Great art can't exist without a moral element."

"Oh God !" cried Lawson furiously. "I knew it was that.
He wants morality." He joined his hands and held them
towards heaven in supplication. "Oh, Christopher Colum-
bus, Christopher Columbus, what did you do when you
discovered America?"

"Ruskin says . . ."

But before he could add another word, Clutton rapped
with the handle of his knife imperiously on the table.

"Gentlemen," he said in a stern voice, and his huge nose
positively wrinkled with passion, "a name has been men-
tioned which I never thought to hear again in decent so-
ciety. Freedom of speech is all very well, but we must
observe the limits of common propriety. You may talk
of Bouguereau if you will : there is a cheerful disgusting-
ness in the sound which excites laughter; but let us not
sully our chaste lips with the names of J. Ruskin, G. F.
Watts, or E. B. Jones."

ja8 OFHUMANBONDAGE

"Who was Ruskin anyway ?" asked Flanagan.

"He was one of the great Victorians. He was a master
of English style."

"Ruskin's style — a thing of shreds and purple patches,"
said Lawson. "Besides, damn the Great Victorians. When-
ever I open a paper and see Death of a Great Victorian, I
thank Heaven there's one more of them gone. Their only
talent was longevity, and no artist should be allowed to
live after he's forty ; by then a man has done his best work,
all he does after that is repetition. Don't you think it was
the greatest luck in the world for them that Keats, Shelley,
Bonnington, and Byron died early? What a genius we
should think Swinburne if he had perished on the day
the first series of Poems and Ballads was published !"

The suggestion pleased, for no one at the table was
more than twenty-four, and they threw themselves upon
it with gusto. They were unanimous for once. They elabo-
rated. Someone proposed a vast bonfire made out of the
works of the Forty Academicians into which the Great
Victorians might be hurled on their fortieth birthday. The
idea was received with acclamation. Carlyle and Ruskin,
Tennyson, Browning, G. F. Watts, E. B. Jones, Dickens,
Thackeray, they were hurried into the flames; Mr. Glad-
stone, John Bright, and Cobden; there was a moment's
discussion about George Meredith, but Matthew Arnold
and Emerson were given up cheerfully. At last came
Walter Pater.

"Not Walter Pater," murmured Philip.

Lawson stared at him for a moment with his green eyes
and then nodded.

"You're quite right, Walter Pater is the only justifica-
tion for Monna Lisa. D'you know Cronshaw? He used to
know Pater."

"Who's Cronshaw?" asked Philip.

"Cronshaw's a poet. He lives here. Let's go to the
Lilas."

La Closerie des Lilas was a cafe to which they often
went in the evening after dinner, and here Cronshaw was
invariably to be found between the hours of nine at night
and two in the morning. But Flanagan had had enough of

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 229

intellectual conversation for one evening, and when Law-
son made his suggestion, turned to Philip.

"Oh gee, let's go where there are girls," he said. "Come
to the Gaite Montparnasse, and we'll get ginny."

"I'd rather go and see Cronshaw and keep sober,"
laugher-Philip.

XLII

THERE was a general disturbance. Flanagan and two or
three more went on to the music-hall, while Philip walked
slowly with Glutton and Lawson to the Closerie des Lilas.

"You must go to the Gaite Montparnasse," said Lawson
lo him. "It's one of the loveliest things in Paris. I'm going
to paint it one of these days."

Philip, influenced by Hayward, looked upon music-
halls with scornful eyes, but he had reached Paris at a
time when their artistic possibilities were just discovered.
The peculiarities of lighting, the masses of dingy red and
tarnished gold, the heaviness of the shadows and the
decorative lines, offered a new theme ; and half the studios
in the Quarter contained sketches made in one or other of
the local theatres. Men of letters, following in the painters'
wake, conspired suddenly to find artistic value in the
turns ; and red-nosed comedians were lauded to the skies
for their sense of character; fat female singers, who had
bawled obscurely for twenty years, were discovered to
possess inimitable drollery ; there were those who found an
aesthetic delight in performing dogs; while others ex-
hausted their vocabulary to extol the distinction of con-
jurers and trick-cyclists. The crowd too, under another
influence, was become an object of sympathetic interest.
With Hayward, Philip had disdained humanity in the
mass ; he adopted the attitude of one who wraps himself in
solitariness and watches with disgust the antics of the
vulgar; but Glutton and Lawson talked of the multitude
with enthusiasm. They described the seething throng that
filled the various fairs of Paris, the sea of faces, half seen
in the glare of acetylene, half hidden in the darkness, and
the blare of trumpets, the hooting of whistles, the hum of
voices. What they said was new and strange to Philip.
They told him about Cronshaw.

"Have you ever read any of his work?"

230

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 231

"No," said Philip.

"It came out in The Yellow Book."

They looked upon him, as painters often do writers,
with contempt because he was a layman, with tolerance
because he practised an art, and with awe because he used
a medium in which themselves felt ill-at-ease.

"He's an extraordinary fellow. You'll find him a bit
disappointing at first, he only comes out at his best when
he's drunk."

"And the nuisance is," added Glutton, "that it takes him
a devil of a time to get drunk."

When they arrived at the cafe Lawson told Philip that
they would have to go in. There was hardly a bite in the
autumn air, but Cronshaw had a morbid fear of draughts
and even in the warmest weather sat inside.

"He knows everyone worth knowing," Lawson ex-
plained. "He knew Pater and Oscar Wilde, and he knows
Mallarme and all those fellows."

The object of their search sat in the most sheltered cor-
ner of the cafe, with his coat on and the collar turned up.
He wore his hat pressed well down on his forehead so that
he should avoid cold air. He was a big man, stout but not
obese, with a round face, a small moustache, and little,
rather stupid eyes. His head did not seem quite big enough
for his body. It looked like a pea uneasily poised on an
egg. He was playing dominoes with a Frenchman, and
greeted the newcomers with a quiet smile; he did not
speak, but as if to make room for them pushed away the
little pile of saucers on the table which indicated the num-
ber of drinks he had already consumed. He nodded to
Philip when he was introduced to him, and went on with
the game. Philip's knowledge of the language was small,
but he knew enough to tell that Cronshaw, although he had
lived in Paris for several years, spoke French execrably.

At last he leaned back with a smile of triumph.

"Je vous ai battu," he said, with an abominable accent.
"Gar gong!"

He called the waiter and turned to Philip.

"Just out from England? See any cricket?"

Philip was a little confused at the unexpected question.

*3» OF HUM AN BONDAGE

"Cronshaw knows the averages of every first-class
cricketer for the last twenty years," said Lawson, smiling.

The Frenchman left them for friends at another table,
and Cronshaw, with the lazy enunciation which was one of
his peculiarities, began to discourse on the relative merits
of Kent and Lancashire. He told them of the last test
match he had seen and described the course of the game
wicket by wicket.

"That's the only thing I miss in Paris," he said, as he
finished the bock which the waiter had brought. "You
don't get any cricket."

Philip was disappointed, and Lawson, pardonably
anxious to show off one of the celebrities of the Quarter,
grew impatient. Cronshaw was taking his time to wake up
that evening, though the saucers at his side indicated that
he had at least made an honest attempt to get drunk. Clut-
ton watched the scene with amusement. He fancied there
was something of affectation in Cronshaw's minute knowl-
edge of cricket ; he liked to tantalise people by talking to
them of things that obviously bored them ; Clutton threw
in a question.

"Have you seen Mallarme lately?"

Cronshaw looked at him slowly, as if he were turning
the inquiry over in his mind, and before he answered
rapped on the marble table with one of the saucers.

"Bring my bottle of whiskey," he called out. He turned
again to Philip. "I keep my own bottle of whiskey. I can't
afford to pay fifty centimes for every thimbleful."

The waiter brought the bottle, and Cronshaw held it up
to the light.

"They've been drinking it. Waiter, who's been helping
himself to my whiskey?"

"Mais personne, Monsieur Cronshaw."

"I made a mark on it last night, and look at it."

"Monsieur made a mark, but he kept on drinking after
that. At that rate Monsieur wastes his time in making
marks."

The waiter was a jovial fellow and knew Cronshaw
intimately. Cronshaw gazed at him.

"If you give me your word of honour as a nobleman

OFHUMANBONDAGE 233

and a gentleman that nobody but I has been drinking my
whiskey, I'll accept your statement."

This remark, translated literally into the crudest French,
sounded very funny, and the lady at the comptoir could not
help laughing.

"// est unpayable," she murmured.

Cronshaw, hearing her, turned a sheepish eye upon her ;
she was stout, matronly, and middle-aged; and solemnly
kissed his hand to her. She shrugged her shoulders.

"Fear not, madam," he said heavily. "I have passed the
age when I am tempted by forty-five and gratitude."

He poured himself out some whiskey and water, and
slowly drank it. He wiped his mouth with the back of his
hand.

"He talked very well."

Lawson and Glutton knew that Cronshaw's remark was
an answer to the question about Mallarme. Cronshaw
often went to the gatherings on Tuesday evenings when
the poet received men of letters and painters, and dis-
coursed with subtle oratory on any subject that was sug-
gested to him. Cronshaw had evidently been there lately.

"He talked very well, but he talked nonsense. He talked
about art as though it were the most important thing in
the world."

"If it isn't, what are we here for?" asked Philip.

"What you're here for I don't know. It is no businesr
of mine. But art is a luxury. Men attach importance on1y
to self-preservation and the propagation of their specie:;..
It is only when these instincts are satisfied that they con-
sent to occupy themselves with the entertainment which
is provided for them by writers, painters, and poets."

Cronshaw stopped for a moment to drink. He had pon-
dered for twenty years the problem whether he loved
liquor because it made him talk or whether he loved con-
versation because it made him thirsty.

Then he said : "I wrote a poem yesterday."

Without being asked he began to recite it, very slowly,
marking the rhythm with an extended forefinger. It was
possibly a very fine poem, but at that moment a young
woman came in. She had scarlet lips, and it was plain that

234 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

the vivid colour of her cheeks was not due to the vulgarity
of nature ; she had blackened her eyelashes and eyebrows,
and painted both eyelids a bold blue, which was continued
to a triangle at the corner of the eyes. It was fantastic and
amusing. Her dark hair was done over her ears in the
fashion made popular by Mile. Cleo de Merode. Philip's
eyes wandered to her, and Cronshaw, having finished the
recitation of his verses, smiled upon him indulgently.

"You were not listening," he said.

"Oh yes, I was."

"I do not blame you, for you have given an apt illustra-
tion of the statement I just made. What is art beside love ?
I respect and applaud your indifference to fine poetry
when you contemplate the meretricious charms of this
young person."

She passed by the table at which they were sitting, and
he took her arm.

' "Come and sit by my side, dear child, and let us play
the divine comedy of love."

"Fiches-moi la paix" she said, and pushing him on one
side continued her perambulation.

"Art," he continued, with a wave of the hand, "is merely
the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they
were supplied with food and women, to escape the tedi-
ousness of life."

Cronshaw filled his glass again, and began to talk at
length. He spoke with rotund delivery. He chose his words
carefully. He mingled wisdom and nonsense in the most
astounding manner, gravely making fun of his hearers
at one moment, and at the next playfully giving them
sound advice. He talked of art, and literature, and life.
He was by turns devout and obscene, merry and lachry-
mose. He grew remarkably drunk, and then he began to
recite poetry, his own and Milton's, his own and Shelley's,
his own and Kit Marlowe's.

At last Lawson, exhausted, got up to go home.

"I shall go too," said Philip.

Clutton, the most silent of them all, remained behind
listening, with a sardonic smile on his lips, to Cronshaw's
maunderings. Lawson accompanied Philip to his hotel and

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 235

then bade him good-night. But when Philip got to bed he
could not sleep. All these new ideas that had been flung
before him carelessly seethed in his brain. He was tremen-
dously excited. He felt in himself great powers. He had
never before been so self-confident.

"I know I shall be a great artist," he said to himself. "I
feel it in me."

A thrill passed through him as another thought came,
but even to himself he would not put it into words :

"By George, I believe I've got genius."

He was in fact very drunk, but as he had not taken more
than one glass of beer, it could have been due only to a
more dangerous intoxicant than alcohol.

XLIII

ON Tuesdays and Fridays masters spent the morning at
Amitrano's, criticising the work done. In France the
painter earns little unless he paints portraits and is patron-
ised by rich Americans ; and men of reputation are glad to
increase their incomes by spending two or three hours once
a week at one of the numerous studios where art is taught.
Tuesday was the day upon which Michel Rollin came to
Amitrano's. He was an elderly man, with a white beard
and a florid complexion, who had painted a number of
decorations for the State, but these were an object of
derision to the students he instructed : he was a disciple of
Ingres, impervious to the progress of art and angrily
impatient with that tas de farceurs whose names were
Manet, Degas, Monet, and Sisley ; but he was an excellent
teacher, helpful, polite, and encouraging. Foinet, on the
other hand, who visited the studio on Fridays, was a diffi-
cult man to get on with. He was a small, shrivelled person,
with bad teeth and a bilious air, an untidy gray beard, and
savage eyes ; his voice was high and his tone sarcastic. He
had had pictures bought by the Luxembourg, and at
twenty-five looked forward to a great career; but his tal-
ent was due to youth rather than to personality, and for
twenty years he had done nothing but repeat the landscape
which had brought him his early success. When he was re-
proached with monotony, he answered :

"Corot only painted one thing. Why shouldn't I ?"
He was envious of everyone else's success, and had a
peculiar, personal loathing of the impressionists; for he
looked upon his own failure as due to the mad fashion
which had attracted the public, sale bete, to their works.
The genial disdain of Michel Rollin, who called them im-
postors, was answered by him with vituperation, of which
crapule and canaille were the least violent items; he
amused himself with abuse of their private lives, and with

236

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 23?

sardonic humour, with blasphemous and obscene detail,
attacked the legitimacy of their births and the purity of
their conjugal relations : he used an Oriental imagery and
an Oriental emphasis to accentuate his ribald scorn. Nor
did he conceal his contempt for the students whose work
he examined. By them he was hated and feared; the
women by his brutal sarcasm he reduced often to tears,
which again aroused his ridicule; and he remained at the
studio, noth withstanding the protests of those who suffered
too bitterly from his attacks, because there could be no
doubt that he was one of the best masters in Paris. Some-
times the old model who kept the school ventured to re-
monstrate with him, but his expostulations quickly gave
way before the violent insolence of the painter to abject
apologies.

It was Foinet with whom Philip first came in contact.
He was already in the studio when Philip arrived. He
went round from easel to easel, with Mrs. Otter, the
massiere, by his side to interpret his remarks for the bene-
fit of those who could not understand French. Fanny
Price, sitting next to Philip, was working feverishly. Her
face was sallow with nervousness, and every now and then
she stopped to wipe her hands on her blouse; for they
were hot with anxiety. Suddenly she turned to Philip with
an anxious look, which she tried to hide by a sullen frown.

"D'you think it's good?" she asked, nodding at her
drawing.

Philip got up and looked at it. He was astounded; he
felt she must have no eye at all ; the thing was hopelessly
out of drawing.

"I wish I could draw half as well myself," he answered.

"You can't expect to, you've only just come. It's a bit
too much to expect that you should draw as well as I do.
I've been here two years."

Fanny Price puzzled Philip. Her conceit was stupen-
dous. Philip had already discovered that everyone in the
studio cordially disliked her; and it was no wonder, for
she seemed to go out of her way to wound people.

"I complained to Mrs. Otter about Foinet," she said
now. "The last two weeks he hasn't looked at my draw

238 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

ings. He spends about half an hour on Mrs. Otter because
she's the massicrc. After all I pay as much as anybody else,
and I suppose my money's as good as theirs. I don't see
why I shouldn't get as much attention as anybody else."

She took up her charcoal again, but in a moment put it
down with a groan.

"I can't do any more now. I'm so frightfully nervous."

She looked at Foinet, who was coming towards them
with Mrs. Otter. Mrs. Otter, meek, mediocre, and self-
satisfied, wore an air of importance. Foinet sat down at the
easel of an untidy little Englishwoman called Ruth Chalice.
She had the fine black eyes, languid but passionate, the
thin face, ascetic but sensual, the skin like old ivory, which
under the influence of Burne-Jones were cultivated at that
time by young ladies in Chelsea. Foinet seemed in a pleas-
ant mood; he did not say much to her, but with quick,
determined strokes of her charcoal pointed out her errors.
Miss Chalice beamed with pleasure when he rose. He
came to Glutton, and by this time Philip was nervous too
but Mrs. Otter had promised to make things easy for
him. Foinet stood for a moment in front of Glutton's
work, biting his thumb silently, then absent-mindedly spat
out upon the canvas the little piece of skin which he had
bitten off.

"That's a fine line," he said at last, indicating with his
thumb what pleased him. "You're beginning to learn to
draw."

Glutton did not answer, but looked at the master with
his usual air of sardonic indifference to the world's
opinion.

"I'm beginning to think you have at least a trace of
talent."

Mrs. Otter, who did not like Glutton, pursed her lips.
She did not see anything out of the way in his work.
Foinet sat down and went into technical details. Mrs.
Otter grew rather tired of standing. Glutton did not say
anything, but nodded now and then, and Foinet felt with
satisfaction that he grasped what he said and the reasons
of it ; most of them listened to him, but it was clear they
never understood. Then Foinet got up and came to Philip.

OF HUMAN BOND AGE 239

"He only arrived two days ago," Mrs. Otter hurried to
explain. "He's a beginner. He's never studied before."

"Ca se voit," the master said. "One sees that."

He passed on, and Mrs. Otter murmured to him :

"This is the young lady I told you about."

He looked at her as though she were some repulsive
animal, and his voice grew more rasping.

"It appears that you do not think I pay enough attention
to you. You have been complaining to the massiere. Well,
show me this work to which you wish me to give atten-
tion."

Fanny Price coloured. The blood under her unhealthy
skin seemed to be of a strange purple. Without answering
she pointed to the drawing on which she had been at work
since the beginning of the week. Foinet sat down.

"Well, what do you wish me to say to you ? Do you wish
me to tell you it is good ? It isn't. Do you wish me to tell
you it is well drawn ? It isn't. Do you wish me to say it has
merit? It hasn't. Do you wish me to show you what is
wrong with it ? It is all wrong. Do you wish me to tell you
what to do with it? Tear it up. Are you satisfied now?"

Miss Price became very white. She was furious because
he had said all this before Mrs. Otter. Though she had
been in France so long and could understand French well,
enough, she could hardly speak two words.

"He's got no right to treat me like that. My money's
as good as anyone else's. I pay him to teach me. That'3
not teaching me."

"What does she say? What does she say?" asked
Foinet.

Mrs. Otter hesitated to translate, and Miss Price re-
peated in execrable French.

"Je vous paye pour m'apprendre."

His eyes flashed with rage, he raised his voice and shook
his fist.

"Mais, nom de Dieu, I can't teach you. I could more
easily teach a camel." He turned to Mrs. Otter. "Ask her,
does she do this for amusement, or does she expect to earn
money by it?"

140 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

"I'm going to earn my living as an artist," Miss Price
answered.

"Then it is my duty to tell you that you are wasting your
time. It would not matter that you have no talent, talent
does not run about the streets in these days, but you have
not the beginning of an aptitude. How long have you been
here ? A child of five after two lessons would draw better
than you do. I only say one thing to you, give up this hope-
less attempt. You're more likely to earn your living as a
bonne a tout faire than as a painter. Look."

He seized a piece of charcoal, and it broke as he applied
it to the paper. He cursed, and with the stump drew great
firm lines. He drew rapidly and spoke at the same time,
spitting out the words with venom.

"Look, those arms are hot the same length. That knee,
it's grotesque. I tell you a child of five. You see, she's
not standing on her legs. That foot !"

With each word the angry pencil made a mark, and in
a moment the drawing upon which Fanny Price had spent
so much time and eager trouble was unrecognisable, a
confusion of lines and smudges. At last he flung down the
charcoal and stood up.

"Take my advice, Mademoiselle, try dressmaking." He
looked at his watch. "It's twelve. A la semaine prochaine,
messieurs."

Miss Price gathered up her things slowly. Philip waited
behind after the others to say to her something consola-
tory. He could think of nothing but :

"I say, I'm awfully sorry. What a beast that man is !"

She turned on him savagely.

"Is that what you're waiting about for? When I want
your sympathy I'll ask for it. Please get out of my way."

She walked past him, out of the studio, and Philip,
with a shrug of the shoulders, limped along to Gravier's
for luncheon.

"It served her right," said Lawson, when Philip told him
what had happened. "Ill-tempered slut."

Lawson was very sensitive to criticism and, in order to
avoid it, never went to the studio when Foinet was com-
ing.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 241

"I don't want other people's opinion of my work," he
said. "I know myself if it's good or bad."

"You mean you don't want other people's bad opinion
of your work," answered Glutton dryly.

In the afternoon Philip thought he would go to the
Luxembourg to see the pictures, and walking through the
garden he saw Fanny Price sitting in her accustomed seat.
He was sore at the rudeness with which she had met his
well-meant attempt to say something pleasant, and passed
as though he had not caught sight of her. But she got"
up at once and came towards him.

"Are you trying to cut me ?" she said.

"No, of course not. I thought perhaps you didn't wanf
to be spoken to."

"Where are you going?"

"I wanted to have a look at the Manet, I've heard so
much about it."

"Would you like me to come with you? I know the
Luxembourg rather well. I could show you one or two
good things."

He understood that, unable to bring herself to apologise
directly, she made this offer as amends.

"It's awfully kind of you. I should like it very much.'1

"You needn't say yes if you'd rather go alone," she
said suspiciously.

"I wouldn't."

They walked towards the gallery. Caillebotte's collection
had lately been placed on view, and the student for the
first time had the opportunity to examine at his ease the
works of the impressionists. Till then it had been possible
to see them only at Durand-Ruel's shop in the Rue Lafitte
(and the dealer, unlike his fellows in England, who adopt
towards the painter an attitude of superiority, was always
pleased to show the shabbiest student whatever he wanted
to see), or at his private house, to which it was not diffi-
cult to get a card of admission on Tuesdays, and where
you might see pictures of world-wide reputation. Miss
Price led Philip straight up to Manet's Olympia. He
looked at it in astonished silence.

"Do you like it ?" asked Miss Price.

942 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

"I don't know," he answered helplessly.

"You can take it from me that it's the best thing in the
galiery except perhaps Whistler's portrait of his mother."

She gave him a certain time to contemplate the master-
piece and then took him to a picture representing a rail-
way-station.

"Look, here's a Monet," she said. "It's the Gare St.
Lazare."

"But the railway lines aren't parallel," said Philip.

"What does that matter ?" she asked, with a haughty air.

Philip felt ashamed of himself. Fanny Price had picked
up the glib chatter of the studios and had no difficulty
in impressing Philip with the extent of her knowledge.
She proceeded to explain the pictures to him, supercili-
ously but not without insight, and showed him what the
painters had attempted and what he must look for. She
talked with much gesticulation of the thumb, and Philip,
to whom all she said was new, listened with profound but
bewildered interest. Till now he had worshipped Watts
and Burne-Jones. The pretty colour of the first, the
affected drawing of the second, had entirely satisfied his
aesthetic sensibilities. Their vague idealism, the suspicion
of a philosophical idea which underlay the titles they gave
their pictures, accorded very well with the functions of
art as from his diligent perusal of Ruskin he understood
it; but here was something quite different: here was no
moral appeal ; and the contemplation of these works could
help no one to lead a purer and a higher life. He was puz-
zled.

At last he said : "You know, I'm simply dead. I don't
think I can absorb anything more profitably. Let's go and
sit down on one of the benches."

"It's better not to take too much art at a time," Miss
Price answered.

When they got outside he thanked her warmly for the
trouble she had taken.

"Oh, that's all right," she said, a little ungraciously. "I
do it because I enjoy it. We'll go to the Louvre tomorrow
if you like, and then I'll take you to Durand-Ruel's."

"You're really awfully good to me."

OFHUMANBONDAGE 243

"You don't think me such a beast as the most of them
do."

"I don't," he smiled.

They think they'll drive me away from the studio ; but
they won't; I shall stay there just exactly as long as it
suits me. All that this morning, it was Lucy Otter's doing,
I know it was. She always has hated me. She thought after
that I'd take myself off. I daresay she'd like me to go.
She's afraid I know too much about her."

Miss Price told him a long, involved story, which made
out that Mrs. Otter, a humdrum and respectable little per-
son, had scabrous intrigues. Then she talked of Ruth
Chalice, the girl whom Foinet had praised that morning.

"She's been with every one of the fellows at the studio.
She's nothing better than a street-walker. And she's dirty.
She hasn't had a bath for a month, I know it for a fact."

Philip listened uncomfortably. He had heard already
that various rumours were in circulation about Miss Chal-
ice; but it was ridiculous to suppose that Mrs. Otter, liv-
ing with her mother, was anything but rigidly virtuous.
The woman walking by his side with her malignant lying
positively horrified him.

"I don't care what they say. I shall go on just the same.
I know I've got it in me. I feel I'm an artist. I'd sooner
kill myself than give it up. Oh, I shan't be the first they've
all laughed at in the schools and then he's turned out the
only genius of the lot. Art's the only thing I care for,
I'm willing to give my whole life to it. It's only a question
of sticking to it and pegging away."

She found discreditable motives for everyone who
would not take her at her own estimate of herself. She
detested Glutton. She told Philip that his friend had no
talent really ; it was just flashy and superficial ; he couldn't
compose a figure to save his life. And Lawson :

"Little beast, with red hair and his freckles. He's so
afraid of Foinet that he won't let him see his work. After
all, I don't funk it, do I? I don't care what Foinet says
to me, I know I'm a real artist."

They reached the street in which she lived, and with a
sigh of relief Philip left her.

XLIV

BUT notwithstanding when Miss Price on the following
Sunday offered to take him to the Louvre Philip accepted.
She showed him Monna Lisa. He looked at it with a slight
feeling of disappointment, but he had read till he knew by
heart the jewelled words with which Walter Pater has
added beauty to the most famous picture in the world ; and
these now he repeated to Miss Price.

"That's all literature," she said, a little contemptuously.
"You must get away from that."

She showed him the Rembrandts, and she said many
appropriate things about them. She stood in front of the
Disciples at Emmaus.

"When you feel the beauty of that," she said, "you'll
know something about painting."

She showed him the Odalisque and La Source of Ingres.
Fanny Price was a peremptory guide, she would not let
him look at the things he wished, and attempted to force
his admiration for all she admired. She was desperately
in earnest with her study of art, and when Philip, passing
in the Long Gallery a window that looked out on the
Tuileries, gay, sunny, and urbane, like a picture by
Raffaelli, exclaimed :

"I say, how jolly! Do let's stop here a minute."

She said, indifferently: "Yes, it's all right. But we've
come here to look at pictures."

The autumn air, blithe and vivacious, elated Philip ; and
when towards mid-day they stood in the great court-yard
of the Louvre, he felt inclined to cry like Flanagan: To
Hell with art.

"I say, do let's go to one of those restaurants in the
Boul' Mich' and have a snack together, shall we ?" he sug-
gested.

Miss Price gave him a suspicious look.

244

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 245

"I've got my lunch waiting for me at home," she an-
swered.

"That doesn't matter. You can eat it tomorrow. Do let
me stand you a lunch.''

"I don't know why you want to."

"It would give me pleasure," he replied, smiling.

They crossed the river, and at the corner of the Boule-
vard St. Michel there was a restaurant.

"Let's go in there."

"No, I won't go there, it looks too expensive."

She walked on firmly, and Philip was obliged to fol-
low. A few steps brought them to a smaller restaurant,
where a dozen people were already lunching on the pave-
ment under an awning; on the window was announced in
large white letters : Dejeuner 1.25, vin compris.

"We couldn't have anything cheaper than this, and it
looks quite all right."

They sat down at a vacant table and waited for the
omelette which was the first article on the bill of fare.
Philip gazed with delight upon the passersby. His heart
went out to them. He was tired but very happy.

"I say, look at that man in the blouse. Isn't he ripping !"

He glanced at Miss Price, and to his astonishment saw
that she was looking down at her plate, regardless of the
passing spectacle, and two heavy tears were rolling down
her cheeks.

"What on earth's the matter?" he exclaimed.

"If you say anything to me I shall get up and go at
once," she answered.

He was entirely puzzled, but fortunately at that moment
the omelette came. He divided it in two and they began to
eat. Philip did his best to talk of indifferent things, and
it seemed as though Miss Price were making an effort on
her side to be agreeable; but the luncheon was not alto-
gether a success. Philip was squeamish, and the way in
which Miss Price ate took his appetite away. She ate
noisily, greedily, a little like a wild beast in a menagerie,
and after she had finished each course rubbed the plate
with pieces of bread till it was white and shining, as if she
did not wish to lose a single drop of gravy. They had

*46 OFHU MAN BONDAGE

Camembert cheese, and it disgusted Philip to see that she
ate rind and all of the portion that was given her. She
could not have eaten more ravenously if she were starv-
ing.

Miss Price was unaccountable, and having parted from
her on one day with friendliness he could never tell
whether on the next she would not be sulky and uncivil ;
but he learned a good deal from her : though she could
not draw well herself, she knew all that could be taught,
and her constant suggestions helped his progress. Mrs.
Otter was useful to him too, and sometimes Miss Chalice
criticised his work; he learned from the glib loquacity of
Lawson and from the example of Qutton. But Fanny
Price hated him to take suggestions from anyone but her-
self, and when he asked her help after someone else had
been talking to him she would refuse with brutal rudeness.
The other fellows, Lawson, Glutton, Flanagan, chaffed him
about her.

"You be careful, my lad," they said, "she's in love with
you."

"Oh, what nonsense," he laughed.

The thought that Miss Price could be in love with any-
one was preposterous. It made him shudder when he
thought of her uncomeliness, the bedraggled hair and the
dirty hands, the brown dress she always wore, stained and
ragged at the hem: he supposed she was hard up, they
were all hard up, but she might at least be clean; and it
was surely possible with a needle and thread to make her
skirt tidy.

Philip began to sort his impressions of the people he
was thrown in contact with. He was not so ingenuous as
in those days which now seemed so long ago at Heidel-
berg, and, beginning to take a more deliberate interest
in humanity, he was inclined to examine and to criticise.
He found it difficult to know Glutton any better after
seeing him every day for three months than on the first
day of their acquaintance. The general impression at the
studio was that he was able; it was supposed that he
would do great things, and he shared the general opinion ;

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 247

but what exactly he was going to do neither he nor any-
body else quite knew. He had worked at several studios
before Amitrano's, at Julian's, the Beaux Arts, and Mac-
Pherson's, and was remaining longer at Amitrano's than
anywhere because he found himself more left alone. He
was not fond of showing his work, and unlike most of the
young men who were studying art neither sought nor
gave advice. It was said that in the little studio in the
Rue Campagne Premiere, which served him for work-
room and bed-room, he had wonderful pictures which
would make his reputation if only he could be induced to
exhibit them. He could not afford a model but painted
still life, and Lawson constantly talked of a plate of apples
which he declared was a masterpiece. He was fastidious,
and, aiming at something he did not quite fully grasp, was
constantly dissatisfied with his work as a whole : perhaps
a part would please him, the forearm or the leg and foot
of a figure, a glass or a cup in a still-life ; and he would
cut this out and keep it, destroying the rest of the canvas ;
so that when people invited themselves to see his work he
could truthfully answer that he had not a single picture
to show. In Brittany he had come across a painter whom
nobody else had heard of, a queer fellow who had been
a stockbroker and taken up painting at middle-age, and
he was greatly influenced by his work. He was turning
his back on the impressionists and working out for himself
painfully an individual way not only of painting but of
seeing. Philip felt in him something strangely original.

At Gravier's where they ate, and in the evening at the
Versailles or at the Closerie des Lilas Glutton was inclined
to taciturnity. He sat quietly, with a sardonic expression
on his gaunt face, and spoke only when the opportunity
occurred to throw in a witticism. He liked a butt and was
most cheerful when someone was there on whom he could
exercise his sarcasm. He seldom talked of anything but
painting, and then only with the one or two persons whom
he thought worth while. Philip wondered whether there
was in him really anything: his reticence, the haggard
look of him, the pungent humour, seemed to suggest per-

,4« OF HUMAN BONDAGE

sonality, but might be no more than an effective mask
which covered nothing.

With Lawson on the other hand Philip soon grew inti-
mate. He had a variety of interests which made him an
agreeable companion. He read more than most of the
students and though his income was small, loved to buy
books. He lent them willingly; and Philip became ac-
quainted with Flaubert and Balzac, with Verlaine, Here-
dia, and Villiers de 1'Isle Adam. They went to plays to-
gether and sometimes to the gallery of the Opera Comique.
There was the Odeon quite near them, and Philip soon
shared his friend's passion for the tragedians of Louis XIV
and the sonorous Alexandrine. In the Rue Taitbout were
the Concerts Rouge, where for seventy-five centimes they
could hear excellent music and get into the bargain some-
thing which it was quite possible to drink : the seats were
uncomfortable, the place was crowded, the air thick with
caporal horrible to breathe, but in their young enthusiasm
they were indifferent. Sometimes they went to the Bal
Bullier. On these occasions Flanagan accompanied them.
His excitability and his roisterous enthusiasm made them
laugh. He was an excellent dancer, and before they had
been ten minutes in the room he was prancing round with
some little shop-girl whose acquaintance he had just made.

The desire of all of them was to have a mistress. It was
part of the paraphernalia of the art-student in Paris. It
gave consideration in the eyes of one's fellows. It was
something to boast about. But the difficulty was that they
had scarcely enough money to keep themselves, and though
they argued that Frenchwomen were so clever it cost no
more to keep two than one, they found it difficult to meet
young women who were willing to take that view of the
circumstances. They had to content themselves for the
most part with envying and abusing the ladies who received
protection from painters of more settled respectability
than their own. It was extraordinary how difficult these
things were in Paris. Lawson would become acquainted
with some young thing and make an appointment ; for
twenty-four hours he would be all in a flutter and describe
t.he charmer at length to everyone he met ; but she never

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 249

by any chance turned up at the time fixed. He would come
to Gravier's very late, ill-tempered, and exclaim :

"Confound it, another rabbit! I don't know why it is
they don't like me. I suppose it's because I don't speak
French well, or my red hair. It's too sickening to have
spent over a year in Paris without getting hold of any-
one."

"You don't go the right way to work," said Flanagan.

He had a long and enviable list of triumphs to narrate,
and though they took leave not to believe all he said, evi-
dence forced them to acknowledge that he did not alto-
gether lie. But he sought no permanent arrangement. He
only had two years in Paris : he had persuaded his people
to let him come and study art instead of going to college ;
but at the end of that period he was to return to Seattle
and go into his father's business. He had made up his
mind to get as much fun as possible into the time, and de-
manded variety rather than duration in his love affairs.

"I don't know how you get hold of them," said Law-
son furiously.

"There's no difficulty about that, sonny," answered
Flanagan. "You just go right in. The difficulty is to get
rid of them. That's where you want tact."

Philip was too much occupied with his work, the books
he was reading, the plays he saw, the conversation he lis-
tented to, to trouble himself with the desire for female
society. He thought there would be plenty of time for that
when he could speak French more glibly.

It was more than a year now since he had seen Miss
Wilkinson, and during his first weeks in Paris he had been
too busy to answer a letter she had written to him jast
before he left Blackstable. When another came, knowing
it would be full of reproaches and not being just then in
the mood for them, he put it aside, intending to open it
later ; but he forgot and did not run across it till a month
afterwards, when he was turning out a drawer to find some
socks that had no holes in them. He looked at the un-
opened letter with dismay. He was afraid that Miss Wil-
kinson had suffered a good deal, and it made him feel a
brute; but she had probably got over the suffering by

,»5o OF HUMAN BOND AGE

now, at all events the worst of it. It suggested itself to
him that women were often very emphatic in their expres-
sions. These did not mean so much as when men used
them. He had quite made up his mind that nothing would
induce him ever to see her again. He had not written for
so long that it seemed hardly worth while to write now.
He made up his mind not to read the letter.

"I daresay she won't write again," he said to himself.
"She can't help seeing the thing's over. After all, she was
old enough to be my mother ; she ought to have known bet-
ter."

For an hour or two he felt a little uncomfortable. His
attitude was obviously the right one, but he could not help
a feeling of dissatisfaction with the whole business. Miss
Wilkinson, however, did not write again; nor did she,
as he absurdly feared, suddenly appear in Paris to make
him ridiculous before his friends. In a little while he clean
forgot her.

Meanwhile he definitely forsook his old gods. The
amazement with which at first he had looked upon the
works of the impressionists, changed to admiration ; and
presently he found himself talking as emphatically as the
rest on the merits of Manet, Monet, and Degas. He
bought a photograph of a drawing by Ingres of the
Odalisque and a photograph of the Olympia. They were
pinned side by side over his washing-stand so that he
could contemplate their beauty while he shaved. He knew
now quite positively that there had been no painting of
landscape before Monet; and he felt a real thrill when
he stood in front of Rembrandt's Disciples at E mutatis or
Velasquez' Lady with the Flea-bitten Nose. That was not
her real name, but by that she was distinguished at
Gravier's to emphasise the picture's beauty notwithstand-
ing the somewhat revolting peculiarity of the sitter's ap-
pearance. With Ruskin, Burne-Jones, and Watts, he had
put aside his bowler hat and the neat blue tie with white
spots which he had worn on coming to Paris; and now
disported himself in a soft, broad-brimmed hat, a flowing
black cravat, and a cape of romantic cut. He walked along
the Boulevard du Montparnasse as though he had known

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 251

it all his life, and by virtuous perseverance he had learnt to
drink absinthe without distaste. He was letting his hair
grow, and it was only because Nature is unkind and has
no regard for the immortal longings of youth that he did
not attempt a beard.

XLV

PHILIP soon realised that the spirit which informed his
friends was Cronshaw's. It was from him that Lawson
got his paradoxes; and even Glutton, who strained after
individuality, expressed himself in the terms he had in-
sensibly acquired from the older man. It was his ideas that
they bandied about at table, and on his authority they
formed their judgments. They made up for the respect
with which unconsciously they treated him by laughing
at his foibles and lamenting his vices.

"Of course, poor old Cronshaw will never do any good,"
they said. "He's quite hopeless."

They prided themselves on being alone in appreciating
his genius; and though, with the contempt of youth for
the follies of middle-age, they patronised him among them-
selves, they did not fail to look upon it as a feather in
their caps if he had chosen a time when only one was there
to be particularly wonderful. Cronshaw never came to
Gravier's. For the last four years he had lived in squalid
conditions with a woman whom only Lawson had once
seen, in a tiny apartment on the sixth floor of one of the
most dilapidated houses on the Quai des Grands Augus-
tins : Lawson described with gusto the filth, the untidiness,
the litter.

"And the stink nearly blew your head off."

"Not at dinner, Lawson," expostulated one of the others.

But he would not deny himself the pleasure of giving
picturesque details of the odours which met his nostril.
With a fierce delight in his own realism he described the
woman who had opened the door for him. She was dark,
small, and fat, quite young, with black hair that seemed
always on the point of coming down. She wore a slatternly
blouse and no corsets. With her red cheeks, large sensual
mouth, and shining, lewd eyes, she reminded you of the
Bohemienne in the Louvre by Franz Hals. She bad 3

1*2

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 253

flaunting vulgarity which amused and yet horrified. A
scrubby, unwashed baby was playing on the floor. It was
known that the slut deceived Cronshaw with the most
worthless ragamuffins of the Quarter, and it was a mystery
to the ingenuous youths who absorbed his wisdom over a
cafe table that Cronshaw with his keen intellect and his
passion for beauty could ally himself to such a creature.
But he seemed to revel in the coarseness of 'her language
and would often report some phrase which reeked of the
gutter. He referred to her ironically as la fille de mon con-
cierge. Cronshaw was very poor. He earned a bare sub-
sistence by writing on the exhibitions of pictures for one
or two English papers, and he did a certain amount of
translating. He had been on the staff of an English paper
in Paris, but had been dismissed for drunkenness ; he still
however did odd jobs for it, describing sales at the Hotel
Drouot or the revues at music-halls. The life of Paris had
got into his bones, and he would not change it, notwith-
standing its squalor, drudgery, and hardship, for any other
in the world. He remained there all through the year, even
in summer when everyone he knew was away, and felt
himself only at ease within a mile of the Boulevard St.
Michel. But the curious thing was that he had never learnt
to speak French passably, and he kept in his shabby clothes
bought at La Belle Jardiniere an ineradicably English ap-
pearance.

He was a man who would have made a success of life a
century and a half ago when conversation was a passport
to good company and inebriety no bar.

"I ought to have lived in the eighteen hundreds," he said
himself. "What I want is a patron. I should have published
my poems by subscription and dedicated them to a noble-
man. I long to compose rhymed couplets upon the poodle
of a countess. My soul yearns for the love of chamber-
maids and the conversation of bishops."

He quoted the romantic Rolla,

"Je suis venu trap tard dans un monde trop vieux."

He liked new faces, and he took a fancy to Philip, who
seemed to achieve the difficult feat of talking just enough
to suggest conversation and not too much to prevent mono-

254 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

logue. Philip was captivated. He did not realise that little
that Cronshaw said was new. His personality in conver-
sation had a curious power. He had a beautiful and a son-
orous voice, and a manner of putting things which was
irresistible to youth. All he said seemed to excite thought,
and often on the way home Lawson and Philip would walk
to and from one another's hotels, discussing some point
which a chance word of Cronshaw had suggested. It was
disconcerting to Philip, who had a youthful eagerness for
results, that Cronshaw's poetry hardly came up to expec-
tation. It had never been published in a volume, but most
of it had appeared in periodicals ; and after a good deal of
persuasion Cronshaw brought down a bundle of pages torn
out of The Yellow Book, The Saturday Review, and other
journals, on each of which was a poem. Philip was taken
aback to find that most of them reminded him either of
Henley or of Swinburne. It needed the splendour of Cron-
shaw's delivery to make them personal. He expressed his
disappointment to Lawson, who carelessly repeated his
words ; and next time Philip went to the Closerie des Lilas
the poet turned to him with his sleek smile :

"I hear you don't think much of my verses."

Philip was embarrassed.

"I don't know about that," he answered. "I enjoyed
reading them very much."

"Do not attempt to spare my feelings," returned Cron-
shaw, with a wave of his fat hand. "I do not attach any
exaggerated importance to my poetical works. Life is there
to be lived rather than to be written about. My aim is to
search out the manifold experience that it offers, wringing
from each moment what of emotion it presents. I look
upon my writing as a graceful accomplishment which does
not absorb but rath(:r adds pleasure to existence. And as
for posterity — damn posterity."

Philip smiled, for it leaped to one's eyes that the artist
in life had produced no more than a wretched daub. Cron-
shaw looked at him meditatively and filled his glass. He
sent the waiter for a packet of cigarettes.

"You are amused because I talk in this fashion and you
know that I am poor and live in an attic with a vulgar trol-

OFHUMANBONDAGE 255

lop who deceives me with hair-dressers and gargons de
cafe; I translate wretched books for the British public, and
write articles upon contemptible* pictures which deserve
not even to be abused. But pray tell me what is the mean-
ing of life?"

"I say, that's rather a difficult question. Won't you give
the answer yourself ?"

"No, because it's worthless unless you yourself discover
it. But what do you suppose you are in the world for ?"

Philip had never asked himself, and he thought for a
moment before replying.

"Oh, I don't know: I suppose to do one's duty, and
make the best possible use of one's faculties, and avoid
hurting other people."

"In short, to do unto others as you would they should
do unto you ?"

"I suppose so."

"Christianity."

"No, it isn't," said Philip indignantly. "It has nothing to
do with Christianity. It's just abstract morality."

"But there's no such thing as abstract morality."

"In that case, supposing under the influence of liquor
you left your purse behind when you leave here and I
picked it up, why do you imagine that I should return it to
you? It's not the fear of the police."

"It's the dread of hell if you sin and the hope of Heaven
if you are virtuous."

"But I believe in neither."

"That may be. Neither did Kant when he devised the
Categorical Imperative. You have thrown aside a creed,
but you have preserved the ethic which was based upon it.
To all intents you are a Christian still, and if there is a
God in Heaven you will undoubtedly receive your reward.
The Almighty can hardly be such a fool as the churches
make out. If you keep His laws I don't think He can care
a packet of pins whether you believe in Him or not."

"But if I left my purse behind you would certainly
return it to me," said Philip.

"Not from motives of abstract morality, but only from
fear of the police."

j56 OF HIJMAN BONDAGE

"It's a thousand tc one *hat the police would never find
out."

"My ancestors have lived in a civilised state so long that
the fear of the police has eaten into my bones. The daugh-
ter of my concierge would not hesitate for a moment. You
answer that she belongs to the criminal classes ; not at all,
she is merely devoid of vulgar prejudice."

"But then that does away with honour and virtue and
goodness and decency and everything," said Philip.

"Have you ever committed a sin?"

"I don't know, I suppose so," answered Philip.

"You speak with the lips of a dissenting minister. I have
never committed a sin."

Cronshaw in his shabby great-coat, with the collar
turned up, and his hat well down on his head, with his red
fat face and his little gleaming eyes, looked extraordinarily
comic ; but Philip was too much in earnest to laugh.

"Have you never done anything you regret?"

"How can I regret when what I did was inevitable?"
asked Cronshaw in return.

"But that's fatalism."

"The illusion which man has that his will is free is so
deeply rooted that I am ready to accept it. I act as though
I were a free agent. But when an action is performed it is
clear that all the forces of the universe from all eternity
conspired to cause it, and nothing I could do could have
prevented it. It was inevitable. If it was good I can claim
no merit ; if it was bad I can accept no censure."

"My brain reels," said Philip.

"Have some whiskey," returned Cronshaw, passing over
the bottle. "There's nothing like it for clearing the head.
You must expect to be thick-witted if you insist upon
drinking beer."

Philip shook his head, and Cronshaw proceeded :

"You're not a bad fellow, but you won't drink. Sobriety
disturbs conversation. But when I speak of good and bad
. . ." Philip saw he was taking up the thread of his dis-
course, "I speak conventionally. I attach no meaning to
those words. I refuse to make a hierarchy of human
actions and ascribe worthiness to some and ill-repute to

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 257

others. The terms vice and virtue have no signification for
me. I do not confer praise or blame : I accept. I am the
measure of all things. I am the centre of the world."

"But there are one or two other people in the world,"
objected Philip.

"I speak only for myself. I know them only as they limit
my activities. Round each of them too the world turns,
and each one for himself is the centre of the universe. My
right over them extends only as far as my power. What
I can do is the only limit of what I may do. Because we
are gregarious we live in society, and society holds to-
gether by means of force, force of arms (that is the police-
man) and force of public opinion (that is Mrs. Grundy).
You have society on one hand and the individual on the
other: each is an organism striving for self-preservation.
It is might against might. I stand alone, bound to accept
society and not unwilling, since in return for the taxes I
pay it protects me, a weakling, against the tyranny of an-
other stronger than I am ; but I submit to its laws because
I must ; I do not acknowledge their justice : I do not know
justice, I only know power. And when I have paid for the
policeman who protects me and, if I live in a country
where conscription is in force, served in the army which
guards my house and land from the invader, I am quits
with society : for the rest I counter its might with my wili-
ness. It makes laws for its self-preservation, and if I break
them it imprisons or kills me: it has the might to do so
and therefore the right. If I break the laws I will accept
the vengeance of the state, but I will not regard it as pun-
ishment nor shall I feel myself convicted of wrong-doing.
Society tempts me to its service by honours and riches
and the good opinion of my fellows ; but I am indifferent
to their good opinion, I despise honours and I can do very
well without riches,"

"But if everyone thought like you things would go to
pieces at once."

"I have nothing to do with others, I am only concerned
with myself. I take advantage of the fact that the ma-
jority of mankind are led by certain rewards to do things
which directly or indirectly tend to my convenience."

«S8 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

"It seems to me an awfully selfish way of looking at
things," said Philip.

"But are you under the impression that men ever do
anything except for selfish reasons ?"

"Yes."

"It is impossible that they should. You will find as you
grow older that the first thing needful to make the world
a tolerable place to live in is to recognise the inevitable
selfishness of humanity. You demand unselfishness from
others, which is a preposterous claim that they should sac-
rifice their desires to yours. Why should they ? When you
are reconciled to the fact that each is for himself in the
world you will ask less from your fellows. They will not
disappoint you, and you will look upon them more charita-
bly. Men seek but one thing in life — their pleasure."

"No, no, no !" cried Philip.

Cronshaw chuckled.

"You rear like a frightened colt, because I use a word
to which your Christianity ascribes a deprecatory mean-
ing. You have a hierarchy of values; pleasure is at the
bottom of the ladder, and you speak with a little thrill of
self-satisfaction, of duty, charity, and truthfulness. You
think pleasure is only of the senses; the wretched slaves
who manufactured your morality despised a satisfaction
which they had small means of enjoying. You would not
be so frightened if I had spoken of happiness instead of
pleasure : it sounds less shocking, and your mind wanders
from the sty of Epicurus to his garden. But I will speak
of pleasure, for I see that men aim at that, and I do not
know that they aim at happiness. It is pleasure that lurks
in the practice of every one of your virtues. Man per-
forms actions because they are good for him, and when
they are good for other people as well they are thought
virtuous : if he finds pleasure in giving alms he is charita-
ble ; if he finds pleasure in helping others he is benevolent;
if he finds pleasure in working for society he is public-
spirited ; but it is for your private pleasure that you give
twopence to a beggar as much as it is for my private
pleasure that I drink another whiskey and soda. I, less of

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 259

a humbug than you, neither applaud myself for my pleas-
ure nor demand your admiration."

"But have you never known people do things they didn't
want to instead of things they did?"

"No. You put your question foolishly. What you mean
is that people accept an immediate pain rather than an im-
mediate pleasure. The objection is as foolish as your man-
ner of putting it. It is clear that men accept an immediate
pain rather than an immediate pleasure, but only because
they expect a greater pleasure in the future. Often the
pleasure is illusory, but their error in calculation is no
refutation of the rule. You are puzzled because you can-
not get over the idea that pleasures are only of the senses ;
but, child, a man who dies for his country dies because he
likes it as surely as a man eats pickled cabbage because he
likes it. It is a law of creation. If it were possible for men
to prefer pain to pleasure the human race would have long
since become extinct."

"But if all that is true," cried Philip, "what is the use
of anything? If you take away duty and goodness and
beauty why are we brought into the world ?"

"Here comes the gorgeous East to suggest an answer,"
smiled Cronshaw.

He pointed to two persons who at that moment opened
the door of the cafe, and, with a blast of cold air, entered.
They were Levantines, itinerant vendors of cheap rugs,
and each bore on his arm a bundle. It was Sunday evening,
and the cafe was very full. They passed among the tables,
and in that atmosphere heavy and discoloured with to-
bacco smoke, rank with humanity, they seemed to bring
an air of mystery. They were clad in European, shabby
clothes, their thin great-coats were threadbare, but each
wore a tarbouch. Their faces were gray with cold. One was
of middle age, with a black beard, but the other was a
youth of eighteen, with a face deeply scarred by small-
pox and with one eye only. They passed by Cronshaw and
Philip.

"Allah is great, and Mahomet is his prophet," said Cron-
shaw impressively.

The elder advanced with a cringing smile, like a mongrel

a6o OF HUMAN BONDAGE

used to blows. With a sidelong glance at the door and a
quick surreptitious movement he showed a pornographic
picture.

"Are you Masr-ed-Deen, the merchant of Alexandria,
or is it from far Bagdad that you bring your goods, O, my
uncle ; and yonder one-eyed youth, do I see in him one of
the three kings of whom Scheherazade told stories to her
lord?"

The pedlar's smile grew more ingratiating, though he
understood no word of what Cronshaw said, and like a
conjurer he produced a sandal -wood box.

"Nay, show us the priceless web of Eastern looms,"
quoth Cronshaw. "For I would point a moral and adorn
a tale."

The Levantine unfolded a table-cloth, red and yellow,
vulgar", hideous, and grotesque.

"Thirty-five francs," he said.

"O, my uncle, this cloth knew not the weavers of Samar-
kand, and those colours were never made in the vats of
Bokhara."

"Twenty-five francs," smiled the pedlar obsequiously.

"Ultima Thule was the place of its manufacture, even
Birmingham the place of my birth."

"Fifteen francs," cringed the bearded man.

"Get thee gone, fellow," said Cronshaw. "May wild asses
defile the grave of thy maternal grandmother."

Imperturbably, but smiling no more, the Levantine
passed with his wares to another table. Cronshaw turned
to Philip.

"Have 3rou ever been to the Cluny, the museum? There
you will see Persian carpets of the most exquisite hue and
of a pattern the beautiful intricacy of which delights and
amazes the eye. In them you will see the mystery and the
sensual beauty of the East, the roses of Hafiz and the
wine-cup of Omar ; but presently you will see more. You
were asking just now what was the meaning of life. Go
and look at those Persian carpets, and one of these days
the answer will come to you."

"You are cryptic," said Philip.

"I am drunk," answered Cronshaw.

XLVI

PHILIP did not find living in Paris as cheap as he had
been led to believe and by February had spent most of the
money with which he started. He was too proud to appeal
to his guardian, nor did he wish Aunt Louisa to know that
his circumstances were straitened, since he was certain she
would make an effort to send him something from her own
pocket, and he knew how little she could afford to. In three
months he would attain his majority and come into pos-
session of his small fortune. He tided over the interval by
selling the few trinkets which he had inherited from his
father.

At about this time Lawson suggested that they should
take a small studio which was vacant in one of the streets
that led out of the Boulevard Raspail. It was very cheap.
It had a room attached, which they could use as a bed-
room ; and since Philip was at the school every morning
Lawson could have the undisturbed use of the studio then ;
Lawson, after wandering from school to school, had come
to the conclusion that he could work best alone, and pro-
posed to get a model in three or four days a week. At first
Philip hesitated on account of the expense, but they reck-
oned it out; and it seemed (they were so anxious to have
a studio of their own that they calculated pragmatically)
that the cost would not be much greater than that of living
in a hotel. Though the rent and the^cleaning by thecon-
cierge would come to a little more" they would save on The
petit dejeuner, which they could make themselves. A year
or two earlier Philip would have refused to share a room
with anyone, since he was so sensitive about his deformed
foot, but his morbid way of looking at it was growing less
marked : in Paris it did not seem to matter so much, and,
though he never by any chance forgot it himself, he ceased
to feel that other people were constantly noticing it.

They moved in, bought a couple of beds, a washing-

261

263 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

stand, a few chairs, and felt for the first time the thrill
of possession. They were so excited that the first night
they went to bed in what they could call a home they lay
awake talking till three in the morning; and next day
found lighting the fire and making their own coffee, which
they had in pyjamas, such a jolly business that Philip did
not get to Amitrano's till nearly eleven. He was in excel-
lent spirits. He nodded to Fanny Price.

"How are you getting on?" he asked cheerily.

"What does that matter to you ?" she asked in reply.

Philip could not help laughing.

"Don't jump down my throat. I was only trying to make
myself polite."

"I don't want your politeness."

"D'you think it's worth while quarrelling with me too ?"
asked Philip mildly. "There are so few people you're on
speaking terms with, as it is."

"That's my business, isn't it?"

"Quite."

He began to work, vaguely wondering why Fanny Price
made herself so disagreeable. He had come to the conclu-
sion that he thoroughly disliked her. Everyone did. People
were only civil to her at all from fear of the malice of her
tongue ; for to their faces and behind their backs she said
abominable things. But Philip was feeling so happy that
he did not want even Miss Price to bear ill-feeling towards
him. He used the artifice which had often before succeeded
in banishing her ill-humour.

"I say, I wish you'd come and look at my drawing. I've
got in an awful mess."

"Thank you very much, but I've got something better
to do with my time."

Philip stared at her in surprise, for the one thing she
could be counted upon to do with alacrity was to give ad-
vice. She went on quickly in a low voice, savage with fury.

"Now that Lawson's gone you think you'll put up with
me. Thank you very much. Go and find somebody else to
help you I don't want anybody else's leavings."

Lawson had the pedagogic instinct; whenever he found
anything out he was eager to impart it; and because he

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 263

taught with delight he talked with profit. Philip, without
thinking anything about it, had got into the habit of sitting
by his side ; it never occurred to him that Fanny Price was
consumed with jealousy, and watched his acceptance of
someone else's tuition with ever-increasing anger.

"You were very glad to put up with me when you knew
nobody here," she said bitterly, "and as soon as you made
friends with other people you threw me aside, like an old
glove" — she repeated the stale metaphor with satisfaction
— "like an old glove. All right, I don't care, but I'm not
going to be made a fool of another time."

There was a suspicion of truth in what she said, and it
made Philip angry enough to answer what first came into
his head.

"Hang it all, I only asked your advice because I saw it
pleased you."

She gave a gasp and threw him a sudden look of anguish.
Then two tears rolled down her cheeks. She looked frowsy
and grotesque. Philip, not knowing what on earth this
new attitude implied, went back to his work. He was un-
easy and conscience-stricken; but he would not go to her
and say he was sorry if he had caused her pain, because he
was afraid she would take the opportunity to snub him.
For two or three weeks she did not speak to him, and,
•after Philip had got over the discomfort of being cut by
her, he was somewhat relieved to be free from so difficult
a friendship. He had been a little disconcerted by the air
of proprietorship she assumed over him. She was an ex-
traordinary woman. She came every day to the studio at
eight o'clock, and was ready to start working when the
model was in position; she worked steadily, talking to no
one, struggling hour after hour with difficulties she could
not overcome, and remained till the clock struck twelve.
Her work was hopeless. There was not in it the smallest
approach even to the mediocre achievement at which most
of the young persons were able after some months to ar-
rive. She wore every day the same ugly brown dress, with
the mud of the last wet day still caked on the hem and
with the raggedness, which Philip had noticed the first time
he saw her, still unmended.

264 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

But one day she came up to him, and with a scarlet face
asked whether she might speak to him afterwards.

"Of course, as much as you like," smiled Philip. "I'll
wait behind at twelve."

He went to her when the day's work was over.

"Will you walk a little bit with me?*' she said, looking
away from him with embarrassment.

"Certainly."

They walked for two or three minutes in silence.

"D'you remember what you said to me the other day?"
she asked then on a sudden.

"Oh, I say, don't let's quarrel," said Philip. "It really
isn't worth while."

She gave a quick, painful inspiration.

"I don't want to quarrel with you. You're the only friend
I had in Paris. I thought you rather liked me. I felt there
was something between us. I was drawn towards you —
you know what I mean, your club-foot,"

Philip reddened and instinctively tried to walk without
a limp. He did not like anyone to mention the deformity.
He knew what Fanny Price meant. She was ugly and un-
couth, and because he was deformed there was between
them a certain sympathy. He was very angry with her,
but he forced himself not to speak.

"You said you only asked my advice to please me. Don't
you think my work's any good ?"

"I've only seen your drawing at Amitrano's. It's aw-
fully hard to judge from that."

"I was wondering if you'd come and look at my other
work. I've never asked anyone else to look at it. I should
like to show it to you."

"It's awfully kind of you. I'd like to see it very much."

"I live quite near here," she said apologetically. "It'll
only take you ten minutes."

"Oh, that's all right," he said.

They were walking along the boulevard, and she turned
down a side street, then led him into another, poorer still,
with cheap shops on the ground floor, and at last stopped.
They climbed flight after flight of stairs. She unlocked a
door, and they went into a tiny attic with a sloping roof

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 265

and a small window. This was closed and the room had a
musty smell. Though it was very cold there was no fire and
no sign that there had been one. The bed was unmade. A
chair, a chest of drawers which served also as a wash-
stand, and a cheap easel, were all the furniture. The place
would have been squalid enough in any case, but the litter,
the untidiness, made the impression revolting. On the
chimney-piece, scattered over with paints and brushes,
were a cup, a dirty plate, and a tea-pol.

"If you'll stand over there I'll put them on the chair so
that you can see them better."

She showed him twenty small canvases, about eighteen
by twelve. She placed them on the chair, one after the
other, watching his face; he nodded as he looked at each
one.

"You do like them, don't you ?" she said anxiously, after
a bit.

"I just want to look at them all first," he answered. "I'll
talk afterwards."

He was collecting himself. He was panic-stricken. He
did not know what to say. It was not only that they were
ill-drawn, or that the colour was put on amateurishly by
someone who had no eye for it ; but there was no attempt
at getting the values, and the perspective was grotesque. It
looked like the work of a child of five, but a child would
have had some naivete and might at least have made an
attempt to put down what he saw ; but here was the work
of a vulgar mind chock full of recollections of vulgar pic-
tures. Philip remembered that she had talked enthusiasti-
cally about Monet and the Impressionists, but here were
only the worst traditions of the Royal Academy.

"There," she said at last, "that's the lot."

Philip was no more truthful than anybody else, but he
had a great difficulty in telling a thundering, deliberate lie,
and he blushed furiously when he answered :

"I think they're most awfully good."

A faint colour came into her unhealthy cheeks, and she
smiled a little.

"You needn't say so if you don't think so, you know. I
want the truth."

266 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

"But I do think so."

"Haven't you got any criticism to offer? There must be
some you don't like as well as others."

Philip looked round helplessly. He saw a landscape, the
typical picturesque 'bit' of the amateur, an old bridge, a
creeper-clad cottage, and a leafy bank.

"Of course I don't pretend to know anything about it,"
he said. "But I wasn't quite sure about the values of that."

She flushed darkly and taking up the picture quickly
turned its back to him.

"I don't know why you should have chosen that one tr
sneer at. It's the best thing I've ever done. I'm sure my
values are all right. That's a thing you can't teach any-
one, you either understand values or you don't."

"I think they're all most awfully good," repeated Philip.

She looked at them with an air of self-satisfaction.

"I. don't think they're anything to be ashamed of."

Philip looked at his watch.

"I say, it's getting late. Won't you let me give you a lit-
tle lunch?"

"I've got my lunch waiting for me here."

Philip saw no sign of it, but supposed perhaps the con-
cierge would bring it up when he was gone. He was in a
hurry to get away. The mustiness of the room made his
head ache.

XLVII

IN March there was all the excitement of sending in to
the Salon. Glutton, characteristically, had nothing ready,
and he was very scornful of the two heads that Lawson
sent ; they were obviously the work of a student, straight-
forward portraits of models, but they had a certain force ;
Glutton, aiming at perfection, had no patience with efforts
which betrayed hesitancy, and with a shrug of the shoul-
ders told Lawson it was an impertinence to exhibit stuff
which should never have been allowed out of his studio ;
he was not less contemptuous when the two heads were ac-
cepted. Flanagan tried his luck too, but his picture was re-
fused. Mrs. Otter sent a blameless Portrait de ma Mere,
accomplished and second-rate; and was hung in a very
good place.

Hayward, whom Philip had not seen since he left Hei-
delberg, arrived in Paris to spend a few days in time to
come to the party which Lawson and Philip were giving
in their studio to celebrate the hanging of Lawson's pic-
tures. Philip had been eager to see Hayward again, but
when at last they met, he experienced some disappoint-
ment. Hayward had altered a little in appearance : his fine
hair was thinner, and with the rapid wilting of the very
fair, he was becoming wizened and colourless; his blue
eyes were paler than they had been, and there was a muzzi-
ness about his features. On the other hand, in mind he did
not seem to have changed at all, and the culture which had
impressed Philip at eighteen aroused somewhat the con-
tempt of Philip at twenty-one. He had altered a good deal
himself, and regarding with scorn all his old opinions of
art, life, and letters, had no patience with anyone who still
held them. He was scarcely conscious of the fact that he
wanted to show off before Hayward, but when he took him
round the galleries he poured out to him all the revolution-
ary opinions which himself had so recently adopted. He
took him to Manet's Olympia and said dramatically :

267

a68 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

"I would give all the old masters except Velasquez.
Rembrandt, and Vermeer for that one picture."

"Who was Vermeer?" asked Hayward.

"Oh, my dear fellow, don't you know Vermeer ? You're
not civilised. You mustn't live a moment longer without
making his acquaintance. He's the one old master who
painted like a modern."

He dragged Hayward out of the Luxembourg and hur-
ried him off to the Louvre.

"But aren't there any more pictures here?" asked Hay-
ward, with the tourist's passion for thoroughness.

"Nothing of the least consequence. You can come and
look at them by yourself with your Baedeker."

When they arrived at the Louvre Philip led his friend
down the Long Gallery.

"I shoud like to see The Gioconda," said Hayward.

"Oh, my dear fellow, it's only literature," answered
Philip.

At last, in a small room, Philip stopped before The
Lacemaker of Vermeer van Delft.

"There, that's the best picture in the Louvre. It's ex-
actly like a Manet."

With an expressive, eloquent thumb Philip expatiated
on the charming work. He used the jargon of the studios
with overpowering effect.

"I don't know that I see anything so wonderful as all
that in it," said Hayward.

"Of course it's a painter's picture," said Philip. "I can
quite believe the layman would see nothing much in it."

"The what?" said Hayward.

"The layman."

Like most people who cultivate an interest in the arts,
Hayward was extremely anxious to be right. He was dog-
matic with those who did not venture to assert themselves,
but with the self-assertive he was very modest. He was
impressed by Philip's assurance, and accepted meekly
Philip's implied suggestion that the painter's arrogant
claim to be the sole possible judge of painting has any-
thing but its impertinence to recommend it.

A day or two later Philip and Lawson gave their party.

OF HUMAN B-ONDAGE 269

Cronshaw, making an exception in their favour, agreed to
eat their food ; and Miss Chalice offered to come and cook
for them. She took no interest in her own sex and declined
the suggestion that .other girls should be asked for her
sake. Glutton, Flanagan, Potter, and two others made up
the party. Furniture was scarce, so the model stand was
used as a table, and the guests were to sit on portman-
teaux if they liked, and if they didn't on the floor. The
feast consisted of a pot-au-feu, which Miss Chalice had
made, of a leg of mutton roasted round the corner and
brought round hot and savoury (Miss Chalice had cooked
the potatoes, and the studio was redolent of the carrots she
had fried; fried carrots were her specialty) ; and this was
to be followed by poires fiambees, pears with burning
brandy, which Cronshaw had volunteered to make. The
meal was to finish with an enormous frontage de Brie,
which stood near the window and added fragrant odours
to all the others which filled the studio. Cronshaw sat in
the place of honour on a Gladstone bag, with his legs
curled under him like a Turkish bashaw, beaming good-
naturedly on the young people who surrounded him. From
force of habit, though the small studio with the stove lit
was very hot, he kept on his great-coat, with the collar
turned up, and his bowler hat : he looked with satisfaction
on the four large fiaschi of Chianti which stood in front
of him in a row, two on each side of a bottle of whiskey ;
he said it reminded him of a slim fair Circassian guarded
by four corpulent eunuchs. Hayward in order to put the
rest of them at their ease had clothed himself in a tweed
suit and a Trinity Hall tie. He looked grotesquely British.
The others were elaborately polite to him, and during the
soup they talked of the weather and the political situation.
There was a pause while they waited for the leg of mut-
ton, and Miss Chalice lit a cigarette.

"Rampunzel, Rampunzel, let down your hair," she said
suddenly.

With an elegant gesture she untied a ribbon so that her
tresses fell over her shoulders. She shook her head.

"I always feel more comfortable with my hair down."

With her large brown eyes, thin, ascetic face, her pale

270 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

skin, and broad forehead, she might have stepped out of
a picture by Burne-Jones. She had long, beautiful hands,
with fingers deeply stained by nicotine. She wore sweeping
draperies, mauve and green. There was about her the ro-
mantic air of High Street, Kensington. She was wantonly
aesthetic ; but she was an excellent creature, kind and good
natured; and her affectations were but skin-deep. There
was a knock at the door, and they all gave a shout of exul-
tation. Miss Chalice rose and opened. She took the leg of
mutton and held it high above her, as though it were the
head of John the Baptist on a platter; and, the cigarette
still in her mouth, advanced with solemn, hieratic steps.

"Hail, daughter of Herodias," cried Cronshaw.

The mutton was eaten with gusto, and it did one good to
see what a hearty appetite the pale-faced lady had. Glut-
ton and Potter sat on each side of her, and everyone knew
that neither had found her unduly coy. She grew tired
of most people in six weeks, but she knew exactly how to
treat afterwards the gentlemen who had laid their young
hearts at her feet. She bore them no ill-will, though hav-
ing loved them she had ceased to do so, and treated them
with friendliness but without familiarity. Now and then
she looked at Lawson with melancholy eyes. The poires
flambees were a great success, partly because of the brandy,
and partly because Miss Chalice insisted that they should
be eaten with the cheese.

"I don't know whether it's perfectly delicious, or
whether I'm just going to vomit," she said, after she had
thoroughly tried the mixture.

Coffee and cognac followed with sufficient speed to pre-
vent any untoward consequence, and they settled down to
smoke in comfort. Ruth Chalice, who could do nothing
that was not deliberately artistic, arranged herself in a
graceful attitude by Cronshaw and just rested her exqui-
site head on his shoulder. She looked into the dark abyss
of time with brooding eyes, and now and then with a long
meditative glance at Lawson she sighed deeply.

Then came the summer, and restlessness seized these
young people. The blue skies lured them to the sea, and

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 271

the pleasant breeze sighing through the leaves of the plane-
trees on the boulevard drew them towards the country.
Everyone made plans for leaving Paris ; they discussed
what was the most suitable size for the canvases they
meant to take ; they laid in stores of panels for sketching ;
they argued about the merits of various places in Brittany.
Flanagan and Potter went to Concarneau ; Mrs. Otter and
her mother, with a natural instinct for the obvious, went
to Pont-Aven; Philip and Lawson made up their minds
to go to the forest of Fontainbleau, and Miss Chalice
knew of a very good hotel at Moret where there was lots
of stuff to paint; it was near Paris, and neither Philip
nor Lawson was indifferent to the railway fare. Ruth
Chalice would be there, and Lawson had an idea for a por-
trait of her in the open air. Just then the Salon was full of
portraits of people in gardens, in sunlight, with blinking
eyes and green reflections of sunlit leaves on their faces.
They asked Glutton to go with them, but he preferred
spending the summer by himself. He had just discovered
Cezanne, and was eager to go to Provence; he wanted
heavy skies from which the hot blue seemed to drip like
beads of sweat, and broad white dusty roads, and pale
roofs out of which the sun had burnt the colour, and olive
trees gray with heat.

The day before they were to start, after the morning
class, Philip, putting his things together, spoke to Fanny
Price.

"I'm off tomorrow," he said cheerfully.

"Off where?" she said quickly. "You're not going
away?" Her face fell.

"I'm going away for the summer. Aren't you?"

"No, I'm staying in Paris. I thought you were going to
stay too. I was looking forward. . . ."

She stopped and shrugged her shoulders.

"But won't it be frightfully hot here? It's awfully bad
for you."

"Much you care if it's bad for me. Where are you go-
ing?"

"Moret."

"Chalice is going there. You're not going with her?"

272 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

"Lawson and I are going. And she's going there too. I
don't know that we're actually going together."

She gave a low guttural sound, and her large face grew
dark and red.

"How filthy ! I thought you were a decent fellow. You
were about the only one here. She's been with Glutton and
Potter and Flanagan, even with old Foinet — that's why he
takes so much trouble about her — and now two of you,
you and Lawson. It makes me sick."

"Oh, what nonsense ! She's a very decent sort. One treats
her just as if she were a man."

"Oh, don't speak to me, don't speak to me."

"But what can it matter to you?" asked Philip. "It's
really no business of yours where I spend my summer."

"I was looking forward to it so much," she gasped,
speaking it seemed almost to herself. "I didn't think you
had the money to go away, and there wouldn't have been
anyone else here, and we could have worked together, and
we'd have gone to see things." Then her thoughts flung
back to Ruth Chalice. "The filthy beast," she cried. "She
isn't fit to speak to."

Philip looked at her with a sinking heart. He was not a
man to think girls were in love with him ; he was too con-
scious of his deformity, and he felt awkward and clumsy
with women ; but he did not know what else this outburst
could mean. Fanny Price, in the dirty brown dress, with
her hair falling over her face, sloppy, untidy, stood before
him ; and tears of anger rolled down her cheeks. She was
repellent. Philip glanced at the door, instinctively hoping
that someone would come in and put an end to the scene.

"I'm awfuly sorry," he said.

"You're just the same as all of them. You take all you
can get, and you don't even say thank you. I've taught you
everything you know. No one else would take any trou-
ble with you. Has Foinet ever bothered about you? And
I can tell you this — you can work here for a thousand
years and you'll never do any good. You haven't got any
talent. You haven't got any originality. And it's not only
me — they all say it. You'll never be a painter as long as you
live."

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 273

"That is no business of yours either, is it ?" said Philip,
flushing.

"Oh, you think it's only my temper. Ask Glutton, ask
Lawson, ask Chalice. Never, never, never. You haven't
got it in you."

Philip shrugged his shoulders and walked out. She
shouted after him.

"Never, never, never."

Moret was in those days an old-fashioned town of one
street at the edge of the forest of Fontainbleau, and the
Ecu d'Or was a hotel which still had about it the decrepit
air of the Ancien Regime. It faced the winding river, the
Loing; and Miss Chalice had a room with a little terrace
overlooking it, with a charming view of the old bridge and
its fortified gateway. They sat here in the evenings after
dinner, drinking coffee, smoking, and discussing art. There
ran into the river, a little way off, a narrow canal bordered
by poplars, and along the banks of this after their days'
work they often wandered. They spent all day painting.
Like most of their generation they were obsessed by the
fear of the picturesque, and they turned their backs on the
obvious beauty of the town to seek subjects which were
devoid of a prettiness they despised. Sisley and Monet had
painted the canal with its poplars, and they felt a desire to
try their hands at what was so typical of France ; but they
were frightened of its formal beauty, and set themselves
deliberately to avoid it. Miss Chalice, who had a clever
dexterity which impressed Lawson notwithstanding his
contempt for feminine art, started a picture in which she
tried to circumvent the commonplace by leaving out the
tops of the trees ; and Lawson had the brilliant idea of put-
ting in his foreground a large blue advertisement of choco-
lat Menier in order to emphasise his abhorrence of the
chocolate box.

Philip began now to paint in oils. He experienced a thrill
of delight when first he used that grateful medium. He
went out with Lawson in the morning with his little box
and sat by him painting a panel ; it gave him so much sat-
isfaction that he did not realise he was doing no more than

274 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

copy ; he was so much under his friend's influence that he
saw only with his eyes. Lawson painted very low in tone,
and they both saw the emerald of the grass like dark vel-
vet, while the brilliance of the sky turned in their hands
to a brooding ultramarine. Through July they had one fine
day after another ; it was very hot ; and the heat, searing
Philip's heart, filled him with languor ; he could not work ;
his mind was eager with a thousand thoughts. Often he
spent the mornings by the side of the canal in the shade of
the poplars, reading a few lines and then dreaming for
half an hour. Sometimes he hired a rickety bicycle and
rode along the dusty road that led to the forest, and then
lay down in a clearing. His head was full of romantic fan-
cies. The ladies of Watteau, gay and insouciant, seemed to
wander with their cavaliers among the great trees, whis-
pering to one another careless, charming things, and yet
somehow oppressed by a nameless fear.

They were alone in the hotel but for a fat Frenchwoman
of middle age, a Rabelaisian figure with a broad, obscene
laugh. She spent the day by the river patiently fishing for
fish she never caught, and Philip sometimes weat down
and talked to her. He found out that she had belonged to
a profession whose most notorious member for our gener-
ation was Mrs. Warren, and having made a competence
she now lived the quiet life of the bourgeoise. She told
Philip lewd stories.

"You must go to Seville," she said — she spoke a little
broken English. "The most beautiful women in the world."

She leered and nodded her head. Her triple chin, her
large belly, shook with inward laughter.

It grew so hot that it was almost impossible to sleep at
night. The heat seemed to linger under the trees as though
it were a material thing. They did not wish to leave the
starlit night, and the three of them would sit on the terrace
of Ruth Chalice's room, silent, hour after hour, too tired
to talk any more, but in voluptuous enjoyment of the still-
ness. They listened to the murmur of the river. The church
clock struck one and two and sometimes three before they
could drag themselves to bed. Suddenly Philip became
aware that Ruth Chalice and Lawson were lovers. He

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 275

divined it in the way the girl looked at the young painter,
and in his air of possession; and as Philip sat with them
he felt a kind of effluence surrounding them, as though the
air were heavy with something strange. The revelation was
a shock. He had looked upon Miss Chalice as a very good
fellow and he liked to talk to her, but it had never seemed
to him possible to enter into a closer relationship. One Sun-
day they had all gone with a tea-basket into the forest,
and when they came to a glade which was suitably .sylvan,
Miss Chalice, because it was idyllic, insisted on taking off
her shoes and stockings. It would have been very charming
only her feet were rather large and she had on both a large
corn on the third toe. Philip felt it made her proceeding a
little ridiculous. But now he looked upon her quite differ-
ently; there was something softly feminine in her large
eyes and her olive skin ; he felt himself a fool not to have
seen that she was attractive. He thought he detected in her
a touch of contempt for him, because he had not had the
sense to see that she was there, in his way, and in Lawson
a suspicion of superiority. He was envious of Lawson, and
he was jealous, not of the individual concerned, but of his
love. He wished that he was standing in his shoes and feel-
ing with his heart. He was troubled, and the fear seized
him that love would pass him by. He wanted a passion to
seize him, he wanted to be swept off his feet and borne
powerless in a mighty rush he cared not whither. Miss
Chalice and Lawson seemed to him now somehow differ-
ent, and the constant companionship with them made him
restless. He was dissatisfied with himself. Life was not
giving him what he wanted, and he had an uneasy feeling
that he was losing his time.

The stout Frenchwoman soon guessed what the relations
were between the couple, and talked of the matter to Philip
with the utmost frankness.

"And you," she said, with the tolerant smile of one who
had fattened on the lust of her fellows, "have you got a
petite amic?"

"No," said Philip, blushing.

"And why not ? C'est de votre age."

He shrugged his shoulders. He had a volume of Ver-

a;6 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

laine in his hands, and he wandered off. He tried to read,
but his passion was too strong. He thought of the stray
amours to which he had been introduced by Flanagan, the
sly visits to houses in a cul-de-sac, with the drawing-room
in Utrecht velvet, and the mercenary graces of painted
women. He shuddered. He threw himself on the grass,
stretching his limbs like a young animal freshly awaked
from sleep; and the rippling water, the poplars gently
tremulous in the faint breeze, the blue sky, were almost
more than he could bear. He was in love with love. In his
fancy he felt the kiss of warm lips on his, and around his
neck the touch of soft hands. He imagined himself in the
arms of Ruth Chalice, he thought of her dark eyes and the
wonderful texture of her skin ; he was mad to have let such
a wonderful adventure slip through his fingers. And if
Lawson had done it why should not he ? But this was only
when he did not see her, when he lay awake at night or
dreamed idly by the side of the canal ; when he saw her he
felt suddenly quite different ; he had no desire to take her
in his arms, and he could not imagine himself kissing her.
It was very curious. Away from her he thought her beau-
tiful, remembering only her magnificent eyes and the
creamy pallor of her face ; but when he was with her he
saw only that she was flat-chested and that her teeth were
slightly decayed ; he could not forget the corns on her toes.
He could not understand himself. Would he always love
only in absence and be prevented from enjoying anything
when he had the chance by that deformity of vision which
seemed to exaggerate the revolting ?

He was not sorry when a change in the weather, an-
nouncing the definite end of the long summer, drove them
all back to Paris.

XLVIII

WHEN Philip returned to Amitrano's he found that
Fanny Price was no longer working there. She had given
up the key of her locker. He asked Mrs. Otter whether she
knew what had become of her; and Mrs. Otter, with a
shrug of the shoulders, answered that she had probably
gone back to England. Philip was relieved. He was pro-
foundly bored by her ill-temper. Moreover she insisted on
advising him about his work, looked upon it as a slight
when he did not follow her precepts, and would not under-
stand that he felt himself no longer the duffer he had been
at first. Soon he forgot all about her. He was working in
oils now and he was full of enthusiasm. He hoped to have
something done of sufficient importance to send to the fol-
lowing year's Salon. Lawson was painting a portrait of
Miss Chalice. She was very paintable, and all the young
men who had fallen victims to her charm had made por-
traits of her. A natural indolence, joined with a passion
for picturesque attitude, made her an excellent sitter; and
she had enough technical knowledge to offer useful criti-
cisms. Since her passion for art was chiefly a passion to
live the life of artists, she was quite content to neglect her
own work. She liked the warmth of the studio, and the op-
portunity to smoke innumerable cigarettes; and she spoke
in a low, pleasant voice of the love of art and the art of
love. She made no clear distinction between the two.

Lawson was painting with infinite labour, working till
he could hardly stand for days and then scraping out all he
had done. He would have exhausted the patience of any-
one but Ruth Chalice. At last he got into a hopeless mud-
dle.

"The only thing is to take a new canvas and start fresh,"
he said. "I know exactly what I want now, and it won't
take me long."

27?

27» OF HUM AN BONDAGE

Philip was present at the time, and Miss Chalice said to
him :

"Why don't you paint me too? You'll be able to learn a
lot by watching Mr. Lawson."

It was one of Miss Chalice's delicacies that she always
addressed her lovers by their surnames.

"I should like it awfully if Lawson wouldn't mind."

"I don't care a damn," said Lawson.

It was the first time that Philip set about a portrait, and
he began with trepidation but also with pride. He sat by
Lawson and painted as he saw him paint. He profited by
the example and by the advice which both Lawson and
Miss Chalice freely gave him. At last Lawson finished and
invited Glutton in to criticise. Glutton had only just come
back to Paris. From Provence he had drifted down to
Spain, eager to see Valasquez at Madrid, and thence he
had gone to Toledo. He stayed there three months, and
he was returned with a name new to the young men : he
had wonderful things to say of a painter called El Greco,
who it appeared could only be studied in Toledo.

"Oh yes, I know about him," said Lawson, "he's the old
master whose distinction it is that he painted as badly as
the moderns."

Glutton, more taciturn than ever, did not answer, but he
looked at Lawson with a sardonic air.

"Are you going to show us the stuff you've brought back
from Spain?" asked Philip.

"I didn't paint in Spain, I was too busy."

"What did you do then?"

"I thought things out. I believe I'm through with the
Impressionists : I've got an idea they'll seem very thin and
superficial in a few years. I want to make a clean sweep of
everything I've learnt and start fresh. When I came back
I destroyed everything I'd painted. I've got nothing in my
studio now but an easel, my paints, and some clean can-
vases."

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know yet. I've only got an inkling of what I
want."

He spoke slowly, in a curious manner, as though he were

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 279

straining to hear something which was only just audible.
There seemed to be a mysterious force in him which he
himself did not understand, but which was struggling
obscurely to find an outlet. His strength impressed you.
Lawson dreaded the criticism he asked for and had dis-
counted the blame he thought he might get by affecting a
contempt for any opinion of Glutton's; but Philip knew
there was nothing which would give him more pleasure
than Glutton's praise. Glutton looked at the portrait for
some time in silence, then glanced at Philip's picture, which
was standing on an easel.

"What's that ?" he asked.

"Oh, I had a shot at a portrait too."

"The sedulous ape," he murmured.

He turned away again to Lawson's canvas. Philip red-
dened but did not speak.

"Well, what d'you think of it?" asked Lawson at length.

"The modelling's jolly good," said Glutton. "And I think
it's very well drawn."

"D'you think the values are all right ?"

"Quite."

Lawson smiled with delight. He shook himself in his
clothes like a wet dog.

"I say, I'm jolly glad you like it."

"I don't. I don't think it's of the smallest importance."

Lawson's face fell, and he stared at Glutton with aston-
ishment : he had no notion what he meant. Glutton had no
gift of expression in words, and he spoke as though it
were an effort. What he had to say was confused, halting,
and verbose; but Philip knew the words which served as
the text of his rambling discourse. Glutton, who never
read, had heard them first from Cronshaw; and though
they had made small impression, they had remained in his
memory; and lately, emerging on a sudden, had acquired
the character of a revelation : a good painter had two chief
objects to paint, namely, man and the intention of his soul.
The Impressionists had been occupied with other problems,
they had painted man admirably, but they had troubled
themselves as little as the English portrait painters of the
eighteenth century with the intention of his soul.

a8o OF HUMAN BONDAGE

"But when you try to get that you become literary," said
Lawson, interrupting. "Let me paint the man like Manet,
and the intention of his soul can go to the devil."

"That would be all very well if you could beat Manet
at his own game, but you can't get anywhere near him.
You can't feed yourself on the day before yesterday, it's
ground which has been swept dry. You must go back. It's
when I saw the Grecos that I felt one could get something
more out of portraits than we knew before."

"It's just going back to Ruskin," cried Lawson.

"No — you see, he went for morality: I don't care a
damn for morality: teaching doesn't come in, ethics and
all that, but passion and emotion. The greatest portrait
painters have painted both, man and the intention of his
soul ; Rembrandt and El Greco ; it's only the second-raters
who've only painted man. A lily of the valley would be
lovely even if it didn't smell, but it's more lovely because
it has perfume. That picture" — he pointed to Lawson's
portrait — "Well, the drawing's all right and so's the mod-
elling all right, but just conventional ; it ought to be drawn
and modelled so that you know the girl's a lousy slut. Cor-
rectness is all very well: El Greco made his people eight
feet high because he wanted to express something he
couldn't get any other way."

"Damn El Greco," said Lawson, "what's the good of
jawing about a man when we haven't a chance of seeing
any of his work ?"

Glutton shrugged his shoulders, smoked a cigarette in
silence, and went away. Philip and Lawson looked at one
another.

"There's something in what he says," said Philip.

Lawson stared ill-temperedly at his picture.

"How the devil is one to get the intention of the soul
except by painting exactly what one sees ?"

About this time Philip made a new friend. On Monday
morning models assembled at the school in order that one
might be chosen for the week, and one day a young man
was taken who was plainly not a model by profession.
Philip's attention was attracted by the manner in which

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 281

he held himself : when he got on to the stand he stood
firmly on both feet, square, with clenched hands, and with
his head defiantly thrown forward; the attitude empha-
sised his fine figure; there was no fat on him, and his
muscles stood out as though they were of iron. His head,
close-cropped, was well-shaped, and he wore a short beard ;
he had large, dark eyes and heavy eyebrows. He held the
pose hour after hour without appearance of fatigue. There
was in his mien a mixture of shame and of determination.
His air of passionate energy excited Philip's romantic
imagination, and when, the sitting ended, he saw him in his
clothes, it seemed to him that he wore them as though he
were a king in rags. He was uncommunicative, but in a day
or two Mrs. Otter told Philip that the model was a Span-
iard and that he had never sat before.

"I suppose he was starving," said Philip.

"Have you noticed his clothes? They're quite neat and
decent, aren't they?"

It chanced that Potter, one of the Americans who
worked at Amitrano's, was going to Italy for a couple of
months, and offered his studio to Philip. Philip was
pleased. He was growing a little impatient of Lawson's
peremptory advice and wanted to be by himself. At the end
of the week he went up to the model and on the pretence
that his drawing was not finished asked whether he would
come and sit to him one day.

"I'm not a model," the Spaniard answered. "I have other
things to do next week."

"Come and have luncheon with me now, and we'll talk
about it," said Philip, and as the other hesitated, he added
with a smile : "It won't hurt you to lunch with me."

With a shrug of the shoulders the model consented, and
they went off to a cremerie. The Spaniard spoke broken
French, fluent but difficult to follow, and Philip managed
to get on well enough with him. He found out that he was
a writer. He had come to Paris to write novels and kept
himself meanwhile by all the expedients possible to a
penniless man : he gave lessons, he did any translations he
could get hold of, chiefly business documents, and at last
had been driven to make money by his fine figure. Sitting

282 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

was well paid, and what he had earned during the last week
was enough to keep him for two more ; he told Philip,
amazed, that he could live easily on two francs a day ; but
it filled him with shame that he was obliged to show his
body for money, and he looked upon sitting as a degrada-
tion which only hunger could excuse. Philip explained that
he did not want him to sit for the figure, but only for the
head ; he wished to do a portrait of him which he might
send to the next Salon.

"But why should you want to paint me?" asked the
Spaniard.

Philip answered that the head interested him, he thought
he could do a good portrait.

"I can't afford the time. I grudge every minute that I
have to rob from my writing."

"But it would only be in the afternoon. I work at the
school in the morning. After all, it's better to sit to me
than to do translations of legal documents."

There were legends in the Latin Quarter of a time when
students of different countries lived together intimately,
but this was long since passed, and now the various na-
tions were almost as much separated as in an Oriental city.
At Julian's and at the Beaux Arts a French student was
looked upon with disfavour by his fellow-countrymen
when he consorted with foreigners, and it was difficult
for an Englishman to know more than quite superficially
any native inhabitants of the city in which he dwelt. In-
deed, many of the students after living in Paris for five
years knew no more French than served them in shops
and lived as English a life as though they were working in
South Kensington.

Philip, with his passion for the romantic, welcomed the
opportunity to get in touch with a Spaniard ; he used all
his persuasiveness to overcome the man's reluctance.

"I'll tell you what I'll do," said the Spaniard at last.
"I'll sit to you, but not for money, for my own pleasure."
. Philip expostulated, but the other was firm, and at length
they arranged that he should come on the following Mon-
day at one o'clock. He gave Philip a card on which was
printed his name : Miguel Ajuria.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 283

Miguel sat regularly, and though he refused to accept
payment he borrowed fifty francs from Philip every now
and then : it was a little more expensive than if Philip had
paid for the sittings in the usual way ; but gave the Span-
iard a satisfactory feeling that he was not earning his liv-
ing in a degrading manner. His nationality made Philip
regard him as a representative of romance, and he asked
him about Seville and Granada, Velasquez and Calderon.
But Miguel had no patience with the grandeur of his coun-
try. For him, as for so many of his compatriots, France
was the only country for a man of intelligence and Paris
the centre of the world.

"Spain is dead," he cried. "It has no writers, it has no
art, it has nothing."

Little by little, with the exuberant rhetoric of his race,
he revealed his ambitions. He was writing a novel which
he hoped would make his name. He was under the influ-
ence of Zola, and he had set his scene in Paris. He told
Philip the story at length. To Philip it seemed crude and
stupid ; the naive obscenity — c'est la vie, mon cher, c'est la
vie, he cried — the naive obscenity served only to empha-
sise the conventionality of the anecdote. He had written
for two years, amid incredible hardships, denying himself
all the pleasures of life which had attracted him to Paris,
fighting with starvation for art's sake, determined that
nothing should hinder his great achievement. The effort
was heroic.

"But why don't you write about Spain?" cried Philip.
"It would be so much more interesting. You know the
life."

"But Paris is the only place worth writing about. Paris
is life."

One day he brought part of the manuscript, and in his
bad French, translating excitedly as he went along so that
Philip could scarcely understand, he read passages. It was
lamentable. Philip, puzzled, looked at the picture he was
painting: the mind behind that broad brow was trivial;
and the flashing, passionate eyes saw nothing in life but the
obvious. Philip was not satisfied with his portrait, and at
the end of a sitting he nearly always scraped out what he

284 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

had done. It was all very well to aim at the intention of the
soul : who could tell what that was when people seemed a
mass of contradictions ? He liked Miguel, and it distressed
him to realise that his magnificent struggle was futile : he
had everything to make a good writer but talent. Philip
looked at his own work. How could you tell whether there
was anything in it or whether you were wasting your time ?
It was clear that the will to achieve could not help you and
confidence in yourself meant nothing. Philip thought of
Fanny Price ; she had a vehement belief in her talent ; her
strength of will was extraordinary.

"If I thought I wasn't going to be really good, I'd rather
give up painting," said Philip. "I don't see any use in being
a, second-rate painter."

Then one morning when he was going out, the concierge
called out to him that there was a letter. Nobody wrote to
him but his Aunt Louisa and sometimes Hayward, and this
was a handwriting he did not know. The letter was as fol-
lows:

Please come at once when you get this. I couldn't put up
with it any more. Please come yourself. I can't bear the
thought that anyone else should touch me. I want you to
have everything.

F. Price.

I have not had anything to eat for three days.

Philip felt on a sudden sick with fear. He hurried to the
house in which she lived. He was astonished that she was
in Paris at all. He had not seen her for months and
imagined she had long since returned to England. When
he arrived he asked the concierge whether she was in.

"Yes, I've not seen her go out for two days."

Philip ran upstairs and knocked at the door. There was
no reply. He called her name. The door was locked, and
on bending down he found the key was in the lock.

"Oh, my God, I hope she hasn't done something awful,"
he cried aloud.

He ran down and told the porter that she was certainly
in the room. He had had a letter from her and feared a

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 285

terrible accident. He suggested breaking open the door.
The porter, who had been sullen and disinclined to listen,
became alarmed; he could not take the responsibility of
breaking into the room ; they must go for the commissaire
de police. They walked together to the bureau, and then
they fetched a locksmith. Philip found that Miss Price had
not paid the last quarter's rent: on New Year's Day she
had not given the concierge the present which old-
established custom led him to regard as a right. The four
of them went upstairs, and they knocked again at the door.
There was no reply. The locksmith set to work, and at last
they entered the room. Philip gave a cry and instinctively
covered his eyes with his hands. The wretched woman was
hanging with a rope round her neck, which she had tied
to a hook in the ceiling fixed by some previous tenant to
hold up the curtains of the bed. She had moved her own
little bed out of the way and had stood on a chair, which
had been kicked away. It was lying on its side on the floor.
They cut her down. The body was quite cold.

XLIX

THE story which Philip made out in one way and an-
other was terrible. One of the grievances of the women-
students was that Fanny Price would never share their gay
meals in restaurants, and the reason was obvious : she had
been oppressed by dire poverty. He remembered the lunch-
eon they had eaten together when first he came to Paris
and the ghoulish appetite which had disgusted him : he
realised now that she ate in that manner because she was
ravenous. The concierge told him what her food had con-
sisted of. A bottle of milk was left for her every day and
she brought in her own loaf of bread ; she ate half the loaf
and drank half the milk at mid-day when she came back
from the school, and consumed the rest in the evening. It
was the same day after day. Philip thought with anguish
of what she must have endured. She had never given any-
one to understand that she was poorer than the rest, but
it was clear that her money had been coming to an end, and
at last she could not afford to come any more to the studio.
The little room was almost bare of furniture, and there
were no other clothes than the shabby brown dress she
had always worn. Philip searched among her things for
the address of some friend with whom he could communi-
cate. He found a piece of paper on which his own name
was written a score of times. It gave him a peculiar shock.
He supposed it was true that she had loved him; he
thought of the emaciated body, in the brown dress, hang-
ing from the nail in the ceiling ; and he shuddered. But if
she had cared for him why did she not let him help her?
He would so gladly have done all he could. He felt re-
morseful because he had refused to see that she looked
upon him with any particular feeling, and now these words
in her letter were infinitely pathetic: I can't bear the
thought that anyone else should touch me. She had died of
starvation.

286

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 287

Philip found at length a letter signed: your loving
brother, Albert. It was two or three weeks old, dated from
some road in Surbiton, and refused a loan of five pounds.
The writer had his wife and family to think of, he didn't
feel justified in lending money, and his advice was that
Fanny should come back to London and try to get a situa-
tion. Philip telegraphed to Albert Price, and in a little
while an answer came :

"Deeply distressed. Very awkward to leave my business.
Is presence essential. Price."

Philip wired a succinct affirmative, and next morning a
stranger presented himself at the studio.

"My name's Price," he said, when Philip opened the
door.

He was a commonish man in black with a band round
his bowler hat ; he had something of Fanny's clumsy look ;
he wore a stubbly moustache, and had a Cockney accent.
Philip asked him to come in. He cast sidelong glances
round the studio while Philip gave him details of the acci-
dent and told him what he had done.

"I needn't see her, need I?" asked Albert Price. "My
nerves aren't very strong, and it takes very little to upset
me."

He began to talk freely. He was a rubber-merchant,
and he had a wife and three children. Fanny was a gover-
ness, and he couldn't make out why she hadn't stuck to
that instead of coming to Paris.

"Me and Mrs. Price told her Paris was no place for a
girl. And there's no money in art — never 'as been."

It was plain enough that he had not been on friendly
terms with his sister, and he resented her suicide as a last
injury that she had done him. He did not like the idea that
she had been forced to it by poverty ; that seemed to reflect
on the family. The idea struck him that possibly there was
a more respectable reason for her act.

"I suppose she 'adn't any trouble with a man, 'ad she?
You know what I mean, Paris and all that. She might 'ave
done it so as not to disgrace herself."

Philip felt himself reddening and cursed his weakness.

iS& OF HUMAN BONDAGE

Price's keen little eyes seemed to suspect him of an in-
trigue.

"I believe your sister to have been perfectly virtuous,"
he answered acidly. "She killed herself because she was
starving."

"Well, it's very 'ard on her family, Mr. Carey. She only
'ad to write to me. I wouldn't have let my sister want."

Philip had found the brother's address only by reading
the letter in which he refused a loan ; but he shrugged his
shoulders: there was no use in recrimination. He hated
the little man and wanted to have done with him as soon as
possible. Albert Price also wished to get through the neces-
sary business quickly so that he could get back to Lon-
don. They went to the tiny room in which poor Fanny had
lived. Albert Price looked at the pictures and the furni-
ture.

"I don't pretend to know much about art," he said. "I
suppose these pictures would fetch something, would
they?"

"Nothing/; said Philip.

"The furniture's not worth ten shillings."

Albert Price knew no French and Philip had to do
everything. It seemed that it was an interminable process
to get the poor body safely hidden away under ground :
papers had to be obtained in one place and signed in an-
other; officials had to be seen. For three days Philip was
occupied from morning till night. At last he and Albert
Price followed the hearse to the cemetery at Montparnasse.

"I want to do the thing decent," said Albert Price, "but
there's no use wasting money."

The short ceremony was infinitely dreadful in the cold
gray morning. Half a dozen people who had worked with
Fanny Price at the studio came to the funeral, Mrs. Otter
because she was inassibre and thought it her duty, Ruth
Chalice because she had a kind heart, Lawson, Glutton,
and Flanagan. They had all disliked her during her life.
Philip, looking across the cemetery crowded on all sides
with monuments, some poor and simple, others vulgar, pre-
tentious, and ugly, shuddered. It was horribly sordid.
When they came out Albert Price asked Philip to lunch

OFHUMANBONDAGE 289

with him. Philip loathed him now and he was tired; he
had not been sleeping well, for he dreamed constantly of
Fanny Price in the torn brown dress, hanging from the
nail in the ceiling ; but he could not think of an excuse.

"You take me somewhere where we can get a regular
slap-up lunch. All this is the very worst thing for my
nerves."

"Lavenue's is about the best place round here," ai .-
swered Philip.

Albert Price settled himself on a velvet seat with a sigh
of relief. He ordered a substantial luncheon and a bottle
of wine.

"Well, I'm glad that's over," he said.

He threw out a few artful questions, and Philip discov-
ered that he was eager to hear about the painter's life in
Paris. He represented it to himself as deplorable, but he
was anxious for details of the orgies which his fancy sug-
gested to him. With sly winks and discreet sniggering he
conveyed that he knew very well that there was a great
deal more than Philip confessed. He was a man of the
world, and he knew a thing or two. He asked Philip
whether he had ever been to any of those places in Mont-
martre which are celebrated from Temple Bar to the Royal
Exchange. He would like to say he had been to the Moulin
Rouge. The luncheon was very good and the wine excel-
lent. Albert Price expanded as the processes of digestion
went satisfactorily forwards.

"Let's 'ave a little brandy," he said when the coffee was
brought, "and blow the expense."

He rubbed his hands.

"You know, I've got 'alf a mind to stay over tonight and
go back tomorrow. What d'you say to spending the evening
together ?"

"If you mean you want me to take you round Mont-
martre tonight, I'll see you damned," said Philip.

"I suppose it wouldn't be quite the thing."

The answer was made so seriously that Philip was
tickled.

"Besides it would be rotten for your nerves," he said
gravely.

ago OF HUMAN BONDAGE

.Albert Price concluded that he had better go back to
London by the four o'clock train, and presently he took
leave of Philip.

"Well, good-bye, old man," he said. "I tell you what, I'll
try and come over to Paris again one of these days and
I'll look you up. And then we won't 'alf go on the razzle."

Philip was too restless to work that afternoon, so he
jumped on a bus and crossed the river to see whether there
were any pictures on view at Durand-Ruel's. After that
he strolled along the boulevard. It was cold and wind-
swept. People hurried by wrapped up in their coats, shrunk
together in an effort to keep out of the cold, and their faces
were pinched and careworn. It was icy underground in the
cemetery at Montparnasse among all those white tomb-
stones. Philip felt lonely in the world and strangely home-
sick. He wanted company. At that hour Cronshaw would
be working, and Glutton never welcomed visitors ; Lawson
was painting another portrait of Ruth Chalice and would
not care to be disturbed. He made up his mind to go and
see Flanagan. He found him painting, but delighted to
throw up his work and talk. The studio was comfortable,
for the American had more money than most of them, and
warm ; Flanagan set about making tea. Philip looked at the
two heads that he was sending to the Salon.

"It's awful cheek my sending anything," said Flana-
gan, "but I don't care, I'm going to send. D'you think
they're rotten?"

"Not so rotten as I should have expected," said Philip.

They showed in fact an astounding cleverness. The diffi-
culties had been avoided with skill, and there was a dash
about the way in which the paint was put on which was
surprising and even attractive. Flanagan, without knowl-
edge or technique, painted with the loose brush of a man
who has spent a lifetime in the practice of the art.

"If one were forbidden to look at any picture for more
than thirty seconds you'd be a great master, Flanagan,"
smiled Philip.

These young people were not in the habit of spoiling one
another with excessive flattery.

"We haven't got time in America to spend more than

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 291

thirty seconds in looking at any picture," laughed the
other.

Flanagan, though he was the most scatter-brained per-
son in the world, had a tenderness of heart which was un-
expected and charming. Whenever anyone was ill he
installed himself as sick-nurse. His gaiety was better than
any medicine. Like many of his countrymen he had not
the English dread of sentimentality which keeps so tight
a hold on emotion ; and, finding nothing absurd in the show
of feeling, could offer an exuberant sympathy which was
often grateful to his friends in distress. He saw that Philip
was depressed by what he had gone through and with un-
affected kindliness set himself boisterously to cheer him
up. He exaggerated the Americanisms which he knew al-
ways made the Englishmen laugh and poured out a breath-
less stream of conversation, whimsical, high-spirited, and
jolly. In due course they went out to dinner and after-
wards to the Gaite Montparnasse, which was Flanagan's
favourite place of amusement. By the end of the evening
he was in his most extravagant humour. He had drunk a
good deal, but any inebriety from which he suffered was
due much more to his own vivacity than to alcohol. He
proposed that they should go to the Bal Bullier, and Philip,
feeling too tired to go to bed, willingly enough consented.
They sat down at a table on the platform at the side,
raised a little from the level of the floor so that they could
watch the dancing, and drank a bock. Presently Flana-
gan saw a friend and with a wild shout leaped over the
barrier on to the space where they were dancing. Philip
watched the people. Bullier was not the resort of fashion.
It was Thursday night and the place was crowded. There
were a number of students of the various faculties, but
most of the men were clerks or assistants in shops ; they
wore their every-day clothes, ready-made tweeds or queer
tail-coats, and their hats, for they had brought them in
with them, and when they danced there was no place to
put them but their heads. Some of the women looked like
servant-girls, and some were painted hussies, but for the
most part they were shop-girls. They were poorly-dressed
in cheap imitation of the fashions on the other side of the

29a OF HUMAN BONDAGE

river. The hussies were got up to resemble the music-hall
artiste or the dancer who enjoyed notoriety at the moment ;
their eyes were heavy with black and their cheeks impu-
dently scarlet. The hall was lit by great white lights, low
down, which emphasised the shadows on the faces ; all the
lines seemed to harden under it, and the colours were most
crude. It was a sordid scene. Philip leaned over the rail,
staring down, and he ceased to hear the music. They
danced furiously. They danced round the room, slowly,
talking very little, with all their attention given to the
dance. The room was hot, and their faces shone with
sweat. It seemed to Philip that they had thrown off the
guard which people wear on their expression, the homage
to convention, and he saw them now as they really were.
In that moment of abandon they were strangely animal:
some were foxy and some were wolflike ; and others had
the long, foolish face of sheep. Their skins were sallow
from the unhealthy life they led and the poor food they
ate. Their features were blunted by mean interests, and
their little eyes were shifty and cunning. There was noth-
ing of nobility in their bearing, and you felt that for all of
them life was a long succession of petty concerns and sor-
did thoughts. The air was heavy with the musty smell of
humanity. But they danced furiously as though impelled
by some strange power within them, and it seemed to
Philip that they were driven forward by a rage for en-
joyment. They were seeking desperately to escape from a
world of horror. The desire for pleasure which Cronshaw
said was the only motive of human action urged them
blindly on, and the very vehemence of the desire seemd
to rob it of all pleasure. They were hurried on by a great
wind, helplessly, they knew not why and they knew not
whither. Fate seemed to tower above them, and they
danced as though everlasting darkness were beneath their
feet. Their silence was vaguely alarming. It was as if life
terrified them and robbed them of power of speech so that
the shriek which was in their hearts died at their throats.
Their eyes were haggard and grim ; and notwithstanding
the beastly lust that disfigured them, and the meanness of
their faces, and the cruelty, notwithstanding the stupidness

OFHUMANBONDAGE 293

which was worst of all, the anguish of those fixed eyes
made all that crowd terrible and pathetic. Philip loathed
them, and yet his heart ached with the infinite pity which
filled him.

He took his coat from the cloak-room and went out into
the bitter coldness of the night.

PHILIP could not get the unhappy event out of his head.
What troubled him most was the uselessness of Fanny's
effort. No one could have worked harder than she, nor
with more sincerity ; she believed in herself with all her
heart; but it was plain that self-confidence meant very
little, all his friends had it, Miguel Ajuria among the rest ;
and Philip was shocked by the contrast between the Span-
iard's heroic endeavour and the triviality of the thing he
attempted. The unhappiness of Philip's life at school had
called up in him the power of self-analysis ; and this vice,
as subtle as drug-taking, had taken possession of him so
that he had now a peculiar keenness in the dissection of
his feelings. He could not help seeing that art affected him
differently from others. A fine picture gave Lawson an im-
mediate thrill. His appreciation was instinctive. Even
Flanagan felt certain things which Philip was obliged to
think out. His own appreciation was intellectual. He could
not help thinking that if he had in him the artistic tem-
perament (he hated the phrase, but could discover no
other) he would feel beauty in the emotional, unreasoning
way in which they did. He began to wonder whether he
had anything more than a superficial cleverness of the
hand which enabled him to copy objects with accuracy.
That was nothing. He had learned to despise technical dex-
terity. The important thing was to feel in terms of paint.
Lawson painted in a certain way because it was his na-
ture to, and through the imitativeness of a student
sensitive to every influence, there pierced individuality.
Philip looked at his own portrait of Ruth Qialice, and now
that three months had passed he realised that it was no
more than a servile copy of Lawson. He felt himself bar-
ren. He painted with the brain, and he could not help
knowing that the only painting worth anything was done
with the heart.

294

O F H U M A N B O N D A G E 295

He had very little money, barely sixteen hundred
pounds, and it would be necessary for him to practise the
severest economy. He could not count on earning anything
for ten years. The history of painting was full of artists
who had earned nothing at all. He must resign himself to
penury ; and it was worth while if he produced work which
was immortal; but he had a terrible fear that he would
never be more than second-rate. Was it worth while for
that to give up one's youth, and the gaiety of life, and the
manifold chances of being? He knew the existence of for-
eign painters in Paris enough to see that the lives they
led were narrowly provincial. He knew some who had
dragged along for twenty years in the pursuit of a fame
which always escaped them till they sunk into sordidness
and alcoholism. Fanny's suicide had aroused memories,
and Philip heard ghastly stories of the way in which one
person or another had escaped from despair. He remem-
bered the scornful advice which the master had given poor
Fanny: it would have been well for her if she had taken it
and given up an attempt which was hopeless.

Philip finished his portrait of Miguel Ajuria and made
up his mind to send it to the Salon. Flanagan was send-
ing two pictures, and he thought he could paint as well as
Flanagan. He had worked so hard on the portrait that he
could not help feeling it must have merit. It was true that
when he looked at it he felt that there was something
wrong, though he could not tell what; but when he was
away from it his spirits went up and he was not dissatis-
fied. He sent it to the Salon and it was refused. He did
not mind much, since he had done all he could to persuade
himself that there was little chance that it would be taken,
till Flanagan a few days later rushed in to tell Lawson and
Philip that one of his pictures was accepted. With a blank
face Philip offered his congratulations, and Flanagan was
so busy congratulating himself that he did not catch the
note of irony which Philip could not prevent from com-
ing into his voice. Lawson, quicker-witted, observed it and
looked at Philip curiously. His own picture was all right,
he knew that a day or two before, and he was vaguely re-
sentful of Philip's attitude. But he was surprised at the

296 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

sudden question which Philip put him as soon as the Amer-
ican was gone.

"If you were in my place would you chuck the whole
thing?"

"What do you mean?"

"I wonder if it's worth while being a second-rate painter.
You see, in other things, if you're a doctor or if you're in
business, it doesn't matter so much if you're mediocre. You
make a living and you get along. But what is the good of
turning out second-rate pictures?"

Lawson was fond of Philip and, as soon as he thought
he was seriously distressed by the refusal of his picture,
he set himself to console him. It was notorious that the
Salon had refused pictures which were afterwards fa-
mous; it was the first time Philip had sent, and he must
expect a rebuff; Flanagan's success was explicable, his
picture was showy and superficial: it was just the sort of
thing a languid jury would see merit in. Philip grew impa-
tient; it was humiliating that Lawson should think him
capable of being seriously disturbed by so trivial a calamity
and would not realise that his dejection was due to a deep-
seated distrust of his powers.

Of late Glutton had withdrawn himself somewhat from
the group who took their meals at Gravier's, and lived very
much by himself. Flanagan said he was in love with a girl,
but Glutton's austere countenance did not suggest pas-
sion ; and Philip thought it more probable that he separated
himself from his friends so that he might grow clear with
the new ideas which were in him. But that evening, when
the others had left the restaurant to go to a play and Philip
was sitting alone, Glutton came in and ordered dinner.
They began to talk, and finding Glutton more loquacious
and less sardonic than usual, Philip determined to take
advantage of his good humour.

"I say I wish you'd come and look at my picture," he
said. "I'd like to know what you think of it."

"No, I won't do that."
i "Why not?" asked Philip, reddening.

The r^uest was one which they all made of uric an-

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 297

other, and no one ever thought of refusing. Glutton
shrugged his shoulders.

"People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.
Besides, what's the good of criticism ? What does it matter
if your picture is good or bad?"

"It matters to me."

"No. The only reason that one paints is that one can't
help it. It's a function like any of the other functions of
the body, only comparatively few people have got it. One
paints for oneself : otherwise one would commit suicide.
Just think of it, you spend God knows how long trying
to get something on to canvas, putting the sweat of your
soul into it, and what is the result? Ten to one it will be
refused at the Salon; if it's accepted, people glance at it
for ten seconds as they pass ; if you're lucky some ignor-
ant fool will buy it and put it on his walls and look at it
as little as he looks at his dining-room table. Criticism has
nothing to do with the artist. It judges objectively, but
the objective doesn't concern the artist."

Glutton put his hands over his eyes so that he might
concentrate his mind on what he wanted to say.

"The artist gets a peculiar sensation from something
he sees, and is impelled to express it and, he doesn't know
why, he can only express his feeling by lines and colours.
It's like a musician ; he'll read a line or two, and a certain
combination of notes presents itself to him : he doesn't
know why such and such words call forth in him such
and such notes; they just do. And I'll tell you another
reason why criticism is meaningless : a great painter forces
the world to see nature as he sees it ; but in the next gen-
eration another painter sees the world in another way, and
then the public judges him not by himself but by his prede-
cessor. So the Barbizon people taught our fathers to look
at trees in a certain manner, and when Monet came along
and painted differently, people said : But trees aren't like
that. It never struck them that trees are exactly how a
painter chooses to see them. We paint from within out-
wards— if we force our vision on the world it calls us
great painters; if we don't it ignores us; but we are the
sam'e. We don't attach any meaning to greatness or to

298 OF HUMAN BQ N D A G E

smallness. What happens to our work afterwards is unim-
portant ; we have got all we could out of it while we were
doing it."

There was a pause while Glutton with voracious appe-
tite devoured the food that was set before him. Philip,
smoking a cheap cigar, observed him closely. The rugged-
ness of the head, which looked as though it were carved
from a stone refractory to the sculptor's chisel, the rough
mane of dark hair, the great nose, and the massive bones
of the jaw, suggested a man of strength; and yet Philip
wondered whether perhaps the mask concealed a strange
weakness. Glutton's refusal to show his work might be
sheer vanity: he could not bear the thought of anyone's
criticism, and he would not expose himself to the chance
of a refusal from the Salon ; he wanted to be received as
a master and would not risk comparisons with other work
which might force him to diminish his own opinion of him-
self. During the eighteen months Philip had known him
Glutton had grown more harsh and bitter; though he
would not come out into the open and compete with his
fellows, he was indignant with the facile success of those
who did. He had no patience with Lawson, and the pair
were no longer on the intimate terms upon which they had
been when Philip first knew them.

"Lawson's all right," he said contemptuously, "he'll go
back to England, become a fashionable portrait painter,
earn ten thousand a year and be an A. R. A. before he's
forty. Portraits done by hand for the nobility and gentry !"

Philip, too, looked into the future, and he saw Glutton
in twenty years, bitter, lonely, savage, and unknown ; still
in Paris, for the life there had got into his bones, ruling
a small cenacle with a savage tongue, at war with himself
and the world, producing little in his increasing passion for
a perfection he could not reach: and perhaps sinking at
last into drunkenness. Of late Philip had been captivated
by an idea that since one had only one life it was important
to make a success of it, but he did not count success by
the acquiring of money or the achieving of fame; he did
not quite know yet what he meant by it, perhaps variety
of experience and the making the most of his abilities. It

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 299

was plain anyway that the life which Glutton seemed
destined to was failure. Its only justification would be
the painting of imperishable masterpieces. He recollected
Cronshaw's whimsical metaphor of the Persian carpet;
he had thought of it often ; but Cronshaw with his faun-
like humour had refused to make his meaning clear: he
repeated that it had none unless one discovered it for one-
self. It was this desire to make a success of life which was
at the bottom of Philip's uncertainty about continuing his
artistic career. But Glutton began to talk again.

"D'you remember my telling you about that chap I met
in Brittany? I saw him the other day here. He's just off to
Tahiti. He was broke to the world. He was a bras-
seur d'affaires, a stockbroker I suppose you call it in Eng-
lish; and he had a wife and family, and he was earning
a large income. He chucked it all to become a painter. He
just went off and settled down in Brittany and began to
paint. He hadn't got any money and did the next best
thing to starving."

"And what about his wife and family?" asked Philip.

"Oh, he dropped them. He left them to starve on their
own account."

"It sounds a pretty low-down thing to do."

"Oh, my dear fellow, if you want to be a gentleman you
must give up being an artist. They've got nothing to do
with one another. You hear of men painting pot-boilers
to keep an aged mother — well, it shows they're excellent
sons, but it's no excuse for bad work. They're only trades-
men. An artist would let his mother go to the workhouse.
There's a writer I know over here who told me that his
wife died in childbirth. He was in love with her and he was
mad with grief, but as he sat at the bedside watching her
die he found himself making mental notes of how she
looked and what she said and the things he was feeling.
Gentlemanly, wasn't it?"

"But is your friend a good painter?" asked Philip.

"No, not yet, he paints just like Pissarro. He hasn't
found himself, but he's got a sense of colour and a sense
of decoration. But that isn't the question. It's the feeling,
and that he's got. He's behaved like a perfect cpd to his

3oo OF HUM AN BONDAGE

wife and children, he's always behaving like a perfect
cad ; the way he treats the people who've helped him — and
sometimes he's been saved from starvation merely by the
kindness of his friends — is simply beastly. He just hap-
pens to be a great artist."

Philip pondered over the man who was willing to sacri-
fice everything, comfort, home, money, love, honour, duty,
for the sake of getting on to canvas with paint the emotion
which the world gave him. It was magnificent, and yet his
courage failed him.

Thinking of Cronshaw recalled to him the fact that he
had not seen him for a week, and so, when Glutton left
him, he wandered along to the cafe in which he was certain
to find the writer. During the first few months of his stay
in Paris Philip had accepted as gospel all that Cronshaw
said, but Philip had a practical outlook and he grew impa-
tient with the theories which resulted in no action. Cron-
shaw's slim bundle of poetry did not seem a substantial
result for a life which was sordid. Philip could not wrench
out of his nature the instincts of the middle-class from
which he came; and the penury, the hack work which
Cronshaw did to keep body and soul together, the mo-
notony of existence between the slovenly attic and the cafe
table, jarred with his respectability. Cronshaw was astute
enough to know that the young man disapproved of him,
and he attacked his philistinism with an irony which was
sometimes playful but often very keen.

"You're a tradesman," he told Philip, "you want to
invest life in consols so that it shall bring you in a safe
three per cent. I'm a spendthrift, I run through my capi-
tal. I shall spend my last penny with my last heartbeat."

The metaphor irritated Philip, because it assumed for
the speaker a romantic attitude and cast a slur upon the
position which Philip instinctively felt had more to say
for it than he could think of at the moment.

But this evening Philip, undecided, wanted to talk about
himself. Fortunately it was late already and Cronshaw's
pile of saucers on the table, each indicating a drink, sug-
gested that he was prepared to take an independent view
of things in general.

OFHUMANBONDAGE 301

"I wonder if you'd give me some advice," said Philip
suddenly.

"You won't take it, will you?"

Philip shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

"I don't believe I shall ever do much good as a painter.
I don't see any use in being second-rate. I'm thinking of
chucking it."

"Why shouldn't you?"

Philip hesitated for an instant.

"I suppose I like the life."

A change came over Cronshaw's placid, round face. The
corners of the mouth were suddenly depressed, the eyes
sunk dully in their orbits ; he seemed to become strangely
bowed and old.

"This?" he cried, looking round the cafe in which they
sat. His voice really trembled a little.

"If you can get out of it, do while there's time."

Philip stared at him with astonishment, but the sight
of emotion always made him feel shy, and he dropped his
eyes. He knew that he was looking upon the tragedy of
failure. There was silence. Philip thought that Cronshaw
was looking upon his own life ; and perhaps he considered
his youth with its bright hopes and the disappointments
which wore out the radiancy; the wretched monotony of
pleasure, and the black future. Philip's eyes rested on the
little pile of saucers, and he knew that Cronshaw's were
on them too.

LI

Two months passed.

It seemed to Philip, brooding over these matters, that
in the true painters, writers, musicians, there was a power
which drove them to such complete absorption in their
work as to make it inevitable for them to subordinate life
to art. Succumbing to an influence they never realised,
they were merely dupes of the instinct that possessed them,
and life slipped through their fingers unlived. But he had
a feeling that life was to be lived rather than portrayed,
and he wanted to search out the various experiences of it
and wring from each moment all the emotion that it
offered. He made up his mind at length to take a certain
step and abide by the result, and, having made up his mind,
he determined to take the step at once. Luckily enough
the next morning was one of Foinet's days, and he resolved
to ask him point-blank whether it was worth his while to
go on with the study of art. He had never forgotten the
master's brutal advice to Fanny Price. It had been sound.
Philip could never get Fanny entirely out of his head. The
studio seemed strange without her, and now and then the
gesture of one of the women working there or the tone of
a voice would give him a sudden start, reminding him of
her: her presence was more noticeable now she was dead
vhan it had ever been during her life; and he often
dreamed of her at night, waking with a cry of terror. It
was horrible to think of all the suffering she must have
endured.

Philip knew that on the days Foinet came to the studio
he lunched at a little restaurant in the Rue d'Odessa, and
he hurried his own meal so that he could go and wait out-
side till the painter came out. Philip walked up and down
the crowded street and at last saw Monsieur Foinet walk-
ing, with bent head, towards him ; Philip was very nervous,
but he forced himself to go up to him.

/ 302

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 303

"Pardon, monsieur, I should like to speak to you for
one moment."

Foinet gave him a rapid glance, recognised him, but did
not smile a greeting.

"Speak," he said.

"I've been working here nearly two years now under
you. I wanted to ask you to tell me frankly if you think
it worth while for me to continue."

Philip's voice was trembling a little. Foinet walked on
without looking up. Philip, watching his face, saw no trace
of expression upon it.

"I don't understand."

"I'm very poor. If I have no talent I would sooner do
something else."

"Don't you know if you have talent?"

"All my friends know they have talent, but I am aware
some of them are mistaken."

Foinet's bitter mouth outlined the shadow of a smile,
and he asked:

"Do you live near here?"

Philip told him where his studio was. Foinet turned
round.

"Let us go there? You shall show me your work."

"Now?" cried Philip.

"Why not?"

Philip had nothing to say. He walked silently by the
master's side. He felt horribly sick. It had never struck
him that Foinet would wish to see his things there and
then; he meant, so that he might have time to prepare
himself, to ask him if he would mind coming at some
future date or whether he might bring them to Foinet's
studio. He was trembling with anxiety. In his heart he
hoped that Foinet would look at his picture, and that
rare smile would come into his face, and he would shake
Philip's hand and say: "Pas mal. Go on, my lad. You
have talent, real talent." Philip's heart swelled at the
thought. It was such a relief, such a joy! Now he could
go on with courage ; and what did hardship matter, priva-
tion, and disappointment, if he arrived at last? He had
worked very hard, it would be too cruel if all that industry

304 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

were futile. And then with a start he remembered that he
had heard Fanny Price say just that. They arrived at the
house, and Philip was seized with fear. If he had dared
he would have asked Foinet to go away. He did not want
to know the truth. They went in and the concierge handed
him a letter as they passed. He glanced at the envelope and
recognised his uncle's handwriting. Foinet followed him up
the stairs. Philip could think of nothing to say ; Foinet was
mute, and the silence got on his nerves. The professor
sat down ; and Philip without a word placed before him
the picture which the Salon had rejected; Foinet nodded
but did not speak; then Philip showed him the two por-
traits he had made of Ruth Chalice, two or three land-
scapes which he had painted at Moret, and a number of
sketches.

"That's all," he said presently, with a nervous laugh.

Monsieur Foinet rolled himself a cigarette and lit it.

"You have very little private means?" he asked at last.

"Very little," answered Philip, with a sudden feeling of
cold at his heart. "Not enough to live on."

"There is nothing so degrading as the constant anxiety
about one's means of livelihood. I have nothing but con-
tempt for the people who despise money. They are hypo-
crites or fools. Money is like a sixth sense without which
you cannot make a complete use of the other five. With-
out an adequate income half the possibilities of life are
shut off. The only thing to be careful about is that you
do not pay more than a shilling for the shilling you earn.
You will hear people say that poverty is the best spur tc
the artist. They have never felt the iron of it in their
flesh. They do not know how mean it makes you. It ex-
poses you to endless humiliation, it cuts your wings, it eats
into your soul like a cancer. It is not wealth one asks for,
but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work un-
hampered, to be generous, frank, and independent. I pity
with all my heart the artist, whether he writes or paints,
\vho is entirely dependent for subsistence upon his art."

Philip quietly put away the various things which he had
shown.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 305

"I'm afraid that sounds as if you didn't think I had
much chance."

Monsieur Foinet slightly shrugged his shoulders.

"You have a certain manual dexterity. With hard work
and perseverance there is no reason why you should not
become a careful, not incompetent painter. You would find
hundreds who painted worse than you, hundreds who
painted as well. I see no talent in anything you have shown
me. I see industry and intelligence. You will never be
anything but mediocre."

Philip obliged himself to answer quite steadily.

"I'm very grateful to you for having taken so much
trouble. I can't thank you enough."

Monsieur Foinet got up and made as if to go, but he
changed his mind and, stopping, put his hand on Philip's
shoulder.

"But if you were to ask me my advice, I should say:
take your courage in both hands and try your luck at
something else. It sounds very hard, but let me tell you
this : I would give all I have in the world if someone had
given me that advice when I was your age and I had
taken it."

Philip looked up at him with surprise. The master
forced his lips into a smile, but his eyes remained grave
and sad.

"It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is
too late. It does not improve the temper."

He gave a little laugh as he said the last words and
quickly walked out of the room.

Philip mechanically took up the letter from his uncle.
The sight of his handwriting made him anxious, for it
was his aunt who always wrote to him. She had been ill
for the last three months, and he had offered to go over to
England and see her; but she, fearing it would interfere
with his work, had refused. She did not want him to put
himself to inconvenience; she said she would wait till
August and then she hoped he would come and stay at the
vicarage for two or three weeks. If by any chance she
grew worse she would let him know, since she did not
wish to die without seeing him again. If his uncle wrote

306 OFHU MAN BONDAGE

to him it must be because she was too ill to hold a pen.
Philip opened the letter. It ran as follows :

My dear Philip,

I regret to inform you that your dear Aunt departed
this life early this morning. She died very suddenly, but
quite peacefully. The change for the worse was so rapid
that we had no time to send for you. She was fully pre-
pared for the end and entered into rest with the complete
assurance of a blessed resurrection and with resignation to
the divine will of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. Your
Aunt would have liked you to be present at the funeral so
I trust you will come as soon as you can. There is naturally
a great deal of work thrown upon my shoulders and I am
very much upset. I trust that you will be able to do every-
thing for me.

Your affectionate uncle,

William Carey.

LII

NEXT day Philip arrived at Blackstable. Since the death
of his mother he had never lost anyone closely connected
with him ; his aunt's death shocked him and filled him also
with a curious fear; he felt for the first time his own
mortality. He cound not realise what life would be for his
uncle without the constant companionship of the woman
who had loved and tended him for forty years. He ex-
pected to find him broken down with hopeless grief. He
dreaded the first meeting ; he knew that he could say noth-
ing which would be of use. He rehearsed to himself a num-
ber of apposite speeches.

He entered the vicarage by the side-door and went into
the dining-room. Uncle William was reading the paper.

"Your train was late," he said, looking up.

Philip was prepared to give way to his emotion, but the
matter-of-fact reception startled him. His uncle, subdued
but calm, handed him the paper.

"There's a very nice little paragraph about her in The
Blackstable Times," he said.

Philip read it mechanically.

"Would you like to come up and see her?"

Philip nodded and together they walked upstairs. Aunt
Louisa was lying in the middle of the large bed, with
flowers all round her.

"Would you like to say a short prayer ?" said the Vicar.

He sank on his knees, and because it was expected of
him Philip followed his example. He looked at the little
shrivelled face. He was only conscious of one emotion:
what a wasted life ! In a minute Mr. Carey gave a cough,
and stood up. He pointed to a wreath at the foot of the
bed.

"That's from the Squire," he said. He spoke in a low
voice as though he were in church, but one felt that, as a

3°7

308 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

clergyman, he found himself quite at home. "I expect tea
is ready."

They went down again to the dining-room. The drawn
blinds gave a lugubrious aspect. The Vicar sat at the end
of the table at which his wife had always sat and poured
out the tea with ceremony. Philip could not help feeling
that neither of them should have been able to eat anything,
but when he saw that his uncle's appetite was unimpaired
he fell to with his usual heartiness. They did not speak
for a while. Philip set himself to eat an excellent cake with
the air of grief which he felt was decent.

"Things have changed a great deal since I was a curate,"
said the Vicar presently. "In my young days the mourners
used always to be given a pair of black gloves and a piece
of black silk for their hats. Poor Louisa used to make the
silk into dresses. She always said that twelve funerals
gave her a new dress."

Then he told Philip who had sent wreaths ; there were
twenty-four of them already; when Mrs. Rawlingson,
wife of the Vicar at Feme, had died she had had thirty-
two ; but probably a good many more would come the next
day; the funeral would start at eleven o'clock from the
vicarage, and they should beat Mrs. Rawlingson easily.
Louisa never liked Mrs. Rawlingson.

"I shall take the funeral myself. I promised Louisa I
would never let anyone else bury her."

Philip looked at his uncle with disapproval when he
took a second piece of cake. Under the circumstances he
could not help thinking it greedy.

"Mary Ann certainly makes capital cakes. I'm afraid no
one else will make such good ones."

"She's not going?" cried Philip, with astonishment.

Mary Ann had been at the vicarage ever since he could
remember. She never forgot his birthday, but made a point
always of sending him a trifle, absurd but touching. He
had a real affection for her.

"Yes," answered Mr. Carey. "I didn't think it would do
to have a single woman in the house."

"But, good heavens, she must be over forty."

"Yes, I think she is. But she's been rather troublesome

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 309

lately, she's been inclined to take too much on herself, and
I thought this was a very good ooportunity to give her
notice."

"It's certainly one which isn't likely to recur," said
Philip.

He took out a cigarette, but his uncle prevented him
from lighting it.

"Not till after the funeral, Philip," he said gently.

"All right," said Philip.

"It wouldn't be quite respectful to smoke in the house
so long as your poor Aunt Louisa is upstairs."

Josiah Graves, churchwarden and manager of the bank,
came back to dinner at the vicarage after the funeral. The
blinds had been drawn up, and Philip, against his will,
felt a curious sensation of relief. The body in the house
had made him uncomfortable : in life the poor woman had
been all that was kind and gentle; and yet, when she lay
upstairs in her bed-room, cold and stark, it seemed as
though she cast upon the survivors a baleful influence.
The thought horrified Philip.

He found himself alone for a minute or two in the
dining-room with the churchwarden.

"I hope you'll be able to stay with your uncle a while,"
he said. "I don't think he ought to be left alone just yet."

"I haven't made any plans," answered Philip. "If he
wants me I shall be very pleased to stay."

By way of cheering the bereaved husband the church-
warden during dinner talked of a recent fire at Blackstable
which had partly destroyed the Wesleyan chapel.

"I hear they weren't insured," he said, with a little
smile.

"That won't make any difference," said the Vicar.
"They'll get as much money as they want to rebuild.
Chapel people are always ready to give money."

"I see that Holden sent a wreath."

Holden was the dissenting minister, and, though for
Christ's sake who died for both of them, Mr. Carey nodded
to him in the street, he did not speak to him.

3io OF HUM AN BOND AGE

"I think it was very pushing," he remarked. "There
were forty-one wreaths. Yours was beautiful. Philip and I
admired it very much."

"Don't mention it," said the banker.

He had noticed with satisfaction that it was larger than
any one's else. It had looked very well. They began to dis-
cuss the people who attended the funeral. Shops had been
closed for it, and the churchwarden took out of his pocket
the notice which had been printed : Owing to the funeral
of Mrs. Carey this establishment will not be opened till
one o'clock.

"It was my idea," he said.

"I think it was very nice of them to close," said the
Vicar. "Poor Louisa would have appreciated that."

Philip ate his dinner. Mary Ann had treated the day
as Sunday, and they had roast chicken and a gooseberry
tart.

"I suppose you haven't thought about a tombstone yet ?"
said the churchwarden.

"Yes, I have. I thought of a plain stone cross. Louisa
was always against ostentation."

"I don't think one can do much better than a cross. If
you're thinking of a text, what do you say to : With Christ,
which is far better?"

The Vicar pursed his lips. It was just like Bismarck to
try and settle everything himself. He did not like that
text ; it seemed to cast an aspersion on himself.

"I don't think I should put that. I much prefer: The
Lord has given and the Lord has taken away."

"Oh, do you ? That always seems to me a lit :le indiffer-
ent."

The Vicar answered with some acidity, and Mr. Graves
replied in a tone which the widower thought too authori-
tative for the occasion. Things were going rather far if he
could not choose his own text for his own wife's tomb-
stone. There was a pause, and then the conversation
drifted to parish matters. Philip went into the garden to
smoke his pipe. He sat on a bench, and suddenly began
to laugh hysterically.

OFHU MAN BONDAGE 311

A few days later his uncle expressed the hope that he
would spend the next few weeks at Blackstable.

"Yes, that will suit me very well," said Philip.

"I suppose it'll do if you go back *j Paris in Septem-
ber."

Philip did not reply. He had thought much of what
Foinet said to him, but he was still so undecided that he
did not wish to speak of the future. There would be some-
thing fine in giving up art because he was convinced that
he could not excel; but unfortunately it would seem so
only to himself : to others it would be an admission of de-
feat, and he did not want to confess that he was beaten.
He was an obstinate fellow, and the suspicion that his
talent did not lie in one. -direction made him inclined to
force circumstances and aim notwithstanding precisely in
that direction. He could not bear that his friends should
laugh at him. This might have prevented him from ever
taking the definite step of atandoning the study of paint-
ing, but the different environment made him on a sudden
see things differently. .Like many another he discovered
that crossing the Channel makes things which had seemed
important singularly futile. The life which had been so
charming thatibe could not bear to leave it now seemed
inept; he was seized with a distaste for the cafes, the
restaurants, with their ill-cooked food, the shabby way in
which they .all lived. He did not care any more what his
friends thought about him: Cronshaw with his rhetoric,
Mrs. Otter with her respectability, Ruth Chalice with her
affectations, Lawson and Clutton with their quarrels; he
felt a repulsion from them all. He wrote to Lawson and
asked him to send over all his belongings. A week later
they arrived. When he unpacked his canvases he found
himself able to examine his work without emotion. He
noticed the fact with interest. His uncle was anxious to see
his pictures. Though he had so greatly disapproved of
Philip's desire to go to Paris, he accepted the situation
now with equanimity. He was interested in the life of
students and constantly put Philip questions about it. He
was hi fact a little proud of him because he was a painter,
and when people were present made attempts to draw him

3i2 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

out. He looked eagerly at the studies of models which
Philip showed him. Philip set before him his portrait of
Miguel Ajuria.

"Why did you paint him ?" asked Mr. Carey.

"Oh, I wanted a model, and his head interested me."

"As you haven't got anything to do here I wonder you
don't paint me."

"It would bore you to sit."

"I think I should like it."
• "We must see about it."

Philip was amused at his uncle's vanity. It was clear
that he was dying to have his portrait painted. To get
something for nothing was a chance not to be missed. For
two or three days he threw out httle hints. He reproached
Philip for laziness, asked him wfoob he was going to start

he met that Philip
came a rainy day,

portrait this
reading and

work, and finally began telling evt
was going to paint him. At la
and after breakfast Mr. Care>

"Now, what d'you say to
morning?" Philip put down the
leaned back in his chair.

"I've given up painting." he said.

"Why?" asked his uncle in astonf

"I don't think there's much object
rate painter, and I came to the concluj
never be anything else."

"You surprise me. Before you went to
quite certain that you \vere a genius."

"I was mistaken," said Philip.

"I should have thought now you'd taken uj
sion you'd have the pride to stick to it. It seems
what you lack is perseverance."

Philip was a little annoyed that his uncle
see how truly heroic his determination was.

" 'A rolling stone gathers no moss,' " proceeded the
clergyman. Philip hated that proverb above all. and it
seemed to him perfectly meaningless. His uncle hall re-
peated it often during the arguments which had preceded
his departure from business. Apparently it recalled that
occasion to his guardian.

o F ii u .M A \ r. o \ i) A (; [•;

''You're no longer a hoy. you know; you must begin ;
think of settling down, First you insist on becoming a
chartered accountant, and then you get tired of that ar.d
you want to become a painter. And now if you please
you change your mind again. It points to . . ."

He hesitated for a moment to consider what defects of
character exactly it indicated, and Philip finished the sen-
tence.

"Irresolution, incompetence, want of foresight, and
lack of determination."

The Vicar looked up at his nephew quickly to see
whether he was laughing at him. Philip's face was serious,
but there was a twinkle in his eyes which irritated him.
Philip should really be getting more serious. He felt it
right to give him a rap over the knuckles.

"Your money matters have nothing to do with me now.
You're your own master ; but I think you should remember
that your money won't last for ever, and the unlucky
deformity you have doesn't exactly make it easier for
you to earn your living."

Philip knew by now that whenever anyone was angry
with him his first thought was to say something about his
club-foot. His estimate of the human race was determined
by the fact that scarcely anyone failed to resist the temp-
tation. But b.Q had trained himself not to show any ^ign
that the reminder wounded him. He had ?ven acquired
control over the blushing which in his boyhood had been
one of his torments.

"As you justly remark," he answered, "my money mat-
ters have nothing to do with you and I am my own mas-
ter."

"At all events you will do me the justice to acknowledge
that I was justified in my opposition when you made up
you* mind to become an art-student."

"FGon't know so much about that. I daresay one profits
more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than
by doing the right thing on somebody's else advice. I've
had my fling, and I don't mind settling down now."

"What at?"

Philip was not prepared for the question, since in fact

ii.j 0 K II U M A N 15 0 X i> A (i 1C

he had not made up his mind. Mo had thought of <i dozen
callings.

"The most suitable tiling you rouM do is to enter your
father's profession and become a doctor."

"Oddly enough that is precisely what I intend."

lie had thought of doctoring among oilier thir.g.i, chiefly
because it was an occupation which seemed to give a good ,
deal of personal freedom, and his experience of life in an
office had made him determine never to have anything more
to do with one; his answer to the Vicar slipped out almost
unawares, because it was in the nature of a repartee. It
amused him to make up his mind in that accidental way,
and he resolved then and there to enter his father's old
hospital in the autumn.

"Then your two years in Paris may be regarded as so
much wasted time?"

"I don't know about that. I had a very jolly two years,
and I learned one or two useful things."

"What?"

Philip reflected for an instant, and his answer was not
devoid of a gentle desire to annoy.

"I learned to look at hands, which I'd never looked at I
before. And instead of just looking at houses ur.d trees]
I learned to look at houses and trees against ti;e sky. And
I learned also that shadows are not black but coloured."

"I suppose you think you're very clever. I think your
flippancy is quite inane."

H

LIU

TAKING the paper with him Mr. Carey retired to his
study. Philip changed his chair for that in which his uncle
had been sitting (it was the only comfortable one in the
room), and looked out of the window at the pouring rain.
Even in that sad weather there was something restful
about the green fields that stretched to the horizon. There
was an intimate charm in the landscape which he did not
remember ever to have noticed before. Two years in
France had opened his eyes to the beauty of his own coun
try side.

He thought with a smile of his uncle's remark. It was
lucky that the turn of his mind tended to flippancy. He
had begun to realise what a great loss he had sustained in
the death of his father and mother. That was one of the
differences in his life which prevented him from seeing
things in the same way as other people. The love of parents
for their children is the only emotion which is quite dis-
interested. Among strangers he had grown up as best he
could, but he had seldom been used with patience or for-
bearance. He prided himself on his self-control. It had
been whipped into him by the mockery of his fellows.
Then they called him cynical and callous. He had acquired
calmness of demeanour and under most circumstances an
unruffled exterior, so that now he could not show his feel-
ings. People told him he was unemotional ; but he knew
that he was at the mercy of his emotions : an accidental
kindness touched him so much that sometimes he did not
venture to speak in order not to betray the unsteadiness of
his voice. He remembered the bitterness of his life at
school, the humiliation which he had endured, the banter
which had made him morbidly afraid of making himself
ridiculous ; and he remembered the loneliness he had felt
since, faced with the world, the disillusion and the disap*
pointment caused by the difference between what it prom-
sis

3i6 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

ised to his active imagination and what it gave. But not-
withstanding he was able to look at himself from the out-
side and smile with amusement.

"By Jove, if I weren't flippant, I should hang myself,"
he thought cheerfully.

His mind went back to the answer he had given his uncle
when he asked him what he had learnt in Paris. He had
learnt a good deal more than he told him. A conversation
with Cronshaw had stuck in his memory, and one phrase
he had used, a commonplace one enough, had set his brain
working.

"My dear fellow," Cronshaw said, "there's no such
thing as abstract morality."

When Philip ceased to believe in Christianity he felt
that a great weight was taken from his shoulders ; casting
off the responsibility which weighed down every action,
when every action was infinitely important for -the wel-
fare of his immortal soul, he experienced a vivid sense of
liberty. But he knew now that this was an illusion. When
he put away the religion in which he had been brought up,
he had kept unimpaired the morality which was part and
parcel of it. He made up his mind therefore to think things
out for himself. He determined to be swayed by no preju-
dices. He swept away the virtues and the vices, the estab-
lished laws of good and evil, with the idea of finding out
the rules of life for himself. He did not know whether
rules were necessary at all. That was one of the things he
wanted to discover. Clearly much that seemed valid seemed
so only because he had been taught it from his earliest
youth. He had read a number of books, but they did not
help him much, for they were based on the morality of
Christianity; and even the writers who emphasised the
fact that they did not believe in it were never satisfied till
they had framed a system of ethics in accordance with
that of the Sermon on the Mount. It seemed hardly worth
while to read a long volume in order to learn that you
ought to behave exactly like everybody else. Philip wanted
to find out how he ought to behave, and he thought he
could prevent himself from being influenced by the opin-
ions that surrounded him. But meanwhile he had to go on

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 317

living, and, until he formed ?. theory of conduct, he made
himself a provisional rule.

"Follow your inclinations with due regard to the police-
man round the corner."

He thought the best thing he had gained in Paris was a
complete liberty of spirit, and he felt himself at last abso-
lutely free. -In a desultory way he had read a good deal of
philosophy, and he looked forward with delight to the lei-
sure of the next few months. He began to read at hap-
hazard. He entered upon each system with a little thrill
of excitement, expecting to find in each some guide by
which he could rule his conduct ; he felt himself like a trav-
eller in unknown countries and as he pushed forward the
enterprise fascinated him; he read emotionally, as other
men read pure literature, and his heart leaped as he dis-
covered in noble words what himself had obscurely felt.
His mind was concrete and moved with difficulty in regions
of the abstract; but, even when he could not follow the
reasoning, it gave him a curious pleasure to follow the
tortuosities of thoughts that threaded their nimble way on
the edge of the incomprehensible. Sometimes great philos-
ophers seemed to have nothing to say to him, but at others
he recognised a mind with which he felt himself at home.
He was like the explorer in Central Africa who comes
suddenly upon wide uplands, with great trees in them and
stretches of meadow, so that he might fancy himself in
an English park. He delighted in the robust common sense
of Thomas Hobbes; Spinoza filled him with awe, he had
never before come in contact with a mind so noble, so
unapproachable and austere; it reminded him of that
statue by Rodin, L'Age d'Airain, which he passionately ad-
mired; and then there was Hume: the scepticism of that
charming philosopher touched a kindred note in Philip;
and, revelling in the lucid style which seemed able to put
complicated thought into simple words, musical and meas-
ured, he read as he might have read a novel, a smile of
pleasure on his lips. But in none could he find exactly what
he wanted. He had read somewhere that every man was
born a Platonist, an Aristotelian, a Stoic, or an Epicurean ;
and the history of George Henry Lewes (besides telling

3i8 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

you that philosophy was all moonshine) was there to show
that the thought of each philosopher was inseparably con-
nected with the man he was. When you knew that you
could guess to a great extent the philosophy he wrote. It
looked as though you did not act in a certain way because
you thought in a certain way, but rather that you thought
.:n a certain way because you were made in a certain way.
Truth had nothing to do with it. There was no such thing
as truth. Each man was his own philosopher, and the
elaborate systems which the great men of the past had
composed were only valid for the writers.

The thing then was to discover what one was and one's
system of philosophy would devise itself. It seemed to
Philip that there were three things to find out : man's rela-
tion to the world he lives in, man's relation with the men
•among whom he lives, and finally man's relation to himself.
He made an elaborate plan of study.

The advantage of living abroad is that, coming in con-
tact with the manners and customs of the people among
whom you live, you observe them from the outside and see
that they have not the necessity which those who practise
them believe. You cannot fail to discover that the beliefs
which to you are self-evident to the foreigner are absurd.
The year in Germany, the long stay in Paris, had prepared
Philip to receive the sceptical teaching which came to him
now with such a feeling of relief. He saw that nothing was
good and nothing was evil ; things were merely adapted to
an end. He read The Origin of Species. It seemed to offer
an explanation of much that troubled him. He was like
an explorer now who has reasoned that certain natural
features must present themselves, and, beating up a broad
river, finds here the tributary that he expected, there the
fertile, populated plains, and further on the mountains.
When some great discovery is made the world is surprised
afterwards that it was not accepted at once, and even on
those who acknowledge its truth the effect is unimportant.
The first readers of The Origin of Species accepted it with
their reason ; but their emotions, which are the ground of
conduct, were untouched. Philip was born a generation
after this great book was published, and much that horri-

OFHUMANBONDAGE 319

fied its contemporaries had passed into the feeling of the
time, so that he was able to accept it with a joyful heart.
He was intensely moved by the grandeur of the struggle for
life, and the ethical rule which it suggested seemed to fit in
with his predispositions. He said to himself that might
was right. Society stood on one side, an organism with its
own laws of growth and self-preservation, while the indi
vidual stood on the other. The actions which were to tht,
advantage of society it termed virtuous and those which
were not it called vicious. Good and evil meant nothing
more than that. Sin was a prejudice from which the free
man should rid himself. Society had three arms in its con-
test with the individual, laws, public opinion, and con-
science : the first two could be met by guile, guile is the
only weapon of the weak against the strong : common opin-
ion put the matter well when it stated that sin consisted in
being found out ; but conscience was the traitor within the
gates; it fought in each heart the battle of society, and
caused the individual to throw himself, a wanton sacrifice,
to the prosperity of his enemy. For it was clear that the
two were irreconcilable, the state and the individual con-
scious of himself. That uses the individual for its own
ends, trampling upon him if he thwarts it, rewarding him
with medals, pensions, honours, when he serves it faith-
fully; this, strong only in his independence, threads his
way through the state, for convenience' sake, paying in
money or service for certain benefits, but with no sense,
of obligation ; and, indifferent to the rewards, asks only to
be left alone. He is the independent traveller, who uses
Cook's tickets because they save trouble, but looks with
good-humoured contempt on the personally conducted par-
ties. The free man can do no wrong. He does everything
he likes — if he can. His power is the only measure of hif/
morality. He recognises the laws- of the state and he can
break them without sense of sin, but if he is punished he
accepts the punishment without rancour. Society has the
power.

But if for the individual there was no right and no
wrong, then it seemed to Philip that conscience lost its
power. It was with a cry of triumph that he seized the

j20 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

knave and flung him from his breast. But he was no nearer
to the meaning of life than he had been before. Why the
world was there and what men had come into existence for
at all was as inexplicable as ever. Surely there must be
some reason. He thought of Cronshaw's parable of the
Persian Carpet. He offered it as a solution of the riddle,
and mysteriously he stated that it was no answer at all un-
less you found it out for yourself.

"I wonder what the devil he meant," Philip smiled.

And so, on the last day of September, eager to put into
practice all these new theories of life, Philip, with sixteen
hundred pounds and his club-foot, set out for the second
time to London to make his third start in life.

LIV

THE examination Philip had passed before he was arti-
cled to a chartered accountant was sufficient qualification
for him to enter a medical school. He chose St. Luke's
because his father had been a student there, and before
the end of the summer session had gone up to London for
a day in order to see the secretary. He got a list of rooms
from him, and took lodgings in a dingy house which had
the advantage of being within two minutes' walk of the
hospital.

"You'll have to arrange about a part to dissect," the sec-
retary told him. "You'd better start on a leg; they gener-
ally do ; they seem to think it easier."

Philip found that his first lecture was in anatomy, at
eleven, and about half past ten he limped across the road,
and a little nervously made his way to the Medical School.
Just inside the door a number of notices were pinned up,
lists of lectures, football fixtures, and the like ; and these
he looked at idly, trying to seem at his ease. Young men
and boys dribbled in and looked for letters in the rack,
chatted with one another, and passed downstairs to the
basement, in which was the students' reading-room. Philip
saw several fellows with a desultory, timid look dawdling
around, and surmised that, like himself, they were there
for the first time. When he had exhausted the notices he
saw a glass door which led into what was apparently a
museum, and having still twenty minutes to spare he
walked in. It was a collection of pathological specimens.
Presently a boy of about eighteen came up to him.

"I say, are you first year ?" he said.

"Yes," answered Philip.

"Where's the lecture room, d'you know ? It's getting on
for eleven."

"We'd better try to find it."

They walked out of the museum into a long, dark cor-

321

3£2 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

ridor, with the walls painted in two shades of red, and
other youths walking along suggested the way to them
They came to a door marked Anatomy Theatre. Philip
found that there were a good many people already there.
The seats were arranged in tiers, and just as Philip en-
tered an attendant came in, put a glass of water on the
table in the well of the lecture-room and then brought in a
pelvis and two thigh-bones, right and left. More men en-
tered and took their seats and by eleven the theatre was
fairly full. There were about sixty students. For the most
part they were a good deal younger than Philip, smooth-
faced boys of eighteen, but there were a few who were
older than he: he noticed one tall man, with a fierce red
moustache, who might have been thirty ; another little fel-
low with black hair, only a year or two younger ; and there
was one man with spectacles and a beard which was quite
gray.

The lecturer came in, Mr. Cameron, a handsome man
with white hair and clean-cut features. He called out the
long list of names. Then he made a little speech. He spoke
in a pleasant voice, with well-chosen words, and he seemed
to take a discreet pleasure in their careful arrangement.
He suggested one or two books which they might buy and
advised the purchase of a skeleton. He spoke of anatomy
with enthusiasm: it was essential to the study of Sur-
gery; a knowledge of it added to the appreciation of art.
Philip pricked up his ears. He heard later that Mr. Cam-
eron lectured also to the students at the Royal Academy.
He had lived many years in Japan, with a post at the Uni-
versity of Tokio. and he flattered himself on his apprecia-
tion of the beautiful.

"You will have to learn many tedious things," he fin-
ished, with an indulgent smile, "which you will forget the
moment you have passed your final examination, but in
anatomy it is better to have learned and lost than never to
have learned at all."

He took up the pelvis which was lying on the table and
began to describe it. He spoke well and clearly.

At the end of the lecture the boy who had spoken to
Philip in the pathological museum and sat next to him in

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 323

the theatre suggested that they should go to the dissecting-
room. Philip and he walked along the corridor again, and
an attendant told them where it was. As soon as they
entered Philip understood what the acrid smell was which
he had noticed in the passage. He lit a pipe. The attendant
gave a short laugh.

"You'll soon get used to the smell. I don't notice it my-
self."

He asked Philip's name and looked at a list on the board.

"You've got a leg — number four."

Philip saw that another name was bracketed with his
own.

"What's the meaning of that?" he asked.

"We're very short of bodies just now. We've had to put
two on each part."

The dissecting-room was a large apartment painted like
the corridors, the upper part a rich salmon and the dado
a dark terra-cotta. At regular intervals down the long sides
of the room, at right angles with the wall, were iron slabs,
grooved like meat-dishes ; and on each lay a body. Most of
them were men. They were very dark from the preserva-
tive in which they had been kept, and the skin had almost
the look of leather. They were extremely emaciated. The
attendant took Philip up to one of the slabs. A youth was
standing by it.

"1$ your name Carey ?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Oh, then we've got this leg together. It's lucky it's a
man, isn't it?"

"Why?" asked Philip.

"They generally always like a male better," said the at-
tendant. "A female's liable to have a lot of fat about her."

Philip looked at the body. The arms and legs were so
thin that there was no shape in them, and the ribs stood
out so that the skin over them was tense. A man of about
forty-five with a thin, gray beard, and on his skull scanty,
colourless hair: the eyes were closed and the lower jaw
sunken. Philip could not feel that this had ever been a man,
and yet in the row of them there was something terrible
and ghastly.

324 OF HUM AN BOND AGE

"I thought I'd start at two," said the young man who
was dissecting with Philip.

"All right, I'll be here then."

He had bought the day before the case of instruments
which was needful, and now he was given a locker. He
looked at the boy who had accompanied him into the
'lissecting-room and saw that he was white.

"Make you feel rotten?" Philip asked him.

"I've never seen anyone dead before."

They walked along the corridor till they came to the
entrance of the school. Philip remembered Fanny Price.
She was the first dead person he had ever seen, and he re-
membered how strangely it had affected him. There was
an immeasurable distance between the quick and the dead :
they did not seem to belong to the same species ; and it was
strange to think that but a little while before they had
spoken and moved and eaten and laughed. There was some-
thing horrible about the dead, and you could imagine that
they might cast an evil influence on the living.

"What d'you say to having something to eat ?" said his
new friend to Philip.

They went down into the basement, where there was a
dark room fitted up as a restaurant, and here the students
were able to get the same sort of fare as they might have
at an aerated bread shop. While they ate (Philip had a
scone and butter and a cup of chocolate), he discovered
that his companion was called Dunsford. He was a fresh-
complexioned lad, with pleasant blue eyes and curly, dark
hair, large-limbed, slow of speech and movement. He had
just come from Clifton.

"Are you taking the Conjoint ?" he asked Philip.

"Yes, I want to get qualified as soon as I can."

"I'm taking it too, but I shall take the F. R. C. S. after-
wards. I'm going in for surgery."

Most of the students took the curriculum of the Con-
joint Board of the College of Surgeons and the College of
Physicians; but the more ambitious or the more industri-
ous added to this the longer studies which led to a degree
from the University of London. When Philip went to St.
Luke's changes had recently been made in the regulations,

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 325

and the course took five years instead of four as it had
done for those who registered before the autumn of 1892.
Duns ford was wel) up in his plans and told Philip the
usual course of events. The "first conjoint" examination
consisted of Biology, Anatomy, and Chemistry; but it
could be taken in sections, and most fellows took their
biology three months after entering the school. This sci-
ence had been recently added to the list of subjects upon
which the student was obliged to inform himself, but the
amount of knowledge required was very small.

When Philip went back to the dissecting-room, he was
a few minutes late, since he had forgotten to buy the loose
sleeves which they wore to protect their shirts, and he
found a number of men already working. His partner had
started on the minute and was busy dissecting out cutane-
ous nerves. Two others were engaged on the second leg,
and more were occupied with the arms.

"You don't mind my having started ?"

"That's all right, fire away," said Philip.

He took the book, open at a diagram of the dissected
part, and looked at what they had to find.

"You're rather a dab at this," said Philip.

"Oh, I've done a good deal of dissecting before, ani-
mals, you know, for the Pre Sci."

There was a certain amount of conversation over the
dissecting-table, partly about the work, partly about the
prospects of the football season, the demonstrators, and
the lectures. Philip felt himself a great deal older than the
others. They were raw schoolboys. But age is a matter of
knowledge rather than of years ; and Newson, the active
young man who was dissecting with him, was very much
at home with his subject. He was perhaps not sorry to
show off, and he explained very fully to Philip what he
was about. Philip, notwithstanding his hidden stores of
wisdom, listened meekly. Then Philip took up the scalpel
and the tweezers and began working while the other looked
on.

"Ripping to have him so thin," said Newson, wiping his
hands. "The blighter can't have had anything to eat for a
month."

326 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

"I wonder what he died of," murmured Philip.

"Oh, I don't know, any old thing, starvation chiefly, I
suppose. ... I say, look out, don't cut that artery."

"It's all very fine to say, don't cut that artery," remarked
one of the men working on the opposite leg. "Silly old
fool's got an artery in the wrong place."

"Arteries always are in the wrong place," said Newson.
"The normal's the one thing you practically never get.
That's why it's called the normal."

"Don't say things like that," said Philip, "or I shall cut
myself."

"If you cut yourself," answered Newson, full of infor-
mation, "wash it at once with antiseptic. It's the one thing
you've got to be careful about. There was a chap here last
year who gave himself only a prick, and he didn't bother
about it, and he got septicaemia."

"Did he get all right?"

"Oh, no, he died in a week. I went and had a look at him
in the P. M. room."

Philip's back ached by the time it was proper to have
tea, and his luncheon had been so light that he was quite
ready for it. His hands smelt of that peculiar odour which
he had first noticed that morning in the corridor. He
thought his muffin tasted of it too.

"Oh, you'll get used to that," said Newson. "When you
don't have the good old dissecting-room stink about, you
feel quite lonely."

"I'm not going to let it spoil my appetite," said Philip,
as he followed up the muffin with a piece of cake.

LV

PHILIP'S ideas of the life of medical students, like those
of the public at large, were founded on the pictures which
Charles Dickens drew in the middle of the nineteenth cen-
tury. He soon discovered that Bob Sawyer, if he ever ex-
isted, was no longer at all like the medical student of the
present.

It is a mixed lot which enters upon the medical profes-
sion, and naturally there are some who are lazy and reck-
less. They think it is an easy life, idle away a couple of
years ; and then, because their funds come to an end or
because angry parents refuse any longer to support them,
drift away from the hospital. Others find the examina-
tions too hard for them; one failure after another robs
them of their nerve; and, panic-stricken, they forget as
soon as they come into the forbidding buildings of the
Conjoint Board the knowledge which before they had so
pat. They remain year after year, objects of good-
humoured scorn to younger men: some of them crawl
through the examination of the Apothecaries Hall ; others
become non-qualified assistants, a precarious position in
which they are at the mercy of their employer ; their lot is
poverty, drunkenness, and Heaven only knows their end.
But for the most part medical students are industrious
young men of the middle-class with a sufficient allowance
to live in the respectable fashion they have been used to;
many are the sons of doctors who have already something
of the professional manner; their career is mapped out:
as soon as they are qualified they propose to apply for a
hospital appointment, after holding which (and perhaps a
trip to the Far East as a ship's doctor), they will join their
father and spend the rest of their days in a country prac-
tice. One or two are marked out as exceptionally brilliant :
they will take the various prizes and scholarships which
are open each year to the deserving, get one appointment

327

328 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

after another at the hospital, go on the staff, take a
consulting-room in Harley Street, and, specialising in one
subject or another, become prosperous, eminent, and titled.

The medical profession is the only one which a man may
enter at any age with some chance of making a living.
Among the men of Philip's year were three or four who
were past their first youth: one had been in the Navy,
from which according to report he had been dismissed for
drunkenness; he was a man of thirty, with a red face, a
brusque manner, and a loud voice. Another was a married
man with two children, who had lost money through a de-
faulting solicitor ; he had a bowed look as if the world were
too much for him ; he went about his work silently, and it
was plain that he found it difficult at his age to commit
facts to memory. His mind worked slowly. His effort at
application was painful to see.

Philip made himself at home in his tiny rooms. He ar-
ranged his books and hung on the walls such pictures and
sketches as he possessed. Above him, on the drawing-room
floor, lived a fifth-year man called Griffiths ; but Philip saw
little of him, partly because he was occupied chiefly in' the
wards and partly because he had been to Oxford. Such of
the students as had been to a university kept a good deal
together: they used a variety of means natural to the
young in order to impress upon the less fortunate a proper
sense of their inferiority; the rest of the students found
their Olympian serenity rather hard to bear. Griffiths was
a tall fellow, with a quantity of curly red hair and blue
eyes, a white skin and a very red mouth ; he was one of
those fortunate people whom everybody liked, for he had
high spirits and a constant gaiety. He strummed a little on
the piano and sang comic songs with gusto; and evening
after evening, while Philip was reading in his solitary
room, he heard the shouts and the uproarious laughter of
Griffiths' friends above him. He thought of those delight-
ful evenings in Paris when they would sit in the studio,
Lawson and he, Flanagan and Glutton, and talk of art and
morals, the love-affairs of the present, and the fame of
the future. He felt sick at heart. He found that it was easy
to make a heroic gesture, but hard to abide by its results.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 329

The worst of it was that the work seemed to him very te-
dious. He had got out of the habit of being asked questions
by demonstrators. His attention wandered at lectures.
Anatomy was a dreary science, a mere matter of learning
by heart an enormous number of facts; dissection bored
him; he did not see the use of dissecting out laboriously
nerves and arteries when with much less trouble you could
see in the diagrams of a book or in the specimens of the
pathological museum exactly where they were.

He made friends by chance, but not intimate friends, for
he seemed to have nothing in particular to say to his com-
panions. When he tried to interest himself in their con-
cerns, he felt that they found him patronising. He was not")
of those who can talk of what moves them without caring
whether it bores or not the people they talk to. One man,
hearing that he had studied art in Paris, and fancying him-
self on his taste, tried to discuss art with him; but Philip
was impatient of views whjeh did not agree with his own ;
and, rinding quickly that the other's ideas were conven-
tional, grew monosyllabic. Philip desired popularity but
could bring himself to make no advances to others. A fear
of rebuff prevented him from affability, and he concealed
his shyness, which was still intense, under a frigid tacitur-
nity. He was going through the same experience as he
had done at school, but here the freedom of the medical
students' life made it possible for him to live a good deal
by himself.

It was through no effort of his that he became friendly
with Dunsford, the fresh-complexioned, heavy lad whose
•acquaintance he had made at the beginning of the session.
Dunsford attached himself to Philip merely because he
was the first person he had known at St. Luke's. He had
no friends in London, and on Saturday nights he and
Philip got into the habit of going together to the pit of a
music-hall or the gallery of a theatre. He was stupid, but
he was good-humoured and never took offence ; he always
said the obvious thing, but when Philip laughed at him
merely smiled. He had a very sweet smile. Though Philip
made him his butt, he liked him; he was amused by his
candour and delighted with his agreeable nature: Duns-

330 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

ford had the charm which himself was acutely conscious
of not possessing.

They often went to have tea at a shop in Parliament
Street, because Dunsf ord admired one of the young women
who waited. Philip did not find anything attractive in her.
She was tall and thin, with narrow hips and the chest of a
boy.

"No one would look at her in Paris," said Philip scorn-
fully.

"She's got a ripping face," said Dunsford.

"What does the face matter?"

She had the small regular features, the blue eyes, and
the broad low brow, which the Victorian painters, Lord
Leighton, Alma Tadema, and a hundred others, induced
the world they lived in to accept as a type of Greek beauty.
She seemed to have a great deal of hair : it was arranged
with peculiar elaboration and done over the forehead in
what she called an Alexandra fringe. She was very anae-
mic. Her thin lips were pale, and her skin was deli-
cate, of a faint green colour, without a touch of red even
in the cheeks. She had very good teeth. She took great
pains to prevent her work from spoiling her hands, and
they were small, thin, and white. She went about her du-
ties with a bored look.

Dunsford, very shy with women, had never succeeded
in getting into conversation with her ; and he urged Philip
to help him.

"All I want is a lead," he said, "r.nd then I can manage
for myself."

Philip, to please him, made one or two remarks, but she
answered with monosyllables. She had taken their measure.
They were boys, and she surmised they were students. She
had no use for them. Dunsford noticed that a man with
sandy hair and a bristly moustache, who looked like a Ger-
man, was favoured with her attention whenever he came
into the shop ; and then it was only by calling her two or
three times that they could induce her to take their order.
She used the clients whom she did not know with frigid
insolence, and when she was talking to a friend was per-

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 331

fectly indifferent to the calls of the hurried. She had the
art of treating women who desired refreshment with just
that degree of impertinence which irritated them without
affording them an opportunity of complaining to the man-
agement. One day Dunsford told him her name was Mil-
dred. He had heard one of the other girls in the shop
address her.

"What an odious name," said Philip.

"Why?" asked Dunsford. "I like it."

"It's so pretentious."

It chanced that on this day the German was not there,
and, when she brought the tea, Philip, smiling, remarked :

"Your friend's not here today."

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

"I was referring to the nobleman with the sandy mous-
tache. Has he left you for another?"

"Some people would do better to mind their own busi-
ness," she retorted.

She left them, and, since for a minute or two there was
no one to attend to, sat down and looked at the evening
paper which a customer had left behind him.

"You are a fool to put her back up," said Dunsford.

"I'm really quite indifferent to the attitude of her ver-
tebrae," replied Philip.

But he was piqued. It irritated him that when he tried to
be agreeable with a woman she should take offence. Wher,
he asked for the bill, he hazarded a remark which he meant
to lead further.

"Are we no longer on speaking terms ?" he smiled.

"I'm here to take orders and to wait on customers. I've
got nothing to say to them, and I don't want them to say
anything to me."

She put down the slip of paper on which she had marked
the sum they had to pay, and walked back to the table at
which she had been sitting. Philip flushed with anger.

"That's one in the eye for you, Carey," said Dunsford,
when they got outside.

"Ill-mannered slut," said Philip. "I shan't go there
again."

3^2 O F H U M A X B O N D A G E

His influence with Duns ford was strong enough to get
him to take their tea elsewhere, and Dunsford soon found
another young woman to flirt with. But the snub which
the waitress had inflicted on him rankled. If she had
treated him with civility he would have been perfectly in-
different to her; but it was obvious that she disliked him
rather than otherwise, and his pride was wounded. He
could not suppress a desire to be even with her. He was
impatient with himself because he had so petty a feeling,
but three or four days' firmness, during which he would
not go to the shop, did not help him to surmount it ; and
he came to the conclusion that it would be least trouble to
see her. Having done so he would certainly cease to think
of her. Pretexting an appointment one afternoon, for he
was not a little ashamed of his weakness, he left Dunsford
and went straight to the shop which he had vowed never
again to enter. He saw the waitress the moment he came in
and sat down at one of her tables. He expected her to
make some reference to the fact that he had not been
there for a week, but when she came up for his order she
said nothing. He had heard her say to other customers :

"You're quite a stranger."

She gave no sign that she had ever seen him before.
In order to see whether she had really forgotten him,
when she brought his tea, he asked :

"Have you seen my friend tonight ?"

"No, he's not been in here for some days."

He wanted to use this as the beginning of a conversa-
tion, but he was strangely nervous and could think of noth-
ing to say. She gave him no opportunity, but at once went
away. He had no chance of saying anything till he asked
for his bill.

"Filthy weather, isn't it?" he said.

It was mortfying that he had been forced to prepare
such a phrase as that. He could not make out why she
filled him with such embarrassment.

"It don't make much difference to me what the weather
is, having to be in here all day."

There was an insolence in her tone that peculiarly irri-

OF HUMAN BONDAGE

333

tated him. A sarcasm rose to his lips, but he forced him-
self to be silent.

"I wish to God she'd say something really cheeky," he
raged to himself, "so that 1 cculd report her and get her
sacked. It would serve her damned well right."

LVI

HE could not get her out of his mind. He laughed an-
grily at his own foolishness : it was absurd to care what
an anaemic little waitress said to him ; but he was strangely
humiliated. Though no one knew of the humiliation but
Duns ford, and he had certainly forgotten, Philip felt that
he could have no peace till he had wiped it out. He thought
over what he had better do. He made up his mind that he
would go to the shop every day; it was obvious that he
had made a disagreeable impression on her, but he thought
he had the wits to eradicate it ; he would take care not to
say anything at which the most susceptible person could be
offended. All this he did, but it had no effect. When he
went in and said good-evening she answered with the same
words, but when once he omitted to say it in order to see
whether she would say it first, she said nothing at all. He
murmured in his heart an expression which though fre-
quently applicable to members of the female sex is not
often used of them in polite society; but with an un-
moved face he ordered his tea. He made up his mind not
to speak a word, and left the shop without his usual good-
night. He promised himself that he would not go any more,
but the next day at tea-time he grew restless. He tried to
think of other things, but he had no command over his
thoughts. At last he said desperately :

"After all there's no reason why I shouldn't go if I
want to."

The struggle with himself had taken a long time, and it
was getting on for seven when he entered the shop.

"I thought you weren't coming," the girl said to him,
when he sat down.

His heart leaped in his bosom and he felt himself red-
dening. "I was detained. I couldn't come before."

"Cutting up people, I suppose?"

"Not so bad as that."

334

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 335

"You are a stoodent, aren't you?"

"Yes."

But that seemed to satisfy her curiosity. She went away
and, since at that late hour there was nobody else at her
tables, she immersed herself in a novelette. This was be-
fore the time of the sixpenny reprints. There was a regular"!
supply of inexpensive fiction written to order by poor
hacks for the consumption of the illiterate. Philip was
elated ; she had addressed him of her own accord ; he saw
the time approaching when his turn would come and he
would tell her exactly what he thought of her. It would be
a great comfort to express the immensity of his contempt.
He looked at her. It was true that her profile was beauti-
ful; it was extraordinary how English girls of that class
had so often a perfection of outline which took your
breath away, but it was as cold as marble; and the faint
green of her delicate skin gave an impression of unhealthi-
ness. All the waitresses were dressed alike, in plain black
dresses, with a white apron, cuffs, and a small cap. On a
half sheet of paper that he had in his pocket Philip made
a sketch of her as she sat leaning over her book (she out-
lined the words with her lips as she read), and left it on
the table when he went away. It was an inspiration, for
next day, when he came in, she smiled at him.

"I didn't know you could draw," she said.

"I was an art-student in Paris for two years."

"I showed that drawing you left be'ind you last night to
the manageress and she was struck with it. Was it meant
to be me ?"

"It was," said Philip.

When she went for his tea, one of the other girls came
up to him.

"I saw that picture you done of Miss Rogers. It was the
very image of her," she said.

That was the first time he had heard her name, and
when he wanted his bill he called her by it.

"I see you know my name," she said, when she came.

"Your friend mentioned it when she said something to
rne about that drawing."

"She wants you to do one of her. Don't you do it. If you

336 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

once begin you'll have to go on, and they'll all be wanting
you to do them." Then without a pause, with peculiar in-
consequence, she said: "Where's that young fellow that
used to come with you ? Has he gone away ?"

"Fancy your remembering him," said Philip.

"He was a nice-looking young fellow."

Philip felt quite a peculiar sensation in his heart. He did
not know what it was. Dunsford had jolly curling hair,
a fresh complexion, and a beautiful smile. Philip thought
of these advantages with envy.

"Oh, he's in love," said he, with a little laugh.

Philip repeated every word of the conversation to him-
self as he limped home. She was quite friendly with him
now. When opportunity arose he would offer to make a
more finished sketch of her, he was sure she would like
that ; her face was interesting, the profile was lovely, and
there was something curiously fascinating about the chlo-
rotic colour. He tried to think what it was like; at first
he thought of pea soup; but, driving away that idea an-
grily, he thought of the petals of a yellow rosebud when
you tore it to pieces before it had burst. He had no ill-
feeling towards her now.

"She's not a bad sort," he murmured.

It was silly of him to take offence at what she had said ;
it was doubtless his own fault ; she had not meant to make
herself disagreeable : he ought to be accustomed by now to
making at first sight a bad impression on people. He was
flattered at the success of his drawing; she looked upon
him with more interest now that she was aware of this
small talent. He was restless next day. He thought of go-
ing to lunch at the tea-shop, but he was certain there would
be many people there then, and Mildred would not be able
to talk to him. He had managed before this to get out of
having tea with Dunsford, and, punctually at half past
four (he had looked at his watch a dozen times), he went
into the shop.

Mildred had her back turned to him. She was sitting
down, talking to the German whom Philip had seen there
every day till a fortnight ago and since then had not seen
At all. She was laughing at what he said. Philio thought she

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 337

had a common laugh, and it made him shudder. He called
her, but she took no notice; he called her again; then,
growing angry, for he was impatient, he rapped the table
loudly with his stick. She approached sulkily.

"How d'ycm do?" he said.

"You seem to be in a great hurry."

She looked down at him with the insolent manner which
he knew so well.

"I say, what's the matter with you ?" he asked.

"If you'll kindly give your order I'll get what you want.
I can't stand talking all night."

" Tea and toasted bun, please," Philip answered briefly.

He was furious with her. He had The Star with him and
read it elaborately when she brought the tea.

"If you'll give me my bill now I needn't trouble you
again," he said icily.

She wrote out the slip, placed it on the table, and went
back to the German. Soon she was talking to him with ani-
mation. He was a man of middle height, with the round
head of his nation and a sallow face; his moustache was
large and bristling ; he had on a tail-coat and gray trousers,
and he wore a massive gold watch-chain. Philip thought
the other girls looked from him to the pair at the table and
exchanged significant glances. He felt certain they were
laughing at him, and his blood boiled. He detested Mildred
now with all his heart. He knew that the best thing he
could do was to cease coming to the tea-shop, but he could
not bear to think that he had been worsted in the affair,
and he devised a plan to show her that he despised her.
Next day he sat down at another table and ordered his tea
from another waitress. Mildred's friend was there again
and she was talking to him. She paid no attention to Philip,
and so when he went out he chose a moment when she had
to cross his path : as he passed he looked at her as though
he had never seen her before. He repeated this for three
or four days. He expected that presently she would take the
opportunity to say something to him ; he thought she would
ask why he never came to one of her tables now, and he
had prepared an answer charged with all the loathing he
felt for her. He knew it was absurd to trouble, but he

338 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

could not help himself. She had beaten him again. The
German suddenly disappeared, but Philip still sat at other
tables. She paid no attention to him. Suddenly he realised
that what he did was a matter of complete indifference to
her ; he could go on in that way till doomsday, and it would
have no effect.

"I've not finished yet," he said to himself.

The day after he sat down in his old seat, and when she
came up said good-evening as though he had not ignored
her for a week. His face was placid, but he could not pre-
vent the mad beating of his heart. At that time the musical
comedy had lately leaped into public favour, and he was
sure that Mildred would be delighted to go to one.

"I say," he said suddenly, "I wonder if you'd dine with
me one night and come to The Belle of New York. I'll get
a couple of stalls."

He added the last sentence in order to tempt her. He
knew that when the girls went to the play it was either in
the pit, or, if some man took them, seldom to more expen-
sive seats than the upper circle. Mildred's pale face showed
no change of expression.

"I don't mind," she said.

" Wheri will you come ?"

"I get off early on Thursdays."

They made arrangements. Mildred lived with an aunt at
Herne Hill. The play began at eight so they must dine at
seven. She proposed that he should meet her in the second-
class waiting-room at Victoria Station. She showed no
pleasure, but accepted the invitation as though she con-
ferred a favour. Philip was vaguely irritated.

LVII

PHILIP arrived at Victoria Station nearly half an hour
before the time which Mildred had appointed, and sat
down in the second-class waiting-room. He waited and she
did not come. He began to grow anxious, and walked into
the station watching the incoming suburban trains ; the
hour which she had fixed passed, and still there was no
sign of her. Philip was impatient. He went into the other
waiting-rooms and looked at the people sitting in them.
Suddenly his heart gave a great thud.

"There you are. I thought you were never coming."

"I like that after keeping me waiting all this time. I had
half a mind to go back home again."

"But you said you'd come to the second-class waiting-
room."

"I didn't say any such thing. It isn't exactly likely I'd
sit in the second-class room when I could sit in the firsl,
is it?"

Though Philip was sure he had not made a mistake, h*
said nothing, and they got into a cab.

"Where are we dining?" she asked.

"I thought of the Adelphi Restaurant. Will that suH
you ?"

"I don't mind where we dine."

She spoke ungraciously. She was put out by being kept
waiting and answered Philip's attempt at conversation with
monosyllables. She wore a long cloak of some rough, dark
material and a crochet shawl over her head. They reached
the restaurant and sat down at a table. She looked round
with satisfaction. The red shades to the candles on the ta-
bles, the gold of the decorations, the looking-glasses, lent
the room a sumptuous air.

"I've never been here before."

She gave Philip a smile. She had taken off her cloak ; and

339

340 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

he saw that she wore a pale blue dress, cut square at the
neck; and her hair as more elaborately arranged than
ever. He had ordered champagne and when it came her
eyes sparkled.

"You are going it," she said.

"Because I've ordered fiz?" he asked carelessly, as
though he never drank anything else.

"I was surprised when you asked me to do a theatre with
you."

Conversation did not go very easily, for she did not seem
to have much to say; and Philip was nervously conscious
that he was not amusing her. She listened carelessly to his
remarks, with her eyes on other diners, and made no pre-
tence that she was interested in him. He made one or two
little jokes, but she took them quite seriously. The only
sign of vivacity he got was when he spoke of the other
girls in the shop; she could not bear the manageress and
told him all her misdeeds at length.

"I can't stick her at any price and all the air she gives
herself. Sometimes I've got more than half a mind to tell
her something she doesn't think I know anything about."

"What is that ?" asked Philip.

"Well, I happen to know that she's not above going to
Eastbourne with a man for the week-end now and again.
One of the girls has a married sister who goes there with
her husband, and she's seen her. She was staying at the
same boarding-house, and she 'ad a wedding-ring on, and
I know for one she's not married."

Philip filled her glass, hoping that champagne would
make her more affable ; he was anxious that his little jaunt
should be a success. He noticed that she held her knife as
though it were a pen-holder, and when she drank pro-
truded her little finger. He started several topics of con-
versation, but he could get little out of her, and he remem-
bered with irritation that he had seen her talking nineteen
to the dozen and laughing with the German. They finished
dinner and went to the play. Philip was a very cultured
young man, and he looked upon musical comedy with
scorn. He thought the jokes vulgar and the melodies obvi-

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 341

ous; it seemed to him that they did these things much
better in France ; but Mildred enjoyed herself thoroughly ;
she laughed till her sides ached, looking at Philip now and
then when something tickled her to exchange a glance of
pleasure ; and she applauded rapturously.

"This is the seventh time I've been," she said, after the
first act, "and I don't mind if I come seven times more."

She was much interested in the women who surrounded
them in the stalls. She pointed out to Philip those who
were painted and those who wore false hair.

"It is horrible, these West-end people," she said. "I don't
know how they can do it." She put her hand to her hair.
"Mine's all my own, every bit of it."

She found no one to admire, and whenever she spoke of
anyone it was to say something disagreeable. It made Philip
uneasy. He supposed that next day she would tell the girls
in the shop that he had taken her out and that he had bored
her to death. He disliked her, and yet, he knew not why,
he wanted to be with her. On the way home he asked :

"I hope you've enjoyed yourself ?"

"Rather."

"Will you come out with me again one evening?"

"I don't mind."

He could never get beyond such expressions as that. Her
indifference maddened him.

"That sounds as if you didn't much care if you came or
not."

"Oh, if you don't take me out some other fellow will. I
need never want for men who'll take me to the theatre."

Philip was silent. They came to the station, and he went
to the booking-office.

"I've got my season," she said.

"I thought I'd take you home as it's rather late, if you
don't mind."

"Oh, I don't mind if it gives you any pleasure."

He took a single first for her and a return for himself.

"Well, you're not mean, I will say that for you," she
said, when he opened the carriage-door.

Philip did not know whether he was pleased or sorry;

342 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

when other people entered and it was impossible to speak.
They got out at Herne Hill, and he accompanied her to
the corner of the road in which she lived.

"I'll say good-night to you here," she said, holding out
her hand. "You'd better not come up to the door. I know
what people are, and I don't want to have anybody talk-
ing."

She said good-night and walked quickly away. He could
see the white shawl in the darkness. He thought she might
turn round, but she did not. Philip saw which house she
went into, and in a moment he walked along to look at it.
It was a trim, common little house of yellow brick, exactly
like all the other little houses in the street. He stood out-
side for a few minutes, and presently the window on the
top floor was darkened. Philip strolled slowly back to the
station. The evening had been unsatisfactory. He felt irri-
tated, restless, and miserable.

When he lay in bed he seemed still to see her sitting in
the corner of the railway carriage, with the white crochet
shawl over her head. He did not know how he was to get
through the hours that must pass before his eyes rested on
her again. He thought drowsily of her thin face, with its
delicate features, and the greenish pallor of her skin. He
was not happy with her, but he was unhappy away from
her. He wanted to sit by her side and look at her, he
wanted to touch her, he wanted . . . the thought came to
him and he did not finish it, suddenly he grew wide awake
... he wanted to kiss the thin, pale mouth with its nar-
row lips. The truth came to him at last. He was in love
with her. It was incredible.

He had often thought of falling in love, and there was
one scene which he had pictured to himself over and over
again. He saw himself coming into a ball-room ; his eyes
fell on a little group of men and women talking ; and one
of the women turned round. Her eyes fell upon him, and
he knew that the gasp in his throat was in her throat too.
He stood quite still. She was tall and dark and beautiful
with eyes like the night ; she was dressed in white, and in
her black hair shone diamonds ; they stared at one another,
forgetting that people surrounded them. He went straight

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 343

up to her, and she moved a little towards him. Both felt
that the formality of introduction was out of place. He
spoke to her.

"I've been looking for you all my life," he said.

"You've come at last," she murmured.

"Will you dance with me ?"

She surrendered herself to his outstretched hands and
they danced. (Philip always pretended that he was not
lame.) She danced divinely.

"I've never danced with anyone who danced like you,"
she said.

She tore up her programme, and they danced together
the whole evening.

"I'm so thankful that I waited for you," he said to her.
"I knew that in the end I must meet you."

People in the ball-room stared. They did not care. The}
did not wish to hide their passion. At last they went into
the garden. He flung a light cloak over her shoulders and
put her in a waiting cab. They caught the midnight train
to Paris; and they sped through the silent, star-lit night
into the unknown.

He thought of this old fancy of his, and it seemed im-
possible that he should be in love with Mildred Rogers.
Her name was grotesque. He did not think her pretty; he
hated the thinness of her, only that evening he had noticed
how the bones of her chest stood out in evening-dress ; he
went over her features one by one; he did not like her
mouth, and the unhealthiness of her colour vaguely re-
pelled him. She was common. Her phrases, so bald and
few, constantly repeated, showed the emptiness of her
mind ; he recalled her vulgar little laugh at the jokes of the
musical comedy ; and he remembered the little finger care-
fully extended when she held her glass to her mouth ; her
manners, like her conversation, were odiously genteel. He
remembered her insolence ; sometimes he had felt inclined
to box her ears ; and suddenly, he knew not why, perhaps it
was the thought of hitting her or the recollection of her
tiny, beautiful ears, he was seized by an uprush of emotion.
He yearned for her. He thought of taking her in his arms,
the thin, fragile body, and kissing her pale mouth: he

344 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

wanted to pass his fingers down the slightly greenish
cheeks. He wanted her.

He had thought of love as a rapture which seized one so
that all the world seemed spring-like, he had looked for-
ward to an ecstatic happiness ; but this was not happiness ;
it was a hunger of the soul, it was a painful yearning, it
was a bitter anguish, he had never known before. He tried
to think when it had first come to him. He did not know.
He only remembered that each time he had gone into the
shop, after the first two or three times, it had been with
a little feeling in the heart that was pain ; and he remem-
bered that when she spoke to him he felt curiously breath-
less. When she left him it was wretchedness, and when she
came to him again it was despair.

He stretched himself in his bed as a dog stretches him-
self. He wondered how he was going to endure that cease-
less aching of his soul.

LVIII

PHILIP woke early next morning, and his first thought
was of Mildred. It struck him that he might meet her at
Victoria Station and walk with her to the shop. He shaved
quickly, scrambled into his clothes, and took a bus to the
station. He was there by twenty to eight and watched the
incoming trains. Crowds poured out of them, clerks and
shop-people at that early hour, and thronged up the plat-
form : they hurried along, sometimes in pairs, here and
there a group of girls, but more often alone. They were
white, most of them, ugly in the early morning, and they
had an abstracted look; the younger ones walked lightly,
as though the cement of the platform were pleasant ta
tread, but the others went as though impelled by a ma-
chine : their faces were set in an anxious frown.

At last Philip saw Mildred, and he went up to her
eagerly.

"Good-morning," he said. "I thought I'd come and see
how you were after last night."

She wore an old brown ulster and a sailor hat. It was
very clear that she was not pleased to see him.

"Oh, I'm all right. I haven't got much time to waste."

"D'you mind if I walk down Victoria Street with you ?"

"I'm none too early. I shall have to walk fast," she an-
swered, looking down at Philip's club-foot.

He turned scarlet.

"I beg your pardon. I won't detain you."

"You can please yourself."

She went on, and he with a sinking heart made his way
home to breakfast. He hated her. He knew he was a fool
to bother about her ; she was not the sort of woman who
would ever care two straws for him, and she must look
upon his deformity with distaste. He made up his mind
that he would not go in to tea that afternoon, but, hating

345

346 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

himself, he went. She nodded to him as he came in and
smiled.

"I expect I was rather short with you this morning,"
she said. "You see, I didn't expect you, and it came like a
surprise."

"Oh, it doesn't matter at all."

He felt that a great weight had suddenly been lifted
from him. He was infinitely grateful for one word of
kindness.

"Why don't you sit down?" he asked. "Nobody's want-
ing you just now."

"I don't mind if I do."

He looked at her, but could think of nothing to say ; he
racked his brains anxiously, seeking for a remark which
should keep her by him ; he wanted to tell her how much
she meant to him ; but he did not know how to make love
now that he loved in earnest.

"Where's your friend with the fair moustache ? I haven't
seen him lately."

"Oh, he's gone back to Birmingham. He's in business
there. He only comes up to London every now and again."

"Is he in love with you?"

"You'd better ask him," she said, with a laugh. "I don't
know what it's got to do with you if he is."

A bitter answer leaped to his tongue, but he was learn-
. ing self-restraint.

"I wonder why you say things like that," was all he per-
mitted himself to say.

She looked at him with those indifferent eyes of hers.

"It looks as if you didn't set much store on me," he
ad!ded.

"Why should I?"

"Xo reason at all."

He reached over for his paper.

"You are quick-tempered," she said, when she saw the
gesture. "You do take offence easily."

He smiled and looked at her appealingly.

"Will you do something for me ?" he asked.

"That depends what it is."

"Let me walk back to the station with you tonight."

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 347

"I don't mind."

He went out after tea and went back to his rooms, but
at eight o'clock, when the shop closed, he was waiting out-
side.

"You are a caution," she said, when she came out. "I
don't understand you."

"I shouldn't have thought it was very difficult," he an-
swered bitterly.

"Did any of the girls see you waiting for me ?"

"I don't know and I don't care."

"They all laugh at you, you know. They say you're
spoony on me."

"Much you care," he muttered.

"Now then, quarrelsome."

At the station he took a ticket and said he was going to
accompany her home.

"You don't seem to have much to do with your time,"
she said.

"I suppose I can waste it in my own way."

They seemed to be always on the verge of a quarrel. The
fact was that he hated himself for loving her. She seemed
to be constantly humiliating him, and for each snub that
he endured he owed her a grudge. But she was in a friendly
mood that evening, and talkative: she told him that her
parents were dead ; she gave him to understand that she
did not have to earn her living, but worked for amuse-
ment.

"My aunt doesn't like my going to business. I can have
the best of everything at home. I don't want you to think
I work because I need to."

Philip knew that she was not speaking the truth. The
gentility of her class made her use this pretence to avoid
the stigma attached to earning her living.

"My family's very well-connected," she said.

Philip smiled faintly, and she noticed it.

"What are you laughing at?" she said quickly. "Don't
you believe I'm telling you the truth?"

"Of course I do," he answered.

She looked at him suspiciously, but in a moment could

348 O F H U M A N B O N D A G E

not resist the temptation to impress him with the splendour
of her early days.

"My father always kept a dog-cart, and we had three
servants. We had a cook and a housemaid and an odd man.
We used to grow beautiful roses. People used to stop at
the gate and ask who the house belonged to, the roses were
so beautiful. Of course it isn't very nice for me having to
mix with them girls in the shop, it's not the class of person
I've been used to, and sometimes I really think I'll give
up business on that account. It's not the work I mind, don't
think that ; but it's the class of people I have to mix with."

They were sitting opposite one another in the train, and
Philip, listening sympathetically to what she said, was quite
happy. He was amused at her naivete and slightly touched.
There was a very faint colour in her cheeks. He was think-
ing that it would be delightful to kiss the tip of her chin.

"The moment you come into the shop I saw you was a
gentleman in every sense of the word. Was your father a
professional man?"

"He was a doctor."

"You can always tell a professional man. There's some-
thing about them, I don't know what it is, but I know at
once."

They walked along from the station together.

"I say, I want you to come and see another play with
me," he said.

"I don't mind," she said.

"You might go so far as to say you'd like to."

"Why?"

"It doesn't matter. Let's fix a day. Would Saturday
night suit vou?"

"Yes, that'll do."

They made further arrangements, and then found them-
selves at the corner of the road in which she lived. She
gave him her hand, and he held it.

"I say, I do so awfully want to call you Mildred."

"You may if you like, I don't care."

"And you'll call me Philip, won't you ?"

"I will if I can think of it. It seems more natural to call
you Mr. Carey."

O F H U M A N B O N D A G E 349

He drew her slightly towards him, but she leaned back.
"What are you doing?"

"Won't you kiss me good-night ?" he whispered.
"Impudence !" she said.

She snatched away her hand and hurried towards her
house.

Philip bought tickets for Saturday night. It was not one
of the days on which she got off early and therefore she
would have no time to go home and change ; but she meant
to bring a frock up with her in the morning and hurry into
her clothes at the shop. If the manageress was in a good
temper she would let her go at seven. Philip had agreed to
wait outside from a quarter past seven onwards. He looked
forward to the occasion with painful eagerness, for in the
cab on the way from the theatre to the station he thought
she would let him kiss her. The vehicle gave every facility
for a man to put his arm round a girl's waist, (an advan-
tage which the hansom had over the taxi of the present
day,) and the delight of that was worth the cost of the eve-
ning's entertainment.

But on Saturday afternoon when he went in to have tea,
in order to confirm the arrangements, he met the man with
the fair moustache coming out of the shop. He knew by
now that he was called Miller. He was a naturalized Ger-
man, who had anglicised his name, and he had lived many
years in England. Philip had heard him speak, and, though
his English was fluent and natural, it had not quite the in-
tonation of the native. Philip knew that he was flirting with
Mildred, and he was horribly jealous of him ; but he took
comfort in the coldness of her temperament, which other-
wise distressed him; and, thinking her incapable of pas-
sion, he looked upon his rival as no better off than himself.
But his heart sank now, for his first thought was that
Miller's sudden appearance might interfere with the jaunt
which he had so looked forward to. He entered, sick with
apprehension. The waitress came up to him, took his order
for tea, and presently brought it.

"I'm awfully sorry," she said, with an expression on

350 OFHUMANBONDAGE

her face of real distress. "I shan't be able to come tonight
after all."

"Why?" said Philip.

"Don't look so stern about it," she laughed. "It's not my
fault. My aunt was taken ill last night, and it's the girl's
night out so I must go and sit with her. She can't be teft
alone, can she?"

"It doesn't matter. I'll see you home instead."

"But you've got the tickets. It would be a pity to waste
them."

He took them out of his pocket and deliberately tore
them up.

"What are you doing that for?"

"You don't suppose I want to go and see a rotten musical
comedy by myself, do you? I only took seats there for
your sake."

"You can't see me home if that's what you mean?"

"You've made other arrangements."

"I don't know what you mean by that. You're just as
selfish as all the rest of them. You only think of your-
self. It's not my fault if my aunt's queer."

She quickly wrote out his bill and left him. Philip knew
very little about women, or he would have been aware that
one should accept their most transparent lies. He made up
his mind that he would watch the shop and see for cer-
tain whether Mildred went out with the German. He had
an unhappy passion for certainty. At seven he stationed
himself on the opposite pavement. He looked about for
Miller, but did not see him. In ten minutes she came out,
she had on the cloak and shawl which she had worn when
he took her to the Shaftesbury Theatre. It was obvious
that she was not going home. She saw him before he had
time to move away, started a little, and then came straight
up to him.

"What are you doing here ?" she said.

"Taking the air," he answered.

"You're spying on me, you dirty little cad. I thought
you was a gentleman."

"Did you think a gentleman would be likely to take any
interest in you?" he murmured.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 351

There was a devil within him which forced him to make
matters worse. He wanted to hurt her as much as she was
hurting him.

"I suppose I can change my mind if I like. I'm not
obliged to come out with you. I tell you I'm going home,
and I won't be followed or spied upon."

"Have you seen Miller today ?"

"That's no business of yours. In point of fact I haven't,
so you're wrong again."

"I saw him this afternoon. He'd just come out of the
shop when I went in."

"Well, what if he did? I can go out with him if I want
to, can't I ? I don't know what you've got to say to it."

"He's keeping you waiting, isn't he ?"

"Well, I'd rather wait for him than have you wait for
me. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. And now p'raps
you'll go off home and mind your own business in future."

His mood changed suddenly from anger to despair, and
his voice trembled when he spoke.

"I say, don't be beastly with me, Mildred. You know
I'm awfully fond of you. I think I love you with all my
heart. Won't you change your mind? I was looking for-
ward to this evening so awfully. You see, he hasn't come,
and he can't care twopence about you really. Won't you
dine with me ? I'll get some more tickets, and we'll go any-
where you like."

"I tell you I won't. It's no good you talking. I've made
up my mind, and when I make up my mind I keep to it."

He looked at her for a moment. His heart was torn with
anguish. People were hurrying past them on the pavement,
and cabs and omnibuses rolled by noisily. He saw that Mil-
dred's eyes were wandering. She was afraid of missing
Miller in the crowd.

"I can't go on like this," groaned Philip. "It's too de-
grading. If I go now I go for good. Unless you'll come
with me tonight you'll never see me again."

"You seem to think that'll be an awful thing for me. All
I say is, good riddance to bad rubbish."

"Then good-bye."

He nodded and limped away slowly, for he hoped with

352 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

all his heart that she would call him back. At the next
lamp-post he stopped and looked over his shoulder. He
thought she might beckon to him — he was willing to for-
get everything, he was ready for any humiliation — but she
had turned away, and apparently had ceased to trouble
*bout him. He realised that she was glad to be quit of him.

LIX

PHILIP passed the evening wretchedly. He had told his
landlady that he would not be in, so there was nothing for
him to eat, and he had to go to Gatti's for dinner. After-
wards he went back to his rooms, but Griffiths on the floor
above him was having a party, and the noisy merriment
made his own misery more hard to bear. He went to a
music-hall, but it was Saturday night and there was
standing-room only: after half an hour of boredom his
legs gew tired and he went home. He tried to read, but.
ne could not fix his attention ; and yet it was necessary that
he should work hard. His examination in biology was in
little more than a fortnight, and, though it was easy, he
had neglected his lectures of late and was conscious that
he knew nothing. It was only a viva, however, and he felt
sure that in a fortnight he could find out enough about the
subject to scrape through. He had confidence in his intel-
ligence. He threw aside his book and gave himself up to
thinking deliberately of the matter which was in his mind
all the time.

He reproached himself bitterly for his behaviour that
evening. Why had he given her the alternative that she
must dine with him or else never see him again? Of
course she refused. He should have allowed for her pride.
He had burnt his ships behind him. It would not be so
hard to bear if he thought that she was suffering now, but
he knew her too well : she was perfectly indifferent to him.
If he hadn't been a fool he would have pretended to believe
her story ; he ought to have had the strength to conceal his
disappointment and the self-control to master his temper.
He could not tell why he loved her. He had read of the
idealisation that takes place in love, but he saw her exactly
as she was. She was not amusing or clever, her mind was
common ; she had a vulgar shrewdness which revolted him,
she had no gentleness nor softness. As she would have put

353

354 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

it herself, she was on the make. What aroused her admira-
tion was a clever trick played on an unsuspecting person ;
to 'do' somebody always gave her satisfaction. Philip
laughed savagely as he thought of her gentility and the
refinement with which she ate her food ; she could not bear
a coarse word, so far as her limited vocabulary reached she
had a passion for euphemisms, and she scented indecency
everywhere; she never spoke of trousers but referred to
them as nether garments ; she thought it slightly indelicate
to blow her nose and did it in a deprecating way. She was
dreadfully anaemic and suffered from the dyspepsia which
accompanies that ailing. Philip was repelled by her flat
breast and narrow hips, and he hated the vulgar way in
which she did her hair. He loathed and despised himself
for loving her.

The fact remained that he was helpless. He felt just as
he had felt sometimes in the hands of a bigger boy at
school. He had struggled against the superior strength till
his own strength was gone, and he was rendered quite
powerless — he remembered the peculiar languor he had felt
in his limbs, almost as though he were paralysed — so that
he could not help himself at all. He might have been dead.
He felt just that same weakness now. He loved the woman
so that he knew he had never loved before. He did not
mind her faults of person or of character, he thought he
loved them too: at all events they meant nothing to him.
It did not seem himself that was concerned; he felt that
he had been seized by some strange force that moved him
against his will, contrary to his interests; and because he
had a passion for freedom he hated the chains which bound
him. He laughed at himself when he thought how often
he had longed to experience the overwhelming passion. He
cursed himself because he had given way to it. He thought
of tlie beginnings; nothing of all this would have hap-
pened if he had not gone into the shop with Dunsford. The
whole thing was his own fault. Except for his ridiculous
vanity he would never have troubled himself with the ill-
mannered slut.

At all events the occurrences of that evening had fin-
ished the whole affair. Unless he was lost to all sense of

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 355

shame he could not go back. He wanted passionately to
get rid of the love that obsessed him ; it was degrading and
hateful. He must prevent himself from thinking of her. In
a little while the anguish he suffered must grow less. His
mind went back to the past. He wondered whether Emily
Wilkinson and Fanny Price had endured on his account
anything like the torment that he suffered now. He felt
a pang of remorse.

"I didn't know then what it was like," he said to him-
self.

He slept very badly. The next day was Sunday, and he
worked at his biology. He sat with the book in front of
him, forming the words with his lips in order to fix his
attention, but he could remember nothing. He found his
thoughts going back to Mildred every minute, and he re-
peated to himself the exact words of the quarrel they had
had. He had to force himself back to his book. He went
out for a walk. The streets on the South side of the river
were dingy enough on week-days, but there was an energy,
a coming and going, which gave them a sordid vivacity;
but on Sundays, with no shops open, no carts in the road-
way, silent and depressed, they were indescribably dreary.
Philip thought that day would never end. But he was so
tired that he slept heavily, and when Monday came he
entered upon life with determination. Christmas was ap-
proaching, and a good many of the students had gone into
the country for the short holiday between the two parts
of the winter session; but Philip had refused his uncle's
invitation to go down to Blackstable. He had given the
approaching examination as his excuse, but in point of fact
he had been unwilling to leave London and Mildred. He
had neglected his work so much that now he had only a
fortnight to learn what the curriculum allowed three
months for. He set to work seriously. He found it easier
each day not to think of Mildred. He congratulated him-
self on his force of character. The pain he suffered was
no longer anguish, but a sort of soreness, like what one
might be expected to feel if one had been thrown off a
horse and, though no bones were broken, were bruised
all over and shaken. Philip found that he was able to ob-

356 O F H U M A N B O X D A G E

serve with curiosity the condition he had been in during
the last few weeks. He analysed his feelings with interest.
He was a little amused at himself. One thing that struck
him was how little under those circumstances it mattered
what one thought ; the system of personal philosophy,
which had given him great satisfaction to devise, had not
served him. He was puzzled by this.

But sometimes in the street he would see a girl who
looked so like Mildred that his heart seemed to stop beat-
ing. Then he could not help himself, he hurried on to
catch her up, eager and anxious, only to find that it was
a total stranger. Men came back from the country, and
he went with Dunsford to have tea at an A. B. C. shop.
The well-known uniform made him so miserable that he
could not speak. The thought came to him that perhaps she
had been transferred to another establishment of the firm
for which she worked, and he might suddenly find himself
face to face with her. The idea filled him with panic, so
that he feared Dunsford would see that something was
the matter with him : he could not think of anything to say ;
he pretended to listen to what Dunsford was talking about ;
the conversation maddened him ; and it was all he could
do to prevent himself from crying out to Dunsford for
Heaven's sake to hold his tongue.

Then came the day of his examination. Philip, when
his turn arrived, went forward to the examiner's table
with the utmost confidence. He answered three or four
questions. Then they showed him various specimens; he
had been to very few lectures and, as soon as he was
asked about things which he could not learn from books,
he was floored. He did what he could to hide his ignorance,
the examiner did not insist, and soon his ten minutes were
over. He felt certain he had passed; but next day, when
he went up to the examination buildings to see the result
posted on the door, he was astounded not to find his num-
ber among those who had satisfied the examiners. In
amazement he read the list three times. Dunsford was
with him.

"I say, I'm awfully sorry you're ploughed," he said.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 35',

He had just inquired Philip's number. Philip turned
and saw by his radiant face that Dunsford had passed.

"Oh, it doesn't matter a bit," said Philip. "I'm jolly
glad you're all right. I shall go up again in July."

He was very anxious to pretend he did not mind, and
on their way back along The Embankment insisted on talk-
ing of indifferent things. Dunsford good-naturedly wanted
to discuss the causes of Philip's failure, but Philip was
obstinately casual. He was horribly mortified ; and the fact
that Dunsford, whom he looked upon as a very pleasant
but quite stupid fellow, had passed made his own rebuff
harder to bear. He had always been proud of his intelli-
gence, and now he asked himself desperately whether he
was not mistaken in the opinion he held of himself. In
the three months of the winter session the students who
had joined in October had already shaken down into
groups, and it was clear which were brilliant, which were
clever or industrious, and which were 'rotters.' Philip was
conscious that his failure was a surprise to no one but
himself. It was tea-time, and he knew that a lot of men
would be having tea in the basement of the Medical
School: those who had passed the examination would be
exultant, those who disliked him would look at him with
satisfaction, and the poor devils who had failed would
sympathise with him in order to receive sympathy. His
instinct was not to go near the hospital for a week, when
the affair would be no more thought of, but, because he
hated so much to go just then, he went: he wanted to
inflict suffering upon himself. He forgot for the moment
his maxim of life to follow his inclinations with due re-
gard for the policeman round the corner; or, if he acted
in accordance with it, there must have been some strange
morbidity in his nature which made him take a grim pleas-
ure in self-torture.

But later on, when he had endured the ordeal to which
he forced himself, going out into the night after the noisy
conversation in the smoking-room, he was seized with a
feeling of utter loneliness. He seemed to himself absurd
and futile. He had an urgent need of consolation, and the

358 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

temptation to see Mildred was irresistible. He thought
bitterly that there was small chance of consolation from
her; but he wanted to see her even if he did not speak to
her ; after all, she was a waitress and would be obliged to
serve him. She was the only person in the world he cared
for. There was no use in hiding that fact from himself.
Of course it would be humiliating to go back to the shop
as though nothing had happened, but he had not much self-
respect left. Though he would not confess it to himself,
he had hoped each day that she would write to him ; she
knew that a letter addressed to the hospital would find
him ; but she had not written : it was evident that she cared
nothing if she saw him again or not. And he kept on
repeating to himself :

"I must see her. I must see her."

The desire was so great that he could not give the time
necessary to walk, but jumped in a cab. He was too thrifty
to use one when it could possibly be avoided. He stood
outside the shop for a minute or two. The thought came to
him that perhaps she had left, and in terror he walked
in quickly. He saw her at once. He sat down and she came
up to him.

"A cup of tea and a muffin, please," he ordered.

He could hardly speak. He was afraid for a moment
that he was going to cry.

"I almost thought you was dead," she said.

She was smiling. Smiling! She seemed to have forgot-
ten completely that last scene which Philip had repeated
to himself a hundred times.

"I thought if you'd wanted to see me you'd write," he
answered.

"I've got too much to do to think about writing letters."

It seemed impossible for her to say a gracious thing.
Philip cursed the fate which chained him to such a woman.
She went away to fetch his tea.

"Would you like me to sit down for a minute or two?"
she said, when she brought it.

"Yes."

"Where have you been all this time?"

"I've been in London."

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 359

"I thought you'd gone away for the holidays. Why
haven't you been in then?"

Philip looked at her with haggard, passionate eyes.

"Don't you remember that I said I'd never sec you
again ?"

"What are you doing now then ?"

She seemed anxious to make him drink up the cup of his
humiliation; but he knew her well enough to know that
she spoke at random ; she hurt him frightfully, and never
even tried to. He did not answer.

"It was a nasty trick you played on me, spying on me
like that. I always thought you was a gentleman in every
sense of the word."

"Don't be beastly to me, Mildred. I can't bear it."

"You are a funny feller. I can't make you out."

"It's very simple. I'm such a blasted fool as to love you
with all my heart and soul, and I know that you don't
care twopence for me."

"If you had been a gentleman I think you'd have come
next day and begged my pardon."

She had no mercy. He looked at her neck and thought
how he would like to jab it with the knife he had for his
muffin. He knew enough anatomy to make pretty certain
of getting the carotid artery. And at the same time he
wanted to cover her pale, thin face with kisses.

"If I could only make you understand how frightfully
I'm in love with you."

"You haven't begged my pardon yet."

He grew very white. She felt that she had done nothing
wrong on that occasion. She wanted him now to humble
himself. He was very proud. For one instant he felt
inclined to tell her to go to hell, but he dared not. His pas-
sion made him abject. He was willing to submit to any-
thing rather than not see her.

"I'm very sorry, Mildred. I beg your pardon."

He had to force the words out. It was a horrible effort.

"Now you've said that I don't mind telling you that I
wish I had come out with you that evening. I thought
Miller was a gentleman, but I've discovered my mistake
now. I soon sent him about his business."

>5o OF HUMAN BONDAGE

Philip gave a little gasp.

"Mildred, won't you come out with me tonight? Let's
go and dine somewhere."

"Oh, I can't. My aunt'll be expecting me home."

"I'll send her a wire. You can say you've been detained
ri the shop ; she won't know any better. Oh, do come, for
God's sake. I haven't seen you for so long, and I want to
talk to you."

She looked down at her clothes.

"Never mind about that. We'll go somewhere where it
doesn't matter how you're dressed. And we'll go to a
music-hall afterwards. Please say yes. It would give me so
much pleasure."

She hesitated a moment ; he looked at her with pitifully
appealing eyes.

"Well, I don't mind if I do. I haven't been out anywhere
since I don't know how long."

It was with the greatest difficulty he could prevent him-
self from seizing her hand there and then to cover it with
kisses.

LX

THEY dined in Soho. Philip was tremulous with joy. It
was not one of the more crowded of those cheap restau-
rants where the respectable and needy dine in the belief
that it is bohemian and the assurance that it is economical.
It was a humble establishment, kept by a good man from
Rouen and his wife, that Philip had discovered by acci-
dent. He had been attracted by the Gallic look of the win-
dow, in which was generally an uncooked steak on one
plate and on each side two dishes of raw vegetables. There
was one seedy French waiter, who was attempting to learn
English in a house where he never heard anything but
French; and the customers were a few ladies of easy
virtue, a menage or two, who had their own napkins re-
served for them, and a few queer men who came in for
hurried, scanty meals.

Here Mildred and Philip were able to get a table to
themselves. Philip sent the waiter for a bottle of Burgundy
from the neighbouring tavern, and they had a potage aux
herbes, a steak from the window aux pommes, and an
omelette au kirsch. There was really an air of romance in
the meal and in the place. Mildred, at first a little reserved
in her appreciation — "I never quite trust these foreign
places, you never know what there is in these messed up
dishes" — was insensibly moved by it.

"I like this place, Philip," she said. "You feel you can
put your elbows on the table, don't you?"

A tall fellow came in, with a mane of gray hair and a
ragged thin beard. He wore a dilapidated cloak and a
wide-awake hat. He nodded to Philip, who had met him
there before.

"He looks like an anarchist," said Mildred.

"He is, one of the most dangerous in Europe. He's been
in every prison on the Continent aiid has assassinated more
persons than any gentleman unhung. He always goes about

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362 OFHUMANBONDAGE

with a bomb in his pocket, and of course it makes conver-
sation a little difficult because if you don't agree with him
he lays it on the table in a marked manner."

She looked at the man with horror and surprise, and
then glanced suspiciously at Philip. She saw that his eyes
were laughing. She frowned a little.

"You're getting at me."

He gave a little shout of joy. He was so happy. But
Mildred didn't like being laughed at.

"I don't see anything funny in telling lies."

"Don't be cross."

He took her hand, which was lying on the table, and
pressed it gently.

"You are lovely, and I could kiss the ground you walk
on," he said.

The greenish pallor of her skin intoxicated him, and her
thin white lips had an extraordinary fascination. Her
anaemia made her rather short of breath, and she held her
mouth slightly open. It seemed to add somehow to the
attractiveness of her face.

"You do like me a bit, don't you?" he asked.

"Well, if I didn't I suppose I shouldn't be here, should
I? You're a gentleman in every sense of the word, I will
say that for you."

They had finished their dinner and were drinking coffee.
Philip, throwing economy to the winds, smoked a three-
penny cigar.

"You can't imafine what a pleasure it is to me just to sit
opposite and look at you. I've yearned for you. I was sick
for a sight of you."

Mildred sinilea a little and faintly flushed. She was not
then suffering from the dyspepsia which generally attacked
her immediately after a meal. She felt more kindly dis-
posed to Philip than ever before, and the unaccustomed
tenderness in her eyes filled him with joy. He knew in-
stinctively that it was madness to give himself into her
hands ; his only chance was to treat her casually and never
allow her to see the untamed passions that seethed in his
breast ; she would only take advantage of his weakness ;
but he could not be prudent now : he told her all the agony

OFHUMANBONDAGE 363

he had endured during the separation from her; he told
her of his struggles with himself, how he had tried to get
over his passion, thought he had succeeded, and how he
found out that it was as strong as ever. He knew that he
had never really wanted to get over it. He loved her so
much that he did not mind suffering. He bared his heart to
her. He showed her proudly all his weakness.

Nothing would have pleased him more than to sit on in
the cosy, shabby restaurant, but he knew that Mildred
wanted entertainment. She was restless and, wherever she
was, wanted after a while to go somewhere else. He dared
not bore her.

"I say, how about going to a music-hall?" he said.

He thought rapidly that if she cared for him at all she
would say she preferred to stay there.

"I was just thinking we ought to be going if we are
going," she answered.

"Come on then."

Philip waited impatiently for the end of the perform-
ance. He had made up his mind exactly what to do, and
when they got into the cab he passed his arm, as though
almost by accident, round her waist. But he drew it back
quickly with a little cry. He had pricked himself. She
laughed.

"There, that comes of putting your arm where it's got
no business to be," she said. "I always know when men
try and put their arm round my waist. That pin always
catches them."

"I'll be more careful."

He put his arm round again. She made no objection.

"I'm so comfortable," he sighed blissfully.

"So long as you're happy," she retorted.

They drove down St. James' Street into the Park, and
Philip quickly kissed her. He was strangely afraid of her,
and it required all his courage. She turned her lips to him
without speaking. She neither seemed to mind nor to like
it.

"If you only knew how long I've wanted to do that,"
he murmured.

364 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

He tried to kiss her again, but she turned her head away.

"Once is enough." she said.

On the chance of kissing her a second time he travelled
down to Herne Hill with her, and at the end of the road
in which she lived he asked her:

"Won't you give me another kiss?"

She looked at him indifferently and then glanced up the
road to see that no one was in sight.

"I don't mind."

He seized her in his arms and kissed her passionately,
tmt she pushed him away.

"Mind my hat, silly. You are clumsy," she said.

LXI

HE saw her then every day. He began going to lunch
at the shop, but Mildred stopped him: she said it made
the girls talk ; so he had to content himself with tea ; but
he always waited about to walk with her to the station ;
and once or twice a week they dined together. He gave
her little presents, a gold bangle, gloves, handkerchiefs,
and the like. He was spending more than he could afford,
but he could not help it: it was only when he gave her
anything that she showed any affection. She knew the price
of everything, and her gratitude was in exact proportion
with the value of his gift. He did not care. He was too
happy when she volunteered to kiss him to mind by what
means he got her demonstrativeness. He discovered that
she fourfd Sundays at home tedious, so he went down to
Herne Hill in the morning, met her at the end of the
road, and went to church with her.

"I always like to go to church once," she said. "It looks
well, doesn't it?"

Then she went back to dinner, he got a scrappy meal
at a hotel, and in the afternoon they took a walk in Brock-
well Park. They had nothing much to say to one another,
and Philip, desperately afraid she was bored, (she was
very easily bored,) racked his brain for topics of conver-
sation. He realised that these walks amused neither of
them, but he could not bear to leave her, and did all he
could to lengthen them till she became tired and out of
temper. He knew that she did not care for him, and he
tried to force a love which his reason told him was not in
her nature : she was cold. He had no claim on her, but he
could not help being exacting. Now that they were more
intimate he found it less easy to control his temper; he
was often irritable and could not help saying bitter things.
Often they quarrelled, and she would not speak to him for
a while ; but this always reduced him to subjection, and

365

366 OFHUMANBONDAGE

he crawled before her. He was angry with himself for
showing so little dignity. He grew furiously jealous if he
saw her speaking to any other man in the shop, and when
he was jealous he seemed to be beside himself. He would
deliberately insult her, leave the shop and spend after-
wards a sleepless night tossing on his bed, by turns angry
and remorseful. Next day he would go to the shop and
appeal for forgiveness.

"Don't be angry with me," he said. "I'm so awfully
fond of you that I can't help myself."

"One of these days you'll go too far," she answered.

He was anxious to come to her home in order that the
greater intimacy should give him an advantage over the
stray acquaintances she made during her working-hours;
but she would not let him.

"My aunt would think it so funny," she said.

He suspected that her refusal was due only to a dis-
inclination to let him see her aunt. Mildred had repre-
sented her as the widow of a professional man, (that was
her formula of distinction,) and was uneasily conscious
that the good woman could hardly be called distinguished.
Philip imagined that she was in point of fact the widow
of a small tradesman.. He knew that Mildred was a snob.
But he found no means by which he could indicate to her
that he did not mind how common the aunt was. \

Their worst quarrel took place one evening at dinner
when she told him that a man had asked her to go to a
play with him. Philip turned pale, and his face grew hard
and stern.

"You're not going?" he said.

"Why shouldn't I? He's a very nice gentlemanly fel-
low."

"I'll take you anywhere you like."

"But that isn't the same thing. I can't always go about
with you. Besides he's asked me to fix my own day, and
I'll just go one evening when I'm not going out with you.
It won't make any difference to you."

"If you had any sense of decency, if you had any grati-
tude, you wouldn't dream of going."

"I don't know what you mean by gratitude. If you're

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 367

referring to the things you've given me you can have them
back. I don't want them."

Her voice had the shrewish tone it sometimes got.

"It's not very lively, always going about with you. It's
always do you love me, do you love me, till I just get
about sick of it."

(He knew it was madness to go on asking her that, but
he could not help himself.

"Oh, I like you all right," she would answer.

"Is that all ? I love you with all my heart."

"I'm not that sort, I'm not one to say much."

"If you knew how happy just one word would make
me!"

"Well, what I always say is, people must take me as
they find me, and if they don't like it they can lump it."

But sometimes she expressed herself more plainly still,
and, when he asked the question, answered :

"Oh, don't go on at that again."

Then he became sulky and silent. He hated her.)

And now he said :

"Oh, well, if you feel like that about it I wonder you
condescend to come out with me at all."

"It's not my seeking, you can be very sure of that, you
just force me to."

His pride was bitterly hurt, and he answered madly.

"You think I'm just good enough to stand you dinners
and theatres when there's no one else to do it, and when
someone else turns up I can go to hell. Thank you, I'm
about sick of being made a convenience."
* "I'm not going to be talked to like that by anyone. I'll
just show you how much I want your dirty dinner."

She got up, put on her jacket, and walked quickly out
of the restaurant. Philip sat on. He determined he would
not move, bub ten minutes afterwards he jumped in a cab
and followed her. He guessed that she would take a 'bus
to Victoria, so that they would arrive about the same time.
He saw her on the platform, escaped her notice, and went
down to Herne Hill in the same train. He did not want to
speak to her till she was on the way home and could not
escape him.

$68 O F H U M A X B O N D A G E

As soon as she had turned out of the main street,
brightly lit and noisy with traffic, he caught her up.

"Mildred," he called.

She walked on and would neither look at him nor an-
swer. He repeated her name. Then she stopped and faced
him.

"What d'you want? I saw you hanging about Victoria.
Why don't you leave me alone ?"

"I'm awfully sorry. Won't you make it up?"

"No. I'm sick of your temper and your jealousy. I don't
care for you, I never have cared for you, and I never shall
care for you. I don't want to have anything more to do
with you."

She walked on quickly, and he had to hurry to keep
up with her.

"You never make allowances for me," he said. "It's all
very well to be jolly and amiable when you're indifferent
to anyone. It's very hard when you're as much in love as I
am. Have mercy on me. I don't mind that you don't care
for me. After all you can't help it. I only want you to let
me love you."

She walked on, refusing to speak, and Philip saw with
agony that they had only a few hundred yards to go before
they reached her house. He abased himself. He poured out
an incoherent story of love and penitence.

"If you'll only forgive me this time I promise you you'll
never have to complain of me in future. You can go out
with whoever you choose. I'll be only too glad if you'll
come with me when you've got nothing better to do."

She stopped again, for they had reached the corner at
which he always left her.

"Now you can take yourself off I won't have you com-
ing up to the door."

"I won't go till you say you'll forgive me."

"I'm sick and tired of the whole thing."

He hesitated a moment, for he had an instinct that he
irould say something that would move her. It made him
leel almost sick to utter the words.

"It is cruel, I have so much to put up with. You don't

OF HUMAN BOND AGE 369

know what it is to be a cripple. Of course you don't like
me. I can't expect you to."

"Philip, I didn't mean that," she answered quickly, with
a sudden break of pity in her voice. "You know it's not
true."

He was beginning to act now, and his voice was husk)
and low.

"Oh, I've felt it," he said.

She took his hand and looked at him, and her own eyes
were filled with tears.

"I promise you it never made any difference to me. I
never thought about it after the first day or two."

He kept a gloomy, tragic silence. He wanted her to
think he was overcome with emotion.

"You know I like you awfully, Philip. Only you are
so trying sometimes. Let's make it up."

She put up her lips to his, and with a sigh of relief he
kissed her.

"Now are you happy again?" she asked.

"Madly."

She bade him good-night and hurried down the road.
Next day he took her in a little watch with a brooch to pin
on her dress. She had been hankering for it.

But three or four days later, when she brought him his
tea, Mildred said to him :

''You remember what you promised the other night?
You mean to keep that, don't you ?"

"Yes."

He knew exactly what she meant and was prepared
for her next words.

"Because I'm going out with that gentleman I told you
about tonight."

"All right. I hope you'll enjoy yourself."

"You don't mind, do you?"

He had himself now under excellent control.

"I don't like it," he smiled, "but I'm not going to make
myself more disagreeable than I can help."

She was excited over the outing and talked about it
willingly. Philip wondered whether she did so in order to
pain him or merely because she was callous. He was in the

370 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

habit of condoning her cruelty by tbe thought of her
stupidity. She had not the brains to see when she was
wounding him.

"It's not much fun to be in love with a girl who has no
imagination and no sense of humour," he thought, as he
listened.

But the want of these things excused her. He felt that if
he had not realised this he could never forgive her for the
pain she caused him.

"He's got seats for the Tivoli," she said. "He gave me
my choice and I chose that. And we're going to dine at the
Cafe Royal. He says it's the most expensive place in Lon-
don."

"He's a gentleman in every sense of the word," thought
Philip, but he clenched his teeth to prevent himself from
uttering a syllable.

Philip went to the Tivoli and saw Mildred with her
companion, a smooth-faced young man with sleek hair and
the spruce look of a commercial traveller, sitting in the
second row of the stalls. Mildred wore a black picture
hat with ostrich feathers in it, which became her well. She
was listening to her host with that quiet smile which Philip
knew ; she had no vivacity of expression, and it required
broad farce to excite her laughter; but Philip could see
that she was interested and amused. He thought to himself
bitterly that her companion, flashy and jovial, exactly
suited her. Her sluggish temperament made her appreciate
noisy people. Philip had a passion for discussion, but no
talent for small-talk. He admired the easy drollery of
which some of his friends were masters, Lawson for in-
stance, and his sense of inferiority made him shy and
awkward. The things which interested him bored Mildred.
She expected men to talk about football and racing, and
he knew nothing of either. He did not know the catch-
words which only need be said to excite a laugh.

Printed matter had always been a fetish to Philip, and
now, in order to make himself more interesting, he read
industriously The Sporting Times.

LXII

PHILIP did not surrender himself willingly to the pas-
sion that consumed him. He knew that all things human
are transitory and therefore that it must cease one day or
another. He looked forward to that day with eager long-
ing. Love was like a parasite in his heart, nourishing a
hateful existence on his life's blood ; it absorbed his exis-
tence so intensely that he could take pleasure in nothing
else. He had been used to delight in the grace of St. James'
Park, and often he sat and looked at the branches of a
tree silhouetted against the sky, it was like a Japanese
print; and he found a continual magic in the beautiful
Thames with its barges and its wharfs; the changing sky
of London had filled his soul with pleasant fancies. But
now beauty meant nothing to him. He was bored and rest-
less when he was not with Mildred. Sometimes he thought
he would console his sorrow by looking at pictures, but
he walked through the National Gallery like a sight-seer;
and no picture called up in him a thrill of emotion. He
wondered if he could ever care again for all the things
he had Icved. He had been devoted to reading, but now
books were meaningless; and he spent his spare hours in
the smoking-room of the hospital club, turning over in-
numerable periodicals. This love was a torment, and he
resented bitterly the subjugation in which it held him ; he
was a prisoner and he longed for freedom.

Sometimes he awoke in the morning and felt nothing;
his soul leaped, for he thought he was free ; he loved no
longer; but in a little while, as he grew wide awake, the
pain settled in his heart, and he knew that he was not
cured yet. Though he yearned for Mildred so madly he
despised her. He thought to himself that there could be no
greater torture in the world than at the same time to love
and to contemn.

Philip, burrowing as was his habit into the state of his

371

372 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

feelings, discussing with himself continually his condition,
came to the conclusion that he could only cure himself of
his degrading passion by making Mildred his mistress. It
was sexual hunger that he suffered from, and if he could
satisfy this he might free himself from the intolerable
chains that bound him. He knew that Mildred did not care
for him at all in that way. When he kissed her passionately
she withdrew herself from him with instinctive distaste.
She had no sensuality. Sometimes he had tried to make
her jealous by talking of adventures in Paris, but they did
not interest her ; once or twice he had sat at other tables
in the tea-shop and affected to flirt with the waitress who
attended them, but she was entirely indifferent. He could
see that it was no pretence on her part.

"You didn't mind my not sitting at one of your tables
this afternoon?" he asked once, when he was walking to
the station with her. "Yours seemed to be all full."

This was not a fact, but she did not contradict him.
Even if his desertion meant nothing to her he would have
been grateful if she had pretended it did. A reproach
would have been balm to his soul.

"I think it's silly of you to sit at the same table every
day. You ought to give the other girls a turn now and
again."

But the more he thought of it the more he was con-
vinced that complete surrender on her part was his only
way to freedom. He was like a knight of old, meta-
morphosed by magic spells, who sought the potions which
should restore him to his fair and proper form. Philip had
only one hope. Mildred greatly desired to go to Paris. To
her, as to most English people, it was the centre of gaiety
and fashion : she had heard of the Magasin du Louvre,
where you could get the very latest thing for about half
the price you had to pay in London ; a friend of hers had
passed her honeymoon in Paris and had spent all day at the
Louvre; and she and her husband, my dear, they never
went to bed till six in the morning all the time they were
there ; the Moulin Rouge and I don't know what all. Philip
did not care that if she yielded to his desires it would only
be the unwilling price she paid for the gratification of her

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 373

wish. He did not care upon what terms he satisfied his
passion. He had even had a mad, melodramatic idea to
drug her. He had plied her with liquor in the hope of ex-
citing her, but she had no taste for wine ; and though she
liked him to order champagne because it looked well, she
never drank more than half a glass. She liked to leave
untouched a large glass filled to the brim.

"It shows the waiters who you are," she said.

Philip chose an opportunity when she seemed more
than usually friendly. He had an examination in anatomy
at the end of March. Easter, which came a week later,
would give Mildred three whole days holiday.

"I say, why don't you come over to Paris then?" he
suggested. "We'd have such a ripping time."

"How could you ? It would cost no end of money."

Philip had thought of that. It would cost at least five-
and-twenty pounds. It was a large sum to him. He was
willing to spend his last penny on her.

"What does that matter? Say you'll come, darling."

"What next, I should like to know. I can't see myself
going away with a man that I wasn't married to. You
oughtn't to suggest such a thing."

"What does it matter?"

He enlarged on the glories of the Rue de la Paix and the
garish splendour of the Folies Bergeres. He described the
Louvre and the Bon Marche. He told her about the Caba-
ret du Neant, the Abbaye, and the various haunts to which
foreigners go. He painted in glowing colours the side of
Paris which he despised. He pressed her to come with him.

"You know, you say you love me, but if you really loved
me you'd want to marry me. You've never asked me to
marry you."

"You know I can't afford it. After all, I'm in my first
year, I shan't earn a penny for six years."

"Oh, I'm not blaming you. I wouldn't marry you if you
went down on your bended knees to me."

He had thought of marriage more than once, but it was
a step from which he shrank. In Paris he had come by the
opinion that marriage was a ridiculous institution of tbs
philistines. He knew also that a permanent tie would ruin

374 OFHUMANBONDAGE

him. He had middle-class instincts, and it seemed a dread-
ful thing to him to marry a waitress. A common wife
would prevent him from getting a decent practice. Besides,
he had only just enough money to last him till he was
qualified; he could not keep a wife even if they arranged
not to have children. He thought of Cronshaw bound to
a vulgar slattern, and he shuddered with dismay. He fore-
saw what Mildred, with her genteel ideas and her mean
mind, would become : it was impossible for htm to marry
her. But he decided only with his reason ; he felt that he
must have her whatever happened ; and if he could not get
her without marrying her he would do that; the future
could look after itself. It might end in disaster; he did
not care. When he got hold of an idea it obsessed him, he
could think of nothing else, and he had a more than com-
mon power to persuade himself of the reasonableness of
what he wished to do. He found himself overthrowing all
the sensible arguments which had occurred to him against
marriage. Each day he found that he was more passion- •
ately devoted to her ; and his unsatisfied love became angry
and resentful.

"By George, if I marry her I'll make her pay for all
the suffering I've endured," he said to himself.

At last he could bear the agony no longer. After din-
ner one evening in the little restaurant in Soho, to which
now they often went, he spoke to her.

"I say, did you mean it the other day that you wouldn't
marry me if I asked you?"

"Yes, why not?"

"Because I can't live without you. I want you with me
always. I've tried to get over it and I can't. I never shall
now. I want you to marry me."

She had read too many novelettes not to know how to
take such an offer.

"I'm sure I'm very grateful to you, Philip. I'm very
much flattered at your proposal."

"Oh, don't talk rot. You will marry me, won't you?"

"D'you think we should be happy?"

"No. But what does that matter?"

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 375

The words were wrung out of him almost against his
will. They surprised her.

"Well, you are a funny chap. Why d'you want to marry
me then? The other day you said you couldn't afford it."

"I think I've got about fourteen hundred pounds left.
Two can live just as cheaply as one. That'll keep us till
I'm qualified and have got through with my hospital ap-
pointments, and then I can get an assistantship."

"It means you wouldn't be able to earn anything for
six years. We should have about four pounds a week to
live on till then, shouldn't we?"

"Not much more than three. There are all my fees to
pay."

"And what would you get as an assistant?"

"Three pounds a week."

"D'you mean to say you have to work all that time ana
spend a small fortune just to earn three pounds a week
at the end of it? I don't see that I should be any better
off than I am now."

He was silent for a moment.

"D'you mean to say you won't marry me?" he asked
hoarsely. "Does my great love mean nothing to you at all ?"

"One has to think of oneself in those things, don't one ?
I shouldn't mind marrying, but I don't want to marry if
I'm going to be no better off than what I am now. I don't
see the use of it."

"If you cared for me you wouldn't think of all that."

"P'raps not."

He was silent. He drank a glass of wine in order to get
rid of the choking in his throat.

"Look at that girl who's just going out," said Mildred.
"She got them furs at the Bon Marche at Brixton. I saw
them in the window last time I went down there."

Philip smiled grimly.

"What are you laughing at?" she asked. "It's true. And
I said to my aunt at the time, I wouldn't buy anything
that had been in the window like that, for everyone to
know how much you paid for it."

"I can't understand you. You make me frightfully un-

J76 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

happy, and in the next breath you talk rot that has noth-
ing to do with what we're speaking about."

"You are nasty to me," she answered, aggrieved. "I
can't help noticing those furs, because I said to my
aunt . . ."

"I don't care a damn what you said to your aunt," he
interrupted impatiently.

"I wish you wouldn't use bad language when you speak
to me Philip. You know I don't like it."

Philip smiled a little, but his eyes were wild. He was
silent for a while. He looked at her sullenly. He hated,
despised, and loved her.

"If I had an ounce of sense I'd never see you again," he
said at last. "If you only knew how heartily I despise my-
self for loving you!"

"That's not a very nice thing to say to me," she replied
sulkily.

"It isn't," he laughed. "Let's go to the Pavilion."

"That's what's so funny in you, you start laughing just
when one doesn't expect you to. And if I make you that
unhappy why d'you want to take me to the Pavilion? I'm
quite ready to go home."

"Merely because I'm less unhappy with you than away
from you."

"I should like to know what you really think of me."

He laughed outright.

"My dear, if you did you'd never speak to me again."

LXIII

PHILIP did not pass the examination in anatomy at the
end of March. He and Dunsford had worked at the sub-
ject together on Philip's skeleton, asking each other ques-
tions till both knew by heart every attachment and the
meaning of every nodule and groove on the human bones ;
but in the examination room Philip was seized with panic,
and failed to give right answers to questions from a sud-
den fear that they might be wrong. He knew he was
ploughed and did not even trouble to go up to the building
next day to see whether his number was up. The second
failure put him definitely among the incompetent and idle
men of his year.

He did not care much. He had other things to think of.
He told himself that Mildred must have senses like any-
body else, it was only a question of awakening them; he
had theories about woman, the rip at heart, and thought
that there must come a time with everyone when she
would yield to persistence. It was a question of watching
for the opportunity, keeping his temper, wearing her down
with small attentions, taking advantage of the physical
exhaustion which opened the heart to tenderness, making
himself a refuge from the petty vexations of her work. He
talked to her of the relations between his friends in Paris
and the fair ladies they admired. The life he described had
a charm, an easy gaiety, in which was no grossness. Weav-
ing into his own recollections the adventures of Mimi and
Rodolphe, of Musette and the rest of them, he poured into
Mildred's ears a story of poverty made picturesque by
song and laughter, of lawless love made romantic by
beauty and youth. He never attacked her prejudices di-
rectly, but sought to combat them by the suggestion that
they were suburban. He never let himself be disturbed by
her inattention, nor irritated by her indifference. He
thought he had bored her. By an effort he made himself

377

3?8 OFHUMANBONDAGE

affable and entertaining; he never let himself be angry, he
never asked for anything, he never complained, he never
scolded. When she made engagements and broke them, he
met her next day with a smiling face; when she excused
herself, he said it did not matter. He never let her see
that she pained him. He understood that his passionate
grief had wearied her, and he took care to hide every
sentiment which could be in the least degree troublesome.
He was heroic.

Though she never mentioned the change, for she did not
take any conscious notice of it, it affected her neverthe-
less : she became more confidential with him ; she took her
little grievances to him, and she always had some grievance
against the manageress of the shop, one of her fellow-
waitresses, or her aunt ; she was talkative enough now, and
though she never said anything that was not trivial Philip
was never tired of listening to her.

"I like you when you don't want to make love to me,"
she told him once.

"That's flattering for me," he laughed.

She did not realise how her words made his heart sink
nor what an effort it needed for him to answer so lightly.

"Oh, I don't mind your kissing me now and then. It
doesn't hurt me and it gives you pleasure."

Occasionally she went so far as to ask him to take her
out to dinner, and the offer, coming from her, filled hiir
with rapture.

"I wouldn't do it to anyone else," she said, by way of
apology. "But I know I can with you."

"You couldn't give me greater pleasure," he smiled.

She asked him to give her something to eat one eve-
ning towards the end of April.

"All right," he said. "Where would you like to go after-
wards?"

"Oh, don't let's go anywhere. Let's just sit and talk.
You don't mind, do you ?"

"Rather not."

He thought she must be beginning to care for him.
Three months before the thought of an evening spent in
conversation would have bored her to death. It was a fine

OFHUMANBONDAGE 37*

day, and the spring added to Philip's hieh spirits. He was
content with very little now.

"I say, won't it be ripping when the summer comes
along," he said, as they drove along on the top of a 'bus
to Soho — she had herself suggested that they should not
be so extravagant as to go by cab. "We shall be able to
spend every Sunday on the River. We'll take our luncheon
in a basket."

She smiled slightly, and he was encouraged to take her
hand. She did not withdraw it.

"I really think you're beginning to like me a bit," he
smiled.

"You are silly, you know I like you, or else I shouldn't
be here, should I ?"

They were old customers at the little restaurant in Soho
by now, and the patronne gave them a smile as they came
in. The waiter was obsequious.

"Let me order the dinner tonight," said Mildred.

Philip, thinking her more enchanting than ever, gave
her the menu, and she chose her favourite dishes. The
range was small, and they had eaten many times all that
the restaurant could provide. Philip was gay. He looked
into her eyes, and he dwelt on every perfection of her
pale cheek. When they had finished Mildred by way of
exception took a cigarette. She smoked very seldom.

"I don't like to see a lady smoking," she said.

She hesitated a moment and then spoke.

"Were you surprised, my asking you to take me out
and give me a bit of dinner tonight ?"

"I was delighted."

"I've got something to say to you, Philip."

He looked at her quickly, his heart sank, but he had
trained himself well.

"Well, fire away," he said, smiling.

"You're not going to be silly about it, are you? The
fact is I'm going to get married."

"Are you?" said Philip.

He could think of nothing else to say. He had con-
sidered the possibility often and had imagined to himself
what he would do and say. He had suffered agonies when

380 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

he thought of the despair he would suffer, he had thought
of suicide, of the mad passion of anger that would seize
him ; but perhaps he had too completely anticipated the
emotion he would experience, so that now he felt merely
exhausted. He felt as one does in a serious illness when
the vitality is so low that one is indifferent to the issue
and wants only to be left alone.

"You see, I'm getting on," she said. "I'm twenty-four
and it's time I settled down."

He was silent. He looked at the patronne sitting behind
the counter, and his eye dwelt on a red feather one of the
diners wore in her hat. Mildred was nettled.

"You might congratulate me," she said.

"I might, mightn't I ? I can hardly believe it's true. I've
dreamt it so often. It rather tickles me that I should have
been so jolly glad that you asked me to take you out to
dinner. Whom are you going to marry ?"
• "Miller," she answered, with a slight blush.

"Miller ?" cried Philip, astounded. "But you've not seen
him for months."

"He came in to lunch one day last week and asked me
then. He's earning very good money. He makes seven
pounds a week now and he's got prospects."

Philip was silent again. He remembered that she had
always liked Miller; he amused her; there was in his
foreign birth an exotic charm which she felt uncon-
sciously.

"I suppose it was inevitable," he said at last. "You were
bound to accept the highest bidder. When are you going to
marry ?"

"On Saturday next. I have given notice."

Philip felt a sudden pang.

"As soon as that?"

"We're going to be married at a registry office. Emil
prefers it."

Philip felt dreadfully tired. He wanted to get away from
her. He thought he would go straight to bed. He called
for the bill.

"I'll put you in a cab and send you down to Victoria.
1 daresay you won't have to wait long for a train."

OF HUMAN BOND AGE 381

''Won't you come with me?"
"I think I'd rather not if you don't mind."
"It's just as you please," she answered haughtily. "1
suppose I shall see you at tea-time tomorrow ?"

"No, I think we'd better make a full stop now. I don't
see why I should go on making myself unhappy. I've paid
the cab."

He nodded to her and forced a .imile on his lips, then
jumped on a 'bus and made his way home. He smoked a
pipe before he went to bed, but he could hardly keep his
eyes open. He suffered no pain. He fell into a heavy sleep
almost as soon as his head touched the pillow.

LXIV

Bur about three in the morning Philip awoke and could
not sleep again. He began to think of Mildred. He tried
not to, but could not help himself. He repeated to himself
the same thing time after time till his brain reeled. It was
inevitable that she should marry: life was hard for a girl
who had to earn her own living; and if she found some-
one who could give her a comfortable home she should not
be blamed if she accepted. Philip acknowledged that from
her point of view it would have been madness to marry
him : only love could have made such poverty bearable,
and she did not love him. It was no fault of hers ; it was a
fact that must be accepted like any other. Philip tried to
reason with himself. He told himself" fliat deep down in
his heart was mortified pride ; his passion had begun in
wounded vanity, and it was this at bottom which caused
now great part of his wretchedness. He despised himself
as much as he despised her. Then he made plans for the
future, the same plans over and over again, interrupted
by recollections of kisses on her soft pale cheek and by
the sound of her voice with its trailing accent ; he had a
great deal of work to do, since in the summer he was
taking Chemistry as well as the two examinations he had
failed in. He had separated himself from his friends at the
hospital, but now he wanted companionship. There was
one happy occurrence : Hay ward a fortnight before had
written to say that he was passing through London and
had asked him to dinner ; but Philip, unwilling to be
bothered, had refused. He was coming back for the season,
and Philip made up his mind to write to him.

He was thankful when eight o'clock struck and he could
get up. He was pale and weary. But when he had bathed,
dressed, and had breakfast, he felt himself joined up again
with the world at large ; and his pain was a little easier to
bear. He did not feel like going to lectures that morning,

382

OF HUMAN BOND AGE 383

but went instead to the Army and Navy Stores to buy Mil-
dred a vi, edding-present. After much wavering he settled
on a dressing-bag. It cost twenty pounds, which was much
more than he could afford, but it was showy and vulgar:
he knew she would be aware exactly how much it cost ; he
got a melancholy satisfaction in choosing a gift which
would give her pleasure and at the same time indicate for
himself the contempt he had for her.

Philip had looked forward with apprehension to the day
on which Mildred was to be married ; he was expecting an
intolerable anguish; and it was with relief that he got a
letter from Hay ward on Saturday morning to say that he
was coming up early on that very day and would fetch
Philip to help him to find rooms. Philip, anxious to be dis-
tracted, looked up a time-table and discovered the only
train Hay ward was likely to come by; he went to meet
him, and the reunion of the friends was enthusiastic. They
left the luggage at the station, and set off gaily. Hayward
characteristically proposed that first of all they should
go for an hour to the National Gallery; he had not seen
pictures for some time, and he stated that it needed a
glimpse to set him in tune with life. Philip for months had
had no one with whom he could talk of art and books.
Since the Paris days Hayward had immersed himself in
the modern French versifiers, and, such a plethora of poets
is there in France, he had several new geniuses to tell
Philip about. They walked through the gallery pointing out
to one another their favourite pictures ; one subject led to
another; they talked excitedly. The sun was shining and
the air was warm.

"Let's go and sit in the Park," said Hayward. "We'll
look for rooms after luncheon."

The spring was pleasant there. It was a day upon which
one felt it good merely to live. The young green of the
trees was exquisite against the sky ; and the sky, pale and
blue, was dappled with little white clouds. At the end of
the ornamental water was the gray mass of the Horse
Guards. The ordered elegance of the scene had the charm
of an eighteenth-century picture. It reminded you not of
Watteau, whose landscapes are so idyllic that they recall

384 OF HUM AN BOND AGE

only the woodland glens seen in dreams, but of the more
prosaic Jean-Baptiste Pater. Philip's heart was filled with
lightness. He realised, what he had only read before, that
art (for there was art in the manner in which he looked
upon nature) might liberate the soul from pain.

They went to an Italian restaurant for luncheon and
ordered themselves a fiaschctto of Chianti. Lingering over
the meal they talked on. They reminded one another of the
people they had known at Heidelberg, they spoke of
Philip's friends in Paris, they talked of books, pictures,
morals, life; and suddenly Philip heard a clock strike
three. He remembered that by this time Mildred was mar-
ried. He felt a sort of stitch in his heart, and for a min-
ute or two he could not hear what Hayward was saying.
But he filled his glass with Chianti. He was unaccustomed
to alcohol and it had gone to his head. Ifor the time at
all events he was free from care. His quick brain had lain
idle for so many months that he was intoxicated now with
conversation. He was thankful to have someone to talk to
who would interest himself in the things that interested
him.

"I say don't let's waste this beautiful day in looking
for rooms. I'll put you up to-night. You can look for
rooms tomorrow or Monday."

"All right. What shall we do?" answered Hayward.

"Let's get on a pennv steamboat and go down to Green-
wich."

The idea appealed to Hayward, and they jumped into a
cab which took them to Westminster Bridge. They got on
the steamboat just as she was starting. Presently Philip, a
smile on his lips, spoke.

"I remember when first I went to Paris, Glutton, I think
it was, gave a long discourse on the subject that beauty is
put into things by painters and poets. They create beauty.
In themselves there is nothing to choose between the Cam-
panile of Giotto and a factory chimney. And then beauti-
ful things grow rich with the emotion that they have
aroused in succeeding generations. That is why old things
are more beautiful than modern. The Ode on a Grecian
Urn is more lovely now than when it was written, because

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 385

for a hundred years lovers have read it and the sick at
heart taken comfort in its lines."

Philip left Hayward to infer what in the passing scene
had suggested these words to him, and it was a delight to
know that he could safely leave the inference. It was in
sudden reaction from the life he had been leading for so
long that he was now deeply affected. The delicate irides-
cence of the London air gave the softness of a pastel
to the gray stone of the buildings ; and in the wharves and
storehouses there was the severity of grace of a Japanese
print. They went further down ; and the splendid channel,
a symbol of the great empire, broadened, and it was
crowded with traffic; Philip thought of the painters and
the poets who had made all these things so beautiful, and
his heart was filled with gratitude. They came to the Pool
of London, and who can describe its majesty? The im-
agination thrills, and Heaven knows what figures people
still its broad stream, Doctor Johnson with Boswell by his
side, an old Pepys going on board a man-'o-war : the pag-
eant of English history, and romance, and high adventure.
Philip turned to Hayward with shining eyes.

"Dear Charles Dickens," he murmured, smiling a little
at his own emotion.

"Aren't you rather sorry you chucked painting?" asked
Hayward.

"No."

"I suppose you like doctoring?"

"No, I hate it, but there was nothing else to do. The
drudgery of the first two years is awful, and unfortunately
I haven't got the scientific temperament."

"Well, you can't go on changing professions."

"Oh, no. I'm going to stick to this. I think I shall like
it better when I get into the wards. I have an idea that I'm
more interested in people than in anything else in the
world. And as far as I can see, it's the only profession in
which you have your freedom. You carry your knowledge
in your head ; with a box of instruments and a few drugs
you can make your living anywhere."

"Aren't you going to take a practice then?"

"Not for a good long time at any rate," Philip answered.

386 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

"As soon as I've got through my hospital appointments
I shall get a ship; I want to go to the East — the Malay
Archipelago, Siam, Giina, and all that sort of thing —
and then I shall take odd jobs. Something always comes
along, cholera duty in India and things like that. I want
to go from place to place. I want to see the world. The
only way a poor man can do that is by going in for the
medical."

They came to Greenwich then. The noble building of
Inigo Jones faced the river grandly.

"I say, look, that must be the place where Poor Jack
dived into the mud for pennies," said Philip.

They wandered in the park. Ragged children were play-
ing in it, and it was noisy with their cries : here and there
old seamen were basking in the sun. There was an air
of a hundred years ago.

"It seems a pity you wasted two years in Paris," said
Hayward.

"Waste? Look at the movement of that child, look at
the pattern which the sun makes on the ground, shining
through the trees, look at that sky — why, I should never
have seen that sky if I hadn't been to Paris."

Hayward thought that Philip choked a sob, and he
looked at him with astonishment.

"What's the matter with you ?"

"Nothing. I'm sorry to be so damned emotional, but for
six months I've been starved for beauty."

"You used to be so matter of fact. It's very interesting
to hear you say that."

"Damn it all, I don't want to be interesting," laughed
Philip. "Let's go and have a stodgy tea."

LXV

HAYWARD'S visit did Philip a great deal of good. Each
day his thoughts dwelt less on Mildred. He looked back
upon the past with disgust. He could not understand how
he had submitted to the dishonour of such a love ; and
when he thought of Mildred it was with angry hatred, be-
cause she had submitted him to so much humiliation. His
imagination presented her to him now with her defects of
person and manner exaggerated, so that he shuddered at
the thought of having been connected with her.

"It just shows how damned weak I am," he said to him-
self. The adventure was like a blunder that one had com-
mitted at a party so horrible that one felt nothing could be
done to excuse it: the only remedy was to forget. His
horror at the degradation he had suffered helped him. He
was like a snake casting its skin and he looked upon the
old covering with nausea. He exulted in the possession of
himself once more; he realised how much of the delight
of the world he had lost when he was absorbed in that
madness which they called love ; he had had enough of it ;
he did not want to be in love any more if love was that.
Philip told Hayward something of what he had gone
through.

"Wasn't it Sophocles," he asked, "who prayed for the
time when he would be delivered from the wild beast of
passion that devoured his heart-strings?"

Philip seemed really to be born again. He breathed the
circumambient air as though he had never breathed it be-
fore, and he took a child's pleasure in all the facts of the
world. He called his period of insanity six months' hard
labour.

Hayward had only been settled in London a few days
when Philip received from Blackstable, where it had been
sent, a card for a private view at some picture gallery. He

387

388 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

took Hayvvard, and, on looking at the catalogue, saw that
Lawson had a picture in it.

"I suppose he sent the card," said Philip. "Let's go and
find him, he's sure to be in front of his picture."

This, a profile of Ruth Chalice, was tucked away in a
corner, and Lawson was not far from it. He looked a little
lost, in his large soft hat and loose, pale clothes, amongst
the fashionable throng that had gathered for the private
view. He greeted Philip with enthusiasm, and with his
usual volubility told him that he had come to live in Lon-
don, Ruth Chalice was a hussy, he had taken a studio,
Paris was played out, he had a commission for a portrait,
and they'd better dine together and have a good old talk.
Philip reminded him of his acquaintance with Hayward,
and was entertained to see that Lawson was slightly awed
by Hayward's elegant clothes and grand manner. They
sat upon him better than they had done in the shabby
little studio which Lawson and Philip had shared.

At dinner Lawson went on with his news. Flanagan had
gone back to America. Clutton had disappeared. He had
come to the conclusion that a man had no chance of doing
anything so long as he was in contact with art and artists :
the only thing was to get right away. To make the step
easier he had quarrelled with all his friends in Paris. He
developed a talent for telling them home truths, which
made them bear with fortitude his declaration that he
had done with that city and was settling in Gerona, a little
town in the north of Spain which had attracted him when
he saw it from the train on his way to Barcelona. He was
living there now alone.

"I wonder if he'll ever do any good," said Philip.

He was interested in the human side of that struggle to
express something which was so obscure in the man's mind
that he was become morbid and querulous. Philip felt
vaguely that he was himself in the same case, but with him
it was the conduct of his life as a whole that perplexed
him. That was his means of self-expression, and what he
must do with it was not clear. But he had no time to con-
tinue with this train of thought, for Lawson poured out a
frank recital of his affair with Ruth Chalice. She had left

him for a young student who had just come from Eng-
land, and was behaving in a scandalous fashion. Lawson
really thought someone ought to step in and save the young
man. She would ruin him. Philip gathered that Lawson's
chief grievance was that the rupture had come in the mid-
dle of a portrait he was painting.

"Women have no real feeling for art," he said. "They
only pretend they have." But he finished philosophically
enough: "However, I got four portraits out of her, and
I'm not sure if the last I was working on would ever have
been a success."

Philip envied the easy way in which the painter managed
his love-affairs. He had passed eighteen months pleasantly
enough, had got an excellent model for nothing, and had
parted from her at the end with no great pang.

"And what about Cronshaw?" asked Philip.

"Oh, he's done for," answered Lawson, with the cheer-
ful callousness of his youth. "He'll be dead in six months.
He got pneumonia last winter. He was in the English hos-
pital for seven weeks, and when he came out they told him
his only chance was to give up liquor."

"Poor devil," smiled the abstemious Philip.

"He kept off for a bit. He used to go to the Lilas all the
same, he couldn't keep away from that, but he used tc
drink hot milk, avec de la fleur d'oranger, and he was
damned dull."

"I take it you did not conceal the fact from him."

"Oh, he knew it himself. A little while ago he started
on whiskey again. He said he was too old to turn over any
new leaves. He would rather be happy for six months and
die at the end of it than linger on for five years. And then
I think he's been awfully hard up lately. You see, he didn't
earn anything while he was ill, and the slut he lives with
has been giving him a rotten time."

"I remember, the first time I saw him I admired him
awfully," said Philip. "I thought he was wonderful. It is
sickening that vulgar, middle-class virtue should pay."

"Of course he was s. rotter. He was bound to end in the
gutter sooner or later," said Lawson.

Philip was hurt because Lawson would not see the pity

390 OFHU MAN BOND AGE

of it. Of course it was cause and effect, but in the neces-
sity with which one follows the other lay all tragedy of
life.

"Oh, I'd forgotten," said Lawson. "Just after you left
he sent round a present for you. I thought you'd be com-
ing back and I didn't bother about it, and then I didn't
think it worth sending on; but it'll come over to London
with the rest of my things, and you can come to my studio
one day and fetch it away if you want it."

"You haven't told me what it is yet."

"Oh, it's only a ragged little bit of carpet. I shouldn't
think it's worth anything. I asked him one day what the
devil he'd sent the filthy thing for. He told me he'd seen it
in a shop in the Rue de Rennes and bought it for fifteen
francs. It appears to be a Persian rug. He said you'd asked
him the meaning of life and that was the answer. But he
was very drunk."

Philip laughed.

"Oh yes, I know. I'll take it. It was a favourite wheeze
of his. He said I must find out for myself, or else the an-
swer meant nothing."

LXVI

PHILIP worked well and easily; he had a good deal to
do, since he was taking in July the three parti of the First
Conjoint examination, two of which he had failed in be-
fore; but he found life pleasant. He made a new friend.
Lawson, on the look out for models, had discovered a girl
who was understudying at one of the theatres, and in order
to induce her to sit to him arranged a little luncheon-party
one Sunday. She brought a chaperon with her ; and to her
Philip, asked to make a fourth, was instructed to confine
his attentions. He found this easy, since she turned out to
be an agreeable chatterbox with an amusing tongue. She
asked Philip to go and see her ; she had rooms in Vincent
Square, and was always in to tea at five o'clock ; he went,
was delighted with his welcome, and went again. Mrs. Nes-
bit was not more than twenty-five, very small, with a pleas-
ant, ugly face ; she had very bright eyes, high cheek bones,
and a large mouth: the excessive contrasts of her colour-
ing reminded one of a portrait by one of the modern
French painters ; her skin was very white, her cheeks were
very red, her thick eyebrows, her hair, were very black.
The effect was odd, a little unnatural, but far from un-
pleasing. She was separated from her husband and earned
her living and her child's by writing penny novelettes.
There were one or two publishers who made a specialty of
that sort of thing, and she had as much work as she could
do. It was ill-paid, she received fifteen pounds for a story
of thirty thousand words ; but she was satisfied.

"After all, it only costs the reader twopence," she said,
"and they like the same thing over and over again. I just
change the names and that's all. When I'm bored I think
of the washing and the rent and clothes for baby, and I go
on again."

Besides, she walked on at various theatres where they
wanted supers and earned by this when in work from six-

392 OF H L M A X BONDAGE

teen shillings to a guinea a week. At the end of her day
she was so tired that she slept like a top. She made the best
of her difficult lot. Her keen sense of humour enabled her
to get amusement out of every vexatious circumstance.
Sometimes things went wrong, and she found herself with
no money at all ; then her trifling possessions found their
way to a pawnshop in the Vauxhall Bridge Road, and she
ate bread and butter till things grew brighter. She never
lost her cheerfulness.

Philip was interested in her shiftless life, and she made
him laugh with the fantastic narration of her struggles.
He asked her why she did not try her hand at literary work
of a better sort, but she knew that she had no talent, and
the abominable stuff she turned out by the thousand words
was not only tolerably paid, but was the best she could do.
She had nothing to look forward to but a continuation of
the life she led. She seemed to have no relations, and her
friends were as poor as herself.

"I don't think of the future," she said. "As long as I
have enough money for three weeks' rent and a pound or
two over for food I never bother. Life wouldn't be worth
living if I worried over the future as well as the present.
When things are at their worst I find something always
happens."

Soon Philip grew in the habit of going in to tea with
her every day, and so that his visits might not embarrass
her he took in a cake or a pound of butter or some tea.
They started to call one another by their Christian names.
Feminine sympathy was new to him, and he delighted in
someone who gave a willing ear to all his troubles. The
hours went quickly. He did not hide his admiration for
her. She was a delightful companion. He could not help
comparing her with Mildred ; and he contrasted with the
one's obstinate stupidity, which refused interest to every-
thing she did not know, the other's quick appreciation and
ready intelligence. His heart sank when he thought that he
might have been tied for life to such a woman as Mildred.
One evening he told Norah the whole story of his love. It
was not one to give him much reason for self-esteem, and
it was very pleasant to receive such charming sympathy.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 393

"I think you're well out of it," she said, when he had
finished.

She had a funny way at times of holding her head on
one side like an Aberdeen puppy. She was sitting in an
upright chair, sewing, for she had no time to do nothing,
and Philip had made himself comfortable at her feet.

"I can't tell you how heartily thankful I am it's all over,"
he sighed.

"Poor thing, you must have had a rotten time," she mur-
mured, and by way of showing her sympathy put her
hand on his shoulder.

He took it and kissed it, but she withdrew it quickly.

"Why did you do that?" she asked, with a blush.

"Have you any objection ?"

She looked at him for a moment with twinkling eyes,
and she smiled.

"No," she said.

He got up on his knees and faced her. She looked into
his eyes steadily, and her large mouth trembled with a
smile.

"Well?" she said.

"You know, you are a ripper. I'm so grateful to you for
being nice to me. I like you so much."

"Don't be idiotic," she said.

Philip took hold of her elbows and drew her towards
him. She made no resistance, but bent forward a little,
and he kissed her red lips.

"Why did you do that?" she asked again.

"Because it's comfortable."

She did not answer, but a tender look came into her
eyes, and she passed her hand softly over his hair.

"You know, it's awfully silly of you to behave like this.
We were such good friends. It would be so jolly to leave
it at that."

"If you really want to appeal to my better nature," re-
plied Philip, "you'll do well not to stroke my cheek while
you're doing it."

She gave a little chuckle, but she did not stop.

"It's very wrong of me, isn't it ?" she said.

Philip, surprised and a little amused, looked into her

394 OFHUMANBONDAGE

eyes, and as he looked he saw them soften and grow
liquid, and there was an expression in them that enchanted
him. His heart was suddenly stirred, and tears came to his
eyes.

"Norah, you're not fond of me, are you?" he asked, in-
credulously.

"You clever boy, you ask such stupid questions."

"Oh, my dear, it never struck me that you could be."

He flung his arms round her and kissed her, while she,
laughing, blushing, and crying, surrendered herself will-
ingly to his embrace.

Presently he released her and sitting back on his heels
looked at her curiously.

"Well, I'm blowed!" he said.

"Why?"

"I'm so surprised."

"And pleased?"

"Delighted," he cried with all his heart, "and so proud
and so happy and so grateful."

He took her hands and covered them with kisses. This
was the beginning for Philip of a happiness which seemed
both solid and durable. They became lovers but remained
friends. There was in Norah a maternal instinct which re-
ceived satisfaction in her love for Philip; she wanted
someone to pet, and scold, and make a fuss of ; she had a
domestic temperament and found pleasure in looking after
his health and his linen. She pitied his deformity, over
which he was so sensitive, and her pity expressed itself
instinctively in tenderness. She was young, strong, and
healthy, and it seemed quite natural to her to give her love.
She had high spirits and a merry soul. She liked Philip
because he laughed with her at all the amusing things in
life that caught her fancy, and above all she liked him be-
cause he was he.

When she told him this he answered gaily :

"Nonsense. You like me because I'm a silent person and
never want to get a word in."

Philip did not love her at all. He was extremely fond of
her, glad to be with her, amused and interested by her

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 395

conversation. She restored his belief in himself and put
healing ointments, as it were, on all the bruises of his soul.
He was immensely flattered that she cared for him. He
admired her courage, her optimism, her impudent defiance
of fate ; she had a little philosophy of her own, ingenuous
and practical.

"You know, I don't believe in churches and parsons and
all that," she said, "but I believe in God, and I don't be-
lieve He minds much about what you do as long as you
keep your end up and help a lame dog over a stile when
you can. And I think people on the whole are very nice,
and I'm sorry for those who aren't."

"And what about afterwards ?" asked Philip.

"Oh, well, I don't know for certain, you know," she
smiled, "but I hope for the best. And anyhow there'll be
no rent to pay and no novelettes to write."

She had a feminine gift for delicate flattery. She thought
that Philip did a brave thing when he left Paris because
he was conscious he could not be a great artist ; and he was
enchanted when she expressed enthusiastic admiration for
him. He had never been quite certain whether this action
indicated courage or infirmity of purpose. It was delightful
to realise that she considered it heroic. She ventured to
tackle him on a subject which his friends instinctively
avoided.

"It's very silly of you to be so sensitive about your club-
foot," she said. She saw him flush darkly, but went on.
"You know, people don't think about it nearly as much as
you do. They notice it the first time they see you, and then
they forget about it."

He would not answer.

"You're not angry with me, are you?"

"No."

She put her arm round his neck.

"You know, I only speak about it because I love you. I
don't want it to make you unhappy."

"I think you can say anything you choose to me," he an-
swered, smiling. "I wish I could do something to show you
how grateful I am to you."

3Q6 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

She took him in hand in other ways. She would not let
him be bearish and laughed at him when he was out of
u-mper. She made him more urbane.

"You can make me do anything you like," he said to
her once.

"D'you mind ?"

"Xo. I want to do what you like."

He had the sense to realise his happiness. It seemed to
him that she gave him all that a wife could, and he pre-
served his freedom ; she was the most charming friend he
had ever had, with a sympathy that he had never found in
a man. The sexual relationship was no more than the
strongest link in their friendship. It completed it, but was
not essential. And because Philip's appetites were satis-
fied, he became more equable and easier to live with. He
felt in complete possession of himself. He thought some-
times of the winter, during which he had been obsessed
by a hideous passion, and he was filled with loathing for
Mildred and with horror of himself.

His examinations were approaching, and Norah was as
interested in them as he. He was flattered and touched by
her eagerness. She made him promise to come at once and
tell her the results. He passed the three parts this time
without mishap, and when he went to tell her she burst into
tears.

"Oh, I'm so glad, I was so anxious."

"You silly little thing," he laughed, but he was choking.

No one could help being pleased with the way she took
it.

"And what are you going to do now?" she asked.

"I can take a holiday with a clear conscience. I have no
work to do till the winter session begins in October."

"I suppose you'll go down to your uncle's at Black-
stable?"

"You suppose quite wrong. I'm going to stay in London
and play with you."

"I'd rather you went away."

"\Yhy ? Are you tired of me?"

She laughed and put her hands on his shoulders.

"Because you've been working hard, and you look ut-

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 397

terly washed out. You want some fresh air and a vest.
Please go."

He did not answer for a moment. He looked at her with
loving eyes.

"You know, I'd never believe it of anyone but you.
You're only thinking of my good. I wonder what you see
in me."

"Will you give me a good character with my month's
notice?" she laughed gaily.

"I'll say that you're thoughtful and kind, and you're not
exacting; you never worry, you're not troublesome, and
you're easy to please."

"All that's nonsense," she said, "but I'll tell you one
thing : I'm one of the few persons I ever met who are able
to learn from experience.''

LXVII

PHILIP looked forward to his return to London with im-
patience. During the two months he spent at Blackstable
Norah wrote to him frequently, long letters in a bold,
large hand, in which with cheerful humour she described
the little events of the daily round, the domestic troubles
of her landlady, rich food for laughter, the comic vexa-
tions of her rehearsals — she was walking on in an impor-
tant spectacle at one of the London theatres — and her odd
adventures with the publishers of novelettes. Philip read
a great deal, bathed, played tennis, and sailed. At the be-
ginning of October he settled down in London to work for
the Second Conjoint examination. He was eager to pass
it, since that ended the drudgery of the curriculum ; after
it was done with the student became an out-patients' clerk,
and was brought in contact with men and women as well as
with text-books. Philip saw Norah every day.

Lawson had been spending the summer at Poole, and
had a number of sketches to show of the harbour and of
the beach. He had a couple of commissions for portraits
and proposed to stay in London till the bad light drove him
away. Hayward, in London too, intended to spend the
winter abroad, but remained week after week from sheer
inability to make up his mind to go. Hayward had run
to fat during the last two or three years — it was five years
since Philip first met him in Heidelberg — and he was
prematurely bald. He was very sensitive about it and wore
his hair long to conceal the unsightly patch on the crown
of his head. His only consolation was that his brow was
now very noble. His blue eyes had lost their colour; they
had a listless droop; and his mouth, losing the fulness of
youth, was weak and pale. He still talked vaguely of the
things he was going to do in the future, but with less con-
viction ; and he was conscious that his friends no longer
believed in him : when he had drunk two or three glasses
of whiskey he was inclined to be elegiac.

398

OF HUM AN BOND AGE 399

"I'm a failure," he murmured, "I'm unfit for the bru-
tality of the struggle of life. All I can do is to stand aside
and let the vulgar throng hustle by in their pursuit of the
good things."

He gave you the impression that to fail was a more deli-
cate, a more exquisite thing, than to succeed. He insinu-
ated that his aloofness was due to distaste for all that was
common and low. He talked beautifully of Plato.

"I should have thought you'd got through with Plato by
now," said Philip impatiently.

"Would you ?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

He was not inclined to pursue the subject. He had dis-
covered of late the effective dignity of silence.

"I don't see the use of reading the same thing over and
over again," said Philip. "That's only a laborious form of
idleness."

"But are you under the impression that you have so
great a mind that you can understand the most profound
writer at a first reading?"

"I don't want to understand him, I'm not a critic. I'm
not interested in him for his sake but for mine."

"Why d'you read then?"

"Partly for pleasure, because it's a habit and I'm just as
uncomfortable if I don't read as if I don't smoke, and
partly to know myself. When I read a book I seem to read
it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a
passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for
me, and it becomes part of me; I've got out of the book
all that's any use to me, and I can't get anything more if
I read it a dozen times. You see, it seems to me, one's like
a closed bud, and most of what one reads and does has no
effect at all ; but there are certain things that have a pe-
culiar significance for one, and they open a petal ; and the
petals open one by one ; and at last the flower is there."

Philip was not satisfied with his metaphor, but he did
not know how else to explain a thing which he felt and
yet was not clear about.

"You want to do things, you want to become things,"
said Hayward, with a shrug of the shoulders. "It's so vul-
gar."

4oo OF HUMAN BONDAGE

Philip knew Hayward very well by now. He was weak
and vain, so vain that you had to be on the watch con-
stantly not to hurt his feelings ; he mingled idleness and
i'dealism so that he could not separate them. At Lawson's
studio one day he met a journalist, who was charmed by
his conversation, and a week later the editor of a paper
wrote to suggest that he should do some criticism for him.
For forty-eight hours Hayward lived in an agony of inde-
cision. He had talked of getting occupation of this sort so
long that he had not the face to refuse outright, but the
thought of doing anything filled him with panic. At last he
declined the offer and breathed freely.

"It would have interfered with my work," he told Philip.

"What work?" asked Philip brutally.

"My inner life," he answered.

Then he went on to say beautiful things about Amiel,
the professor of Geneva, whose brilliancy promised
achievement which was never fulfilled ; till at his death the
reason of his failure and the excuse were at once mani-
fest in the minute, wonderful journal which was found
among his papers. Hayward smiled enigmatically.

But Hayward could still talk delightfully about books ;
his taste was exquisite and his discrimination elegant ; and
he had a constant interest in ideas, which made him an en-
tertaining companion. They meant nothing to him really,
since they never had any effect on him ; but he treated
them as he might have pieces of china in an auction-room,
handling them with pleasure in their shape and their glaze,
pricing them in his mind ; and then, putting them back
into their case, thought of them no more.

And it was Hayward who made a momentous discov-
ery. One evening, after due preparation, he took Philip
and Lawson to a tavern situated in Beak Street, remark-
able not only in itself and for its history — it had memories
of eighteenth-century glories which excited the romantic
imagination — but for its snuff, which was the best in Lon-
don, and above all for its punch. Hayward led them into a
large, long room, dingily magnificent, with huge pictures
on the walls of nude women: they were vast allegories of
the school of Haydon: but smoke, gas, and the London

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 401

atmosphere had given them a richness which made them
look like old masters. The dark panelling, the massive,
tarnished gold of the cornice, the mahogany tables, gave
the room an air of sumptuous comfort, and the leather-
covered seats along the wall were soft and easy. There was
a ram's head on a table opposite the door, and this con-
tained the celebrated snuff. They ordered punch. They
drank it. It was hot rum punch. The pen falters when it
attempts to treat of the excellence thereof ; the sober vo-
cabulary, the sparse epithet of this narrative, are inade-
quate to the task; and pompous terms, jewelled, exotic
phrases rise to the excited fancy. It warmed the blood and
cleared the head; it filled the soul with well-being; it dis-
posed the mind at once to utter wit and to appreciate the
wit of others ; it had the vagueness of music and the pre-
cision of mathematics. Only one of its qualities was com-
parable to anything else: it had the warmth of a good
heart; but its taste, its smell, its feel, were not to be de-
scribed in words. Charles Lamb, with his infinite tact, at-
tempting to, might have .drawn charming pictures of the
life of his day ; Lord Byron in a stanza of Don Juan, aim-
ing at the impossible, might have achieved the sublime ;
Oscar Wilde, heaping jewels of Ispahan upon brocades
of Byzantium, might have created a troubling beauty.
Considering it, the mind reeled under visions of the feasts
of Elagabalus ; and the subtle harmonies of Debussy min-
gled with the musty, fragrant romance of chests in which
have been kept old clothes, ruffs, hose, doublets, of a for-
gotten generation, and the wan odour of lilies of the valley
and the savour of Cheddar cheese.

Hayward discovered the tavern at which this priceless
beverage was to be obtained by meeting in the street a man
called Macalister who had been at Cambridge with him.
He was a stockbroker and a philosopher. He was accus-
tomed to go to the tavern once a week; and soon Philip,
Lawson, and Hayward got into the habit of meeting there
every Tuesday evening : change of manners made it now
little frequented, which was an advantage to persons who
took pleasure in conversation. Macalister was a big-boned
fellow, much too short for his width, with a large, fleshy

402 O F H U M A N B O N D A G E

face and a soft voice. He was a student of Kant and
judged everything from the standpoint of pure reason. He
was fond of expounding his doctrines. Philip listened with
excited interest. He had long come to the conclusion that
nothing amused him more than metaphysics, but he was
not so sure of their efficacy in the affairs of life. The neat
little system which he had formed as the result of his
meditations at Blackstable had not been of conspicuous use
during his infatuation for Mildred. He could not be posi-
tive that reason was much help in the conduct of life. Ii
seemed to him that life lived itself. He remembered very
vividly the violence of the emotion which had possessed
him and his inability, as if he were tied down to the grounu
with ropes, to react against it. He read many wise things
in books, but he could only judge from his own experi-
ence; (he did not know whether he was different from
other people;) he did not calculate the pros and cons of
an action, the benefits which must befall him if he did it,
the harm which might result from the omission; but his
whole being was urged on irresistibly. He did not act with
a part of himself but altogether. The power that possessed
him seemed to have nothing to do with reason : all that
reason did was to point out the methods of obtaining what
his whole soul was striving for.

Macalister reminded him of the Categorical Imperative.

"Act so that every action of yours should be capable of
becoming a universal rule of action for all men."

"That seems to me perfect nonsense," said Philip.
. "You're a bold man to say that of anything stated by
Emanuel Kant," retorted Macalister.

"Why? Reverence for what somebody said is a stultify-
ing quality : there's a damned sight too much reverence in
the world. Kant thought things not because they were true,
but because he was Kant."

"Well, what is your objection to the Categorical Im-
perative ?"

(They talked as though the fate of empires were in the
balance. )

"It suggests that one can choose one's course by an ef-
fort of will. And it suggests that reason is the surest guide.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 403

Why should its dictates be any better than those of pas-
sion ? They're different. That's all."

"You seem to be a contented slave of your passions."

"A slave because I can't help myself, but not a con-
tented one," laughed Philip.

While he spoke he thought of that hot madness which
had driven him in pursuit of Mildred. He remembered
how he had chafed against it and how he had felt the deg-
radation of it.

"Thank God, I'm free from all that now," he thought.

And yet even as he said it he was not quite sure whether
he spoke sincerely. When he was under the influence of
passion he had felt a singular vigour, and his mind had
worked with unwonted force. He was more alive, there was
an excitement in sheer being, an eager vehemence of soul,
which made life now a trifle dull. For all the misery he
had endured there was a compensation in that sense of
rushing, overwhelming existence.

But Philip's unlucky words engaged him in a discussion
on the freedom of the will, and Macalister, with his well-
stored memory, brought out argument after argument. He
had a mind that delighted in dialectics, and he forced Philip
to contradict himself ; he pushed him into corners from
which he could only escape by damaging concessions; he
tripped him up with logic and battered him with authori-
ties.

At last Philip said :

"Well, I can't say anything about other people. I can
only speak for myself. The illusion of free will is so strong
in my mind that I can't get away from it, but I believe it
is only an illusion. But it is an illusion which is one of the
strongest motives of my actions. Before I do anything I
feel that I have choice, and that influences what I do ; but
afterwards, when the thing is done, I believe that it was
inevitable from all eternity."

"What do you deduce from that?" asked Hayward.

"Why, merely the futility of regret. It's no good crying
over spilt milk, because all the forces of the universe were
bent on spilling it."

LXVIII

ONE morning Philip on getting up felt his head swim,
and going back to bed suddenly discovered he was ill. All
his limbs ached and he shivered with cold. When the land-
lady brought in his breakfast he called to her through the
open door that he was not well, and asked for a cup of tea
and a piece of toast. A few minutes later there was a
knock at his door, and Griffiths came in. They had lived in
che same house for over a year, but had never done more
than nod to one another in the passage.

"I say, I hear you're seedy," said Griffiths. "I thought
I'd come in and see what was the matter with you."

Philip, blushing he knew not why, made light of the
whole thing. He would be all right in an hour or two.

"Well, you'd better let me take your temperature," said
Griffiths.

"It's quite unnecessary," answered Philip irritably.

"Come on."

Philip put the thermometer in his mouth. Griffiths sat on
the side of the bed and chatted brightly for a moment,
then he took it out and looked at it.

"Now, look here, old man, you must stay in bed, and I'll
bring old Deacon in to have a look at you."

"Nonsense," said Philip. "There's nothing the matter.
I wish you wouldn't bother about me."

"But it isn't any bother. You've got a temperature and
you must stay in bed. You will, won't you ?"

There was a peculiar charm in his manner, a mingling
of gravity and kindliness, which was infinitely attractive.

"You've got a wonderful bed-side manner," Philip mur-
mured, closing his eyes with a smile.

Griffiths shook out his pillow for him, deftly smoothed
down the bed-clothes, and tucked him up. He went into
Philip's sitting-room to look for a siphon, could not find
one, and fetched it from his own room. He drew down the
blind.

404

OF HUMAN BOND AGE 405

"Now, go to sleep and I'll bring the old man round as
soon as he's done the wards."

It seemed hours before anyone came to Philip. His head
felt as if it would split, anguish rent his limbs, and he was
afraid he was going to cry. Then there was a knock at the
door and Griffiths, healthy, strong, and cheerful, came in.

"Here's Doctor Deacon," he said.

The physician stepped forward, an elderly man with a
bland manner, whom Philip knew only by sight. A few
questions, a brief examination, and the diagnosis.

"What d'you make it?" he asked Griffiths, smiling.

"Influenza."

"Quite right."

Doctor Deacon looked round the dingy lodging-house
room.

"Wouldn't you like to go to the hospital? They'll put
you in a private ward, and you can be better looked after
than you can here."

"I'd rather stay where I am," said Philip.

He did not want to be disturbed, and he was always shy
of new surroundings. He did not fancy nurses fussing
about him, and the dreary cleanliness of the hospital.

"I can look after him, sir," said Griffiths at once.

"Oh, very well."

He wrote a prescription, gave instructions, and left.

"Now you've got to do exactly as I tell you," said Grif-
fiths. "I'm day-nurse and night-nurse all in one."

"It's very kind of you, but I shan't want anvthing," said
Philip.

Griffiths put his hand on Philip's forehead, a large cool,
dry hand, and the touch seemed to him good.

"I'm just going to take this round to the dispensary to
have it made up, and then I'll come back."

In a little while he brought the medicine and gave Philip
a dose. Then he went upstairs to fetch his books.

"You won't mind my working in your room this after-
noon, will you?" he said, when he came down. "I'll leave
the door open so that you can give me a shout if you want
anything."

Later in the day Philip, awaking from an uneasy doze,

406 OF HUM AN BOND AGE

heard voices in his sitting-room. A friend had come in to
see Griffiths.

"I say, you'd better not come in tonight/' he heard Grif-
fiths saying.

And then a minute or two afterwards someone else en-
tered the room and expressed his surprise at finding Grif-
fiths there. Philip heard him explain.

"I'm looking after a second year's man who's got these
rooms. The wretched blighter's down with influenza. No
whist tonight, old man."

Presently Griffiths was left alone and Philip, called him.

"I say, you're not putting off a party tonight, are you ?"
he asked.

"Not on your account. I must work at my surgery."

"Don't put it off. I shall be all right. You needn't bother
about me."

"That's all right."

Philip grew worse. As the night came on he became
slightly delirious, but towards morning he awoke from a
restless sleep. He saw Griffiths get out of an arm-chair, go
down on his knees, and with his fingers put piece after
piece of coal on the fire. He was in pyjamas and a dressing-
gown.

"What are you doing here ?" he asked.

"Did I wake you up? I tried to make up the fire with-
out making a row."

"Why aren't you in bed? What's the time?"

"About five. I thought I'd better sit up with you tonight.
I brought an arm-chair in as I thought if I put a mattress
down I should sleep so soundly that I shouldn't hear you
if you wanted anything."

"I wish you wouldn't be so good to me," groaned Philip.
"Suppose you catch it ?"

"Then you shall nurse me, old man," said Griffiths, with
a laugh.

In the morning Griffiths drew up the blind. He looked
pale and tired after his night's watch, but was full of
spirits.

"Now, I'm going to wash you," he said to Philip cheer-
fully.

OF HUMAN BOND AGE 40?

"I can wash myself," said Philip, ashamed.

"Nonsense. If you were in the small ward a nurse would
wash you, and I can do it just as well as a nurse."

Philip, too weak and wretched to resist, allowed Grif-
fiths to wash his hands and face, his feet, his chest and
back. He did it with charming tenderness, carrying on
meanwhile a stream of friendly chatter; then he changed
the sheet just as they did at the hospital, shook out the pil-
low, and arranged the bed-clothes.

"I should like Sister Arthur to see me. It would make
her sit up. Deacon's coming in to see you early."

"I can't imagine why you should be so good to me," said
Philip.

"It's good practice for me. It's rather a lark having a pa-
tient."

Griffiths gave him his breakfast and went off to get
dressed and have something to eat. A few minutes before
ten he came back with a bunch of grapes and a few flowers.

"You are awfully kind," said Philip.

He was in bed for five days.

Norah and Griffiths nursed him between them. Though
Griffiths was the same age as Philip he adopted towards
him a humorous, motherly attitude. He was a thoughtful
fellow, gentle and encouraging; but his greatest quality
was a vitality which seemed to give health to everyone
with whom he came in contact. Philip was unused to the
petting which most people enjoy from mothers or sisters
and he was deeply touched by the feminine tenderness of
this strong young man. Philip grew better. Then Griffiths,
sitting idly in Philip's room, amused him with gay stories
of amorous adventure. He was a flirtatious creature, capa-
ble of carrying on three or four affairs at a time ; and his
account of the devices he was forced to in order to keep
out of difficulties made excellent hearing. He had a gift
for throwing a romantic glamour over everything that
happened to him. He was crippled with debts, everything
he had of any value was pawned, but he managed always
to be cheerful, extravagant, and generous. He was the ad-
venturer by nature. He loved people of doubtful occupa-
tions and shifty purposes ; and his acquaintance among the

408 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

riff-raff that frequents the bars of London was enormous.
Loose women, treating him as a friend, told him the trou-
bles, difficulties, and successes of their lives ; and card-
sharpers, respecting his impecuniosity, stood him dinners
and lent him five-pound notes. He was ploughed in his
examinations time after time ; but he bore this cheerfully,
and submitted with such a charming grace to the parental
expostulations that his father, a doctor in practice at Leeds,
had not the heart to be seriously angry with him.

"I'm an awful fool at books," he said cheerfully, "but
I can't work."

Life was much too jolly. But it was clear that when he
had got through the exuberance of his youth, and was at
last qualified, he would be a tremendous success in prac-
tice. He would cure people by the sheer charm of his man-
ner.

Philip worshipped him as at school he had worshipped
boys who were tall and straight and high of spirits. By the
time he was well they were fast friends, and it was a pe-
culiar satisfaction to Philip that Griffiths seemed to enjoy
sitting in his little parlour, wasting Philip's time with his
amusing chatter and smoking innumerable cigarettes.
Philip took him sometimes to the tavern off Regent Street.
Hayward found him stupid, but Lawson recognised his
charm and was eager to paint him; he was a picturesque
figure with his blue eyes, white skin, and curly hair. Often
they discussed things he knew nothing about, and then he
sat quietly, with a good-natured smile on his handsome
face, feeling quite rightly that his presence was sufficient
contribution to the entertainment of the company. When
he discovered that Macalister was a stockbroker he was
eager for tips; and Macalister, with his grave smile, told
him what fortunes he could have made if he had bought
certain stock at certain times. It made Philip's mouth
water, for in one way and another he was spending more
than he had expected, and it would have suited him very
well to make a little money by the easy method Macalister
suggested.

"Next time I hear of a really good thing I'll let you

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 409

know," said the stockbroker. "They do come along some-
times. It's only a matter of biding one's time."

Philip could not help thinking how delightful it would
be to make fifty pounds, so that he could give Norah the
iurs she so badly needed for the winter. He looked at the
shops in Regent Street and picked out the articles he could
buy tor the money. She deserved everything. She made his
life very happy.

LXIX

ONE afternoon, when he went back to his rooms froiri
the hospital to wash and tidy himself before going to tea
as usual with Norah, as he let himself in with his latch-
key, his landlady opened the door for him.

"There's a lady waiting to see you," she said.

"Me?" exclaimed Philip.

He was surprised. It would only be Norah, and he had
no idea what had brought her.

"I shouldn't 'ave let her in, only she's been three times,
and she seemed that upset at not finding you, so I told her
she could wait."

He pushed past the explaining landlady and burst into
the room. His heart turned sick. It was Mildred. She was
sitting down, but got up hurriedly as he came in. She did
not move towards him nor speak. He was so surprised
that he did not know what he was saying.

"What the hell d'you want ?" he asked.

She did not answer, but began to cry. She did not put
her hands to her eyes, but kept them hanging by the side
of her body. She looked like a housemaid applying for a
situation. There was a dreadful humility m her bearing.
Philip did not know what feelings came over him. He had
a sudden impulse to turn round and escape from the room.

"I didn't think I'd ever see you again," he said at last.

"I wish I was dead," she moaned.

Philip left her standing where she was. He could only
think at the moment of steadying himself. His knees were
shaking. He looked at her, and he groaned in despair.

"What's the matter?" he said.

"He's left me— Emil."

Philip's heart bounded. He knew then that he loved her
as passionately as ever. He had never ceased to love her.
She was standing before him humble and unresisting. He
wished to take her in his arms and cover her tear-stained

410

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 411

face with kisses. Oh, how long the separation had been!
He did not know how he could have endured it.

"You'd better sit down. Let me give you a drink."

He drew the chair near the fire and she sat in it. He
mixed her whiskey and soda, and, sobbing still, she drank
it. She looked at him with great, mournful eyes. There
were large black lines under them. She was thinner and
whiter than when last he had seen her.

"I wish I'd married you when you asked me," she said.

Philip did not know why the remark seemed to swell his
heart. He could not keep the distance from her which he
had forced upon himself. He put his hand on her shoulder.

"I'm awfully sorry you're in trouble."

She leaned her head against his bosom and burst into
hysterical crying. Her hat was in the way and she took it
off. He had never dreamt that she was capable of crying
like that. He kissed her again and again. It seemed to ease
her a little.

"You were always good to me, Philip," she said. "That's
why I knew I could come to you."

"Tell me what's happened."

"Oh, I can't, I can't," she cried out, breaking away from
him.

He sank down on his knees beside her and put his cheek
against hers.

"Don't you know that there's nothing you can't tell me ?
I can never blame you for anything."

She told him the story little by little, and sometimes
she sobbed so much that he could hardly understand.

"Last Monday week he went up to Birmingham, and he
promised to be back on Thursday, and he never came, and
he didn't come on the Friday, so I wrote to ask what was
the matter, and he never answered the letter. And I wrote
and said that if I didn't hear from him by return I'd go
up to Birmingham, and this morning I got a solicitor's
letter to say I had no claim on him, and if I molested him
he'd seek the protection of the law."

"But it's absurd," cried Philip. "A man can't treat his
wife like that. Had you had a row ?"

"Oh, yes, we'd had a quarrel on the Sunday, and he said

4i2 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

he was sick of me, but he'd said it before, and he'd come
back all right. I didn't think he meant it. He was fright-
ened, because I told him a baby was coming. I kept it from
him as long as I could. Then I had to tell him. He said it
was my fault, and I ought to have known better. If you'd
only heard the things he said to me! But I found out
precious quick that he wasn't a gentleman. He left me
without a penny. He hadn't paid the rent, and I hadn't got
the money to pay it, and the woman who kept the house
said such things to me — well, I might have been a thief
the way she talked."

"I thought you were going to take a flat."

"That's what he said, but we just took furnished apart-
ments in Highbury. He was that mean. He said I was ex-
travagant, he didn't give me anything to be extravagant
with."

She had an extraordinary way of mixing the trivial with
the important. Philip was puzzled. The whole thing was
incomprehensible.

"No man could be such a blackguard."

"You don't know him. I wouldn't go back to him now
not if he was to come and ask me on his bended knees. I
was a fool ever to think of him. And he wasn't earning the
money he said he was. The lies he told me !"

Philip thought for a minute or two. He was so deeply
moved by her distress that he could not think of himself.

"Would you like me to go to Birmingham? I could see
him and try to make things up."

"Oh, there's no chance of that. He'll never come back
now, I know him."

"But he must provide for you. He can't get out of that.
I don't know anything about these things, you'd better go
and see a solicitor."

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

"I'll pay all that. I'll write a note to my own solicitor,
the sportsman who was my father's executor. Would you
like me to come with you now ? I expect he'll still be at his
office."

"No, give me a letter to him. I'll go alone."

She was a little calmer now. He sat down and wrote a

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 413

note. Then he remembered that she had no money. He had
fortunately changed a cheque the day before and was able
to give her five pounds.

"You are good to me, Philip," she said.

"I'm so happy to be able to do something for you."

"Are you fond of me still ?"

"Just as fond as ever."

She put up her lips and he kissed her. There was a sur-
render in the action which he had never seen in her be-
fore. It was worth all the agony he had suffered.

She went away and he found that she had been there
for two hours. He was extraordinarily happy.

"Poor thing, poor thing," he murmured to himself, his
heart glowing with a greater love than he had ever felt
before.

He never thought of Norah at all till about eight o'clock
a telegram came. He knew before opening it that it was
from her.

Is anything the matter? Norah.

He did not know what to do nor what to answer. He
could fetch her after the play, in which she was walking-
on, was over and stroll home with her as he sometimes
did ; but his whole soul revolted against the idea of seeing
her that evening. He thought of writing to her, but he
could not bring himself to address her as usual, dearest
Norah. He made up his mind to telegraph.

Sorry. Could not get away, Philip.

He visualised her. He was slightly repelled by the ugly
little face, with its high cheek-bones and the crude colour.
There was a coarseness in her skin which gave him goose-
flesh. He knew that his telegram must be followed by some
action on his part, but at all events it postponed it.

Next day he wired again.

Regret, unable to come. Will write.

Mildred had suggested coming at four in the afternoon,
and he would not tell her that the hour was inconvenient.

4H OF HUMAN BONDAGE

After all she came first. He waited for her impatiently. He
watched for her at the window and opened the front-door
himself.

"Well ? Did you see Nixon ?"

"Yes," she answered. "He said it wasn't any good. Noth-
ing's to be done. I must just grin and bear it."

"But that's impossible," cried Philip.

She sat down wearily.

"Did he give any reasons?" he asked.

She gave him a crumpled letter.

"There's your letter, Philip. I never took it. I couldn't
tell you yesterday, I really couldn't. Emil didn't marry me.
He couldn't. He had a wife already and three children."

Philip felt a sudden pang of jealousy and anguish. It
was almost more than he could bear.

"That's why I couldn't go back to my aunt. There's no
one I can go to but you."

"What made you go away with him?" Philip asked, in
a low voice which he struggled to make firm.

"I don't know. I didn't know he was a married man at
first, and when he told me I gave him a piece of my mind.
And then I didn't see him for months, and when he came
to the shop again and asked me I don't know what came
over me. I felt as if I couldn't help it. I had to go with
him."

"Were you in love with him ?"

"I don't know. I couldn't hardly help laughing at the
things he said. And there was something about him — he
said I'd never regret it, he promised to give me seven
pounds a week — he said he was earning fifteen, and it was
all a lie, he wasn't. And then I was sick of going to the
shop every morning, and I wasn't getting on very well with
my aunt ; she wanted to treat me as a servant instead of a
relation, said I ought to do my own room, and if I didn't
do it nobody was going to do it for me. Oh, I wish I
hadn't. But when he came to the shop and asked me I felt
I couldn't help it."

Philip moved away from her. He sat down at the table
.•and buried his face in his hands. He felt dreadfully hu-
miliated.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 415

"You're not angry with me, Philip?" she asked pite-
ously.

"No," he answered, looking up but away from her,
"only I'm awfully hurt."

"Why?"

"You see, I was so dreadfully in love with you. I did
everything I could to make you care for me. I thought you
were incapable of loving anyone. It's so horrible to know
that you were willing to sacrifice everything for that boun-
der. I wonder what you saw in. him."

"I'm awfully sorry, Philip. I regretted it bitterly after-
wards, I promise you that."

He thought of Emil Miller, with his pasty, unhealthy
look, his shifty blue eyes, and the vulgar smartness of his
appearance ; he always wore bright red knitted waistcoats.
Philip sighed. She got up and went to him. She put her
arm round his neck.

"I shall never forget that you offered to marry me,
Philip."

He took her hand and looked up at her. She bent down
and kissed him.

"Philip, if you want me still I'll do anything you like
now. I know you're a gentleman in every sense of the
word."

His heart stood still. Her words made him feel slightly
sick.

"It's awfully good of you, but I couldn't."

"Don't you care for me any more ?"

"Yes, I love you with all my heart."

"Then why shouldn't we have a good time while we've
got the chance ? You see, it can't matter now."

He released himself from her.

"You don't understand. I've been sick with love for you
ever since I saw you, but now — that man. I've unfortun-
ately got a vivid imagination. The thought of it simply dis-
gusts me."

"You are funny," she said.

He took her hand again and smiled at her.

"You mustn't think I'm not grateful. I can never thank
you enough, but you see, it's just stronger than I am."

416 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

"You are a good friend, Philip."

They went on talking, and soon they had returned to the
familiar companionship of old days. It grew late. Philip
suggested that they should dine together and go to a music-
hall. She wanted some persuasion, for she had an idea of
acting up to her situation, and felt instinctively that it did
not accord with her distressed condition to go to a place of
entertainment. At last Philip asked her to go simply to
please him, and when she could look upon it as an act of
self-sacrifice she accepted. She had a new thought fulness
which delighted Philip. She asked him to take her to the
little restaurant in Soho to which they had so often been ;
he was infinitely grateful to her, because her suggestion
showed that happy memories were attached to it. She grew
much more cheerful as dinner proceeded. The Burgundy
from the public house at the corner warmed her heart, and
she forgot that she ought to preserve a dolorous counte-
nance. Philip thought it safe to speak to her of the future.

"I suppose you haven't got a brass farthing, have you ?"
he asked, when an opportunity presented itself.

"Only what you gave me yesterday, and I had to give the
landlady three pounds of that."

"Well, I'd better give you a tenner to go on with. I'll go
and see my solicitor and get him to write to Miller. We can
make him pay up something, I'm sure. If we can get a
hundred pounds out of him it'll carry you on till after the
baby comes."

"I wouldn't take a penny from him. I'd rather starve."

"But it's monstrous that he should leave you in the lurch
like this."

"I've got my pride to consider."

It was a little awkward for Philip. He needed rigid
economy to make his own money last till he was qualified,
and he must have something over to keep him during the
year he intended to spend as house physician and hquse
surgeon either at his own or at some other hospital. But
Mildred had told him various stories of Emil's meanness,
and he was afraid to remonstrate with her in case she ac-
cused him too of want of generosity.

"I wouldn't take a penny piece from him. I'd sooner beg

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 41?

my bread. I'd have seen about getting some work to do
long before now, only it wouldn't be good for me in the
state I'm in. You have to think of your health, don't you ?"

"You needn't bother about the present," said Philip. "I
can let you have all you want till you're fit to work again."

"I knew I could depend on you. I told Emil he needn't
think I hadn't got somebody to go to. I told him you was
a gentleman in every sense of the word."

By degrees Philip learned how the separation had come
about. It appeared that the fellow's wife had discovered
the adventure he was engaged in during his periodical vis-
its to London, and had gone to the head of the firm that
employed him. She threatened to divorce him, and they
announced that they would dismiss him if she did. He was
passionately devoted to his children and could not bear the
thought of being separated from them. When he had to
choose between his wife and his mistress he chose his wife.
He had been always anxious that there should be no child
to make the entanglement more complicated; and when
Mildred, unable longer to conceal its approach, informed
him of the fact, he was seized with panic. He picked a
quarrel and left her without more ado.

"When d'you expect to be confined ?" asked Philip.

"At the beginning of March."

"Three months."

It was necessary to discuss plans. Mildred declared she
would not remain in the rooms at Highbury, and Philip
thought it more convenient too that she should be nearer
to him. He promised to look for something next day. She
suggested the Vauxhall Bridge Road as a likely neigh-
bourhood.

"And it would be near for afterwards," she said.

"What do you mean ?"

"Well, I should only be able to stay there about two
months or a little more, and then I should have to go into
a house. I know a very respectable place, where they have
a most superior class of people, and they take jou for four
guineas a week and no extras. Of course the doctor's extra,
but that's all. A friend of mine went there, and the lady
who keeps it is a thorough lady. I mean to tell her that my

4i8 OF HUM AN BOND AGE

husband's an officer in India and I've come to London for
my baby, because it's better for my health."

It seemed extraordinary to Philip to hear her talking in
this way. With her delicate little features and her pale face
she looked cold and maidenly. When he thought of the pas-
sions that burnt within her, so unexpected, his heart was
strangely troubled. His pulse beat quickly.

LXX

PHILIP expected to find a letter from Norah when he
got back to his rooms, but there was nothing; nor did he
receive one the following morning. The silence irritated
and at the same time alarmed him. They had seen one an-
other every day he had been in London since the previous
June ; and it must seem odd to her that he should let two
days go by without visiting her or offering a reason for
his absence; he wondered whether by an unlucky chance
she had seen him with Mildred. He could not bear to think
that she was hurt or unhappy, and he made up his mind
to call on her that afternoon. He was almost inclined to
reproach her because he had allowed himself to get on
such intimate terms with her. The thought of continuing
them filled him with disgust.

He found two rooms for Mildred on the second floor of
a house in the Vauxhall Bridge Road. They were noisy,
but he knew that she liked the rattle of traffic under her
windows.

"I don't like a dead and alive street where you don't
see a soul pass all day," she said. "Give me a bit of life."

Then he forced himself to go to Vincent Square. He was
sick with apprehension when he rang the bell. He had an
uneasy sense that he was treating Norah badly ; he dreaded
reproaches ; he knew she had a quick temper, and he hated
scenes : perhaps the best way would be to tell her frankly
that Mildred had come back to him and his love for her
was as violent as it had ever been ; he was very sorry, but
he had nothing to offer Norah any more. Then he thought
of her anguish, for he knew she loved him; it had flat-
tered him before, and he was immensely grateful ; but now
it was horrible. She had not deserved that he should inflict
pain upon her. He asked himself how she would greet him
now, and as he walked up the stairs all possible forms of
her behaviour flashed across his mind. He knocked at the

419

420 OF HUM AN BOND AGE

door. He felt that he was pale, and wondered how to con-
ceal his nervousness.

She was writing away industriously, but she sprang to
her feet as he entered.

"I recognised your step," she cried. "Where have you
been hiding yourself, you naughty boy?"

She came towards him joyfully and put her arms round
his neck. She was delighted to see him. He kissed her, and
then, to give himself countenance, said he was dying for
tea. She bustled the fire to make the kettle boil.

"I've been awfully busy," he said lamely.

She began to chatter in her bright way, telling him of a
new commission she had to provide a novelette for a firm
which had not hitherto employed her. She was to get fif-
teen guineas for it.

"It's money from the clouds. I'll tell you what we'll do,
we'll stand ourselves a little jaunt. Let's go and spend a
day at Oxford, shall we ? I'd love to see the colleges."

He looked at her to see whether there was any shadow
of reproach in her eyes ; but they were as frank and merry
as ever: she was overjoyed to see him. His heart sank.
He could not tell her the brutal truth. She made some toast
for him, and cut it into little pieces, and gave it him as
though he were a child.

"Is the brute fed ?" she asked.

He nodded, smiling; and she lit a cigarette for him.
Then, as she loved to do, she came and sat on his knees.
She was very light. She leaned back in his arms with a
sigh of delicious happiness.

"Say something nice to me," she murmured.

"What shall I say?"

"You might by an effort of imagination say that you
rather liked me."

"You know I do that."

He had not the heart to tell her then. He would give her
peace at all events for that day, and perhaps he might
write to her. That would be easier. He could not bear to
think of her crying. She made him kiss her, and as he
kissed her he thought of Mildred and Mildred's pale, thin
lips. The recollection of Mildred remained with him all

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 421

the time, like an incorporated form, but more substantial
than a shadow ; and the sight continually distracted his at-
tention.

"You're very quiet today," Norah said.

Her loquacity was a standing joke between them, and
he answered :

"You never let me get a word in, and I've got out of the
habit of talking."

"But you're not listening, and that's bad manners."

He reddened a little, wondering whether she had some
inkling of his secret; he turned away his eyes uneasily.
The weight of her irked him this afternoon, and he did not
want her to touch him.

"My foot's gone to sleep," he said.

"I'm so sorry," she cried, jumping up. "I shall have to
bant if I can't break myself of this habit of sitting on gen-
tlemen's knees."

He went through an elaborate form of stamping his foot
and walking about. Then he stood in front of the fire so
that she should not resume her position. While she talked
he thought that she was worth ten of Mildred ; she amused
him much more and was jollier to talk to; she was clev-
erer, and she had a much nicer nature. She was a good,
brave, honest little woman; and Mildred, he thought bit-
terly, deserved none of these epithets. If he had any sense
he would stick to Norah, she would make him much hap-
pier than he would ever be with Mildred : after all she
loved him, and Mildred was only grateful for his help.
But when all was said the important thing was to love
rather than to be loved ; and he yearned for Mildred with
his whole soul. He would sooner have ten minutes with her
than a whole afternoon with Norah, he prized one kiss of
her cold lips more than all Norah could give him.

"I can't help myself," he thought. "I've just got her it*
my bones."

He did not care if she was heartless, vicious and vulgar,
stupid and grasping, he loved her. He would rather have
misery with the one than happiness with the other.

When he got up to go Norah said casually :

"Well, I shall see you tomorrow, shan't I?"

422 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

"Yes," he answered.

He knew that he would not be able to come, since he
was going to help Mildred with her moving, but he had
not the courage to say so. He made up his mind that he
would send a wire. Mildred saw the rooms in the morning,
was satisfied with them, and after luncheon Philip went
up with her to Highbury. She had a trunk for her clothes
and another for the various odds and ends, cushions, lamp-
shades, photograph frames, with which she had tried to
give the apartments a home-like air ; she had two or three
large cardboard boxes besides, but in all there was no
more than could be put on the roof of a four-wheeler.
As they drove through Victoria Street Philip sat well
back in the cab in case Norah should happen to be passing.
He had not had an opportunity to telegraph and could not
do so from the post-office in the Vauxhall Bridge Road,
since she would wonder what he was doing in that neigh-
bourhood; and if he was there he could have no excuse
for not going into the neighbouring square where she
lived. He made up his mind that he had better go in and
see her for half an hour ; but the necessity irritated him :
he was angry with Norah, because she forced him to vul-
gar and degrading shifts. But he was happy to be with
Mildred. It amused him to help her with the unpacking;
and he experienced a charming sense of possession in
installing her in these lodgings which he had found and
was paying for. He would not let her exert herself. It was
a pleasure to do things for her, and she had no desire to
do what somebody else seemed desirous to do for her.
He unpacked her clothes and put them away. She was not
proposing to go out again, so he got her slippers and took
off her boots. It delighted him to perform menial offices.

"You do spoil me," she said, running her fingers affec-
tionately through his hair, while he was on his knees un-
buttoning her boots.

He took her hands and kissed them.

"It is nipping to have you here."

He arranged the cushions and the photograph frames.
She had several jars of green earthenware.

"I'll get you some flowers for them," he said.

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 423

He looked round at his work proudly.

"As I'm not going out any more I think I'll get into a
tea-gown," she said. "Undo me behind, will you?"

She turned round as unconcernedly as though he were
a woman. His sex meant nothing to her. But his heart was
rilled with gratitude for the intimacy her request showed.
He undid the hooks and eyes with clumsy fingers.

"That first day I came into the shop I never thought
I'd be doing this for you now," he said, with a laugh which
he forced."

"Somebody must do it," she answered.

She went into the bed-room and slipped into a pale blue
tea-gown decorated with a great deal of cheap lace. Then
Philip settled her on a sofa and made tea for her.

"I'm afraid I can't stay and have it with you," he said
regretfully. "I've got a beastly appointment. But I shall be
back in half an hour."

He wondered what he should say if she asked him what
the appointment was, but she showed no curiosity. He had
ordered dinner for the two of them when he took the
rooms, and proposed to spend the evening with her quietly.
He was in such a hurry to get back that he took a tram
along the Vauxhall Bridge Road. He thought he had bet-
ter break the fact to Norah at once that he could not stay
more than a few minutes.

"I say, I've got only just time to say how d'you do," he
said, as soon as he got into her rooms. "I'm frightfully
busy."

Her face fell.

"Why, what's the matter?"

It exasperated him that she should force him to tell lies,
and he knew that he reddened when he answered that there
was a demonstration at the hospital which he was bound to
go to. He fancied that she looked as though she did not
believe him, and this irritated him all the more.

"Oh, well, it doesn't matter," she said. "I shall have you
all tomorrow."

He looked at her blankly. It was Sunday, and he had
been looking forward to spending the day with Mildred.

424 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

He told himself that he must do that in common decency;
he could not leave her by herself in a strange house.

"I'm awfully sorry, I'm engaged tomorrow."

He knew this was the beginning of a scene which he
would have given anything to avoid. The colour on Norah's
cheeks grew brighter.

"But I've asked the Gordons to lunch" — they were an
actor and his wife who were touring the provinces and in
London for Sunday — "I told you about it a week ago."

"I'm awfully sorry, I forgot." He hesitated. "I'm afraid
I can't possibly come. Isn't there somebody else you can
get?"

"What are you doing tomorrow then ?"

"I wish you wouldn't cross-examine me."

"Don't you want to tell me ?"

"I don't in the least mind telling you, but it's rather an-
noying to be forced to account for all one's movements."

Norah suddenly changed. With an effort of self-control
she got the better of her temper, and going up to him took
his hands.

"Don't disappoint me tomorrow, Philip, I've been look-
ing forward so much to spending the day with you. The
Gordons want to see you, and we'll have such a jolly time."

"I'd love to if I could."

"I'm not very exacting, am I ? I don't often ask you to
do anything that's a bother. Won't you get out of your
horrid engagement — just this once ?"

"I'm awfully sorry, I don't see how I can," he replied
sullenly.

"Tell me what it is," she said coaxingly.

He had had time to invent something.

"Griffiths' two sisters are up for the week-end and we're
taking them out."

"Is that all?" she said joyfully. "Griffiths can so easily
get another man."

He wished he had thought of something more urgent
than that. It was a clumsy lie.

"No, I'm awfully sorry, I can't — I've promised and I
mean to keep my promise."

"But you promised me too. Surely I come first."

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 425

"I wish you wouldn't persist," he said.

She flared up.

"You won't come because you don't want to. I don't
know what you've been doing the last few days, you've
been quite different."

He looked at his watch.

"I'm afraid I'll have to be going," he said.

"You won't come tomorrow ?"

"No."

"In that case you needn't trouble to come again," she
cried, losing her temper for good.

"That's just as you like," he answered.

"Don't let me detain you any longer," she added ironi-
cally.

He shrugged his shoulders and walked out. He was re-
lieved that it had gone no worse. There had been no tears.
As he walked along he congratulated himself on getting
out of the affair so easily. He went into Victoria Street and
bought a few flowers to take in to Mildred.

The little dinner was a great success. Philip had sent in
a small pot of caviare, which he knew she was very fond
of, and the landlady brought them up some cutlets with
vegetables and a sweet. Philip had ordered Burgundy,
which was her favourite wine. With the curtains drawn, a
bright fire, and one of Mildred's shades on the lamp, the
room was cosy.

"It's really just like home," smiled Philip.

"I might be worse off, mightn't I ?" she answered.

When they finished, Philip drew two arm-chairs in front
of the fire, and they sat down. He smoked his pipe com-
fortably. He felt happy and generous.

"What would you like to do tomorrow ?" he asked.

"Oh, I'm going to Tulse Hill. You remember the man-
ageress at the shop, well, she's married now, and she's
asked me to go and spend the day with her. Of course she
thinks I'm married too."

Philip's heart sank.

"But I refused an invitation so that I might spend Sun
day with you."

He thought that if she loved him she would say that in

426 OF II U M A X BONDAGE

that case she would stay with him. He knew very well that
Norah would not have hesitated.

"Well, you were a silly to do that. I've promised to go
for three weeks and more."

"But how can you go alone?"

"Oh, I shall say that Emil's away on business. Her hus-
band's in the glove trade, and he's a very superior fel-
low."

Philip was silent, and bitter feelings passed through his
heart. She gave him a sidelong glance.

"You don't grudge me a little pleasure, Philip ? You see,
it's the last time I shall be able to go anywhere for I don't
know how long, and I had promised."

He took her hand and smiled.

"No, darling, I want you to have the best time you can.
I only want you to be happy."

There was a little book bound in blue paper lying open,
face downwards, on the sofa, and Philip idly took it up. It
was a twopenny novelette, and the author was Courtenay
Paget. That was the name under which Norah wrote.

"I do like his books," said Mildred. "I read them all.
They're so refined."

He remembered what Norah had said of herself.

"I have an immense popularity among kitchen-maids.
They think me so genteel."

LXXI

PHILIP, in return for Griffiths' confidences, had told him
the details of his own complicated amours, and on Sunday
morning, after breakfast when they sat by the fire in their
dressing-gowns and smoked, he recounted the scene of the
previous day. Griffiths congratulated him because he had
got out of his difficulties so easily.

"It's the simplest thing in the world to, have an affair
with a woman," he remarked sententiously, "but it's a devil
of a nuisance to get out of it."

Philip felt a little inclined to pat himself on the back for
his skill in managing the business. At all events he was
immensely relieved. He thought of Mildred enjoying her-
self in Tulse Hill, and he found in himself a real satisfac-
tion because she was happy. It was an act of self-sacrifice
on his part that he did not grudge her pleasure even though
paid for by his own disappointment, and it filled his heart
with a comfortable glow.

But on Monday morning he found on his table a letter
from Norah. She wrote :

Dearest,

I'm sorry I was cross on Saturday. Forgive me and come
to tea in the afternoon as usual. I love you.

Your Norah.

His heart sank, and he did not know what to do. He
took the note to Griffiths and showed it to him.

"You'd better leave it unanswered," said he.

"Oh, I can't," cried Philip. "I should be miserable if I
thought of her waiting and waiting. You don't know what
it is to be sick for the postman's knock. I do, and I can't
expose anybody else to that torture."

"My dear fellow, one can't break that sort of affair off
without somebody suffering. You must just set your teeth
to that. One thing is, it doesn't last very long."

427

428 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

Philip felt that Norah had not deserved that he should
make her suffer; and what did Griffiths know about the
degrees of anguish she was capable of? He remembered
his own pain when Mildred had told him she was going to
be married. He did not want anyone to experience what he
had experienced then.

"If you're so anxious not to give her pain, go back to
her," said Griffiths.

"I can't do that."

He got up and walked up and down the room nervously.
He was angry with Norah because she had not let the mat-
ter rest. She must have seen that he had no more love to
give her. They said women were so quick at seeing those
things.

"You might help me," he said to Griffiths.

"My dear fellow, don't make such a fuss about it. People
do get over these things, you know. She probably isn't so
wrapped up in you as you think, either. One's always
rather apt to exaggerate the passion one's inspired other
people with."

He paused and looked at Philip with amusement.

"Look here, there's only one thing you can do. Write to
her, and tell her the thing's over. Put it so that there cais
be no mistake about it. It'll hurt her, but it'll hurt her less
if you do the thing brutally than if you try half-hearted
ways."

Philip sat down and wrote the following letter :

My dear Norah,

I am sorry to make yon unhappy, but I think we had bet-
ter let things remain where we left them on Saturday. I
don't think there's any use in letting these things drag on
when they've ceased to be amusing. You told me to go and
I went. I do not propose to come back. Good-bye.

Philip Carey.

He showed the letter to Griffiths and asked him what he
thought of it. Griffiths read it and looked at Philip with
twinkling eyes. He did not say what he felt.

"I think that'll do the trick," he said.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 429

Philip went out and posted it. He passed an uncomfor-
table morning, for he imagined with great detail what
Norah would feel when she received his letter. He tor-
tured himself with the thought of her tears. But at the
same time he was relieved. Imagined grief was more easy
to bear than grief seen, and he was free now to love Mil-
dred with all his soul. His heart leaped at the thought of
going to see her that afternoon, when his day's work at the
hospital was over.

When as usual he went back to his rooms to tidy him-
self, he had no sooner put the latch-key in his door than he
heard a voice behind him.

"May I come in? I've been waiting for you for half an
hour."

It was Norah. He felt himself blush to the roots of his
hair. She spoke gaily. There was no trace of resentment
in her voice and nothing to indicate that there was a rup-
ture between them. He felt himself cornered. He was sick
with fear, but he did his best to smile.

"Yes, do," he said.

He opened the door, and she preceded him into his
sitting-room. He was nervous and, to give himself counte-
nance, offered her a cigarette and lit one for himself. She
looked at him brightly.

"Why did you write me such a horrid letter, you
naughty boy? If I'd taken it seriously it would have made
me perfectly wretched."

"It was meant seriously," he answered gravely.

"Don't be so silly. I lost my temper the other day, and
I wrote and apologised. You weren't satisfied, so I've come
here to apologise again. After all, you're your own master
and I have no claims upon you. I don't want you to do
anything you don't want to."

She got up from the chair in which she was sitting and
went towards him impulsively, with outstretched hands.

"Let's make friends again, Philip. I'm so sorry if I
offended you."

He could not prevent her from taking his hands, but he
could not look at her.

"I'm afraid it's too late," he said.

430 OFHUMANBONDAGE

She let herself down on the floor by his side and clasped
his knees.

"Philip, don't be silly. I'm quick-tempered too and I can
understand that I hurt you, but it's so stupid to sulk over
it. What's the good of making us both unhappy ? It's been
so jolly, our friendship." She passed her fingers slowly
over his hand. "I love you, Philip."

He got up, disengaging himself from her, and went to
the other side of the room.

"I'm awfully sorry, I can't do anything. The whole
thing's over."

"D'you mean to say you don't love me any more ?"

"I'm afraid so."

"You were just looking for an opportunity to throw me
over and you took that one ?"

He did not answer. She looked at him steadily for a time
which seemed intolerable. She was sitting on the floor
where he had left her, leaning against the arm-chair. She
began to cry quite silently, without trying to hide her face,
and the large tears rolled down her cheeks one after the
other. She did not sob. It was horribly painful to see her.
Philip turned away.

"I'm awfully sorry to hurt you. It's not my fault if I
don't love you."

She did not answer. She merely sat there, as though she
were overwhelmed, and the tears flowed down her cheeks.
It would have been easier to bear if she had reproached
him. He had thought her temper would get the better of
her, and he was prepared for that. At the back of his mind
was a feeling that a real quarrel, in which each said to
the other cruel things, would in some way be a justification
of his behaviour. The time passed. At last he grew fright-
ened by her silent crying; he went into his bed-room and
got a glass of water ; he leaned over her.

"Won't you drink a little ? It'll relieve you."

She put her lips listlessly to the glass and drank two or
three mouthfuls. Then in an exhausted whisper she asked
him for a handkerchief. She dried her eyes.

"Of course I knew you never loved me as much as I
loved you," she moaned.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 431

"I'm afraid that's always the case," he said. "There's
always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved."

He thought of Mildred, and a bitter pain traversed his
heart. Norah did not answer for a long time.

"I'd been so miserably unhappy, and my life was so
hateful," she said at last.

She did not speak to him, but to herself. He had never
heard her before complain of the life she had led with her
husband or of her poverty. He had always admired the
bold front she displayed to the world.

"And then you came along and you were so good to me.
And I admired you because you were clever and it was so
heavenly to have someone I could put my trust in. I loved
you. I never thought it could come to an end. And with-
out any fault of mine at all."

Her tears began to flow again, but now she was more
mistress of herself, and she hid her face in Philip's hand-
kerchief. She tried hard to control herself.

"Give me some more water," she said.

She wiped her eyes.

"I'm sorry to make such a fool of myself. I was so un-
prepared."

"I'm awfully sorry, Norah. I want you to know that
I'm very grateful for all you've done for me."

He wondered what it was she saw in him.

"Oh, it's always the same," she sighed, "if you want men
to behave well to you, you must be beastly to them ; if you
treat them decently they make you suffer for it."

She got up from the floor and said she must go. She
gave Philip a long, steady look. Then she sighed.

"It's so inexplicable. What does it all mean?"

Philip took a sudden determination.

"I think I'd better tell you, I don't want you to think
too badly ot me, I want you to see that I can't help my-
self. Mildred's come back."

The colour came to her face.

"Why didn't you tell me at once? I deserved that
surely."

"I was afiaid to."

432 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

She looked at herself in the glass and set her hat
straight.

"Will you call me a cab," she said. "I don't feel I can
walk."

He went to the door and stopped a passing hansom ; but
when she followed him into the street he was startled to
see how white she was. There was a heaviness in her move-
ments as though she had suddenly grown older. She looked
so ill that he had not the heart to let her go alone.

"I'll drive back with you if you don't mind."

She did not answer, and he got into the cab. They drove
along in silence over the bridge, through shabby streets
in which children, with shrill cries, played in the road.
When they arrived at her door she did not immediately get
out. It seemed as though she could not summon enough
strength to her legs to move.

"I hope you'll forgive me, Norah," he said.

She turned her eyes towards him, and he saw that they
were bright again with tears, but she forced a smile to her
lips.

"Poor fellow, you're quite worried about me. You
mustn't bother. I don't blame you. I shall get over it all
right."

Lightly and quickly she stroked his face to show him
that she bore no ill-feeling, the gesture was scarcely more
than suggested ; then she jumped out of the cab and let her-
self into her house.

Philip paid the hansom and walked to Mildred's lodg-
ings. There was a curious heaviness in his heart. He was
inclined to reproach himself. But why? He did not know
what else he could have done. Passing a fruiterer's, he re-
membered that Mildred was fond of grapes. He was so
grateful that he could show his love for her by recollecting
every whim she had.

LXXII

FOR the next three months Philip went every day to see
Mildred. He took his books with him and after tea
worked, while Mildred lay on the sofa reading novels.
Sometimes he would look up and watch her for a minute.
A happy smile crossed his lips. She would feel his eyes
upon her.

"Don't waste your time looking at me, silly. Go on with
your work," she said.

"Tyrant," he answered gaily.

He put aside his book when the landlady came in to lay
the cloth for dinner, and in his high spirits he exchanged
chaff with her. She was a little cockney, of middle-age,
with an amusing humour and a quick tongue. Mildred had
become great friends with her and had given her an elabo-
rate but mendacious account of the circumstances which
had brought her to the pass she was in. The good-hearted
little woman was touched and found no trouble too gresft
to make Mildred comfortable. Mildred's sense of pro-
priety had suggested that Philip should pass himself off
as her brother. They dined together, and Philip was de-
lighted when he had ordered something which tempted
Mildred's capricious appetite. It enchanted him to see her
sitting opposite him, and every now and then from sheer
joy he took her hand and pressed it. After dinner she sat
in the arm-chair by the fire, and he settled himself down
on the floor beside her, leaning against her knees, and
smoked. Often they did not talk at all, and sometimes
Philip noticed that she had fallen into a doze. He dared
not move then in case he woke her, and he sat very quietly,
looking lazily into the fire and enjoying his happiness.

"Had a nice little nap?" he smiled, when she woke.

"I've not been sleeping," she answered. "I only just
closed my eyes."

She would never acknowledge that she had been asleep.

433

434 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

She had a phlegmatic temperament, and her condition did
not seriously inconvenience her. She took a lot of trouble
about her health and accepted the advice of anyone who
chose to offer it. She went for a 'constitutional' every
morning that it was fine and remained out a definite time.
When it was not too cold she sat in St. James' Park. But
the rest of the day she spent quite happily on her sofa,
reading one novel after another or chatting with the land-
lady ; she had an inexhaustible interest in gossip, and told
Philip with abundant detail the history of the landlady, of
the lodgers on the drawing-room floor, and of the people
who lived in the next house on either side. Now and then
she was seized with panic; she poured out her fears to
Philip about the pain of the confinement and was in terror
lest she should die ; she gave him a full account of the con-
finements of the landlady and of the lady on the drawing-
room floor (Mildred did not know her; "I'm one to keep
myself to myself," she said, "I'm not one to go about with
anybody.") and she narrated details with a queer mix-
ture of horror and gusto ; but for the most part she looked
forward to the occurrence "with equanimity.

"After all, I'm not the first one to have a baby, am I ?
And the doctor says I shan't have any trouble. You see,
it isn't as if I wasn't well made."

Mrs. Owen, the owner of the house she was going to
when her time came, had recommended a doctor, and Mil-
dred saw him once a week. He was to charge fifteen
guineas.

"Of course I could have got it done cheaper, but Mrs.
Owen strongly recommended him, and I thought it wasn't
worth while to spoil the ship for a coat of tar."

"If you feel happy and comfortable I don't mind a bit
about the expense," said Philip.

She accepted all that Philip did for her as if it were the
most natural thing in the world, and on his side he loved
to spend money on her : each five-pound note he gave her
caused him a little thrill of happiness and pride; he gave
her a good many, for she was not economical.

"I don't know where the money goes to," she said her-
self, "it seems to slip through my fingers like water."

OFHUMANBONDAGE 435

"It doesn't matter," said Philip. "I'm so glad to be able
to do anything I can for you."

She could not sew well and so did not make the neces-
sary things for the baby; she told Philip it was much
cheaper in the end to buy them. Philip had lately sold one
of the mortgages in which his money had been put ; and
now, with five hundred pounds in the 'tank waiting to be
invested in something that could be more easily realised,
he felt himself uncommonly well-to-do. They talked often
of the future. Philip was anxious that Mildred should keep
the child with her, but she refused : she had her living to
earn, and it would be more easy to do this if she had not
also to look after a baby. Her plan was to get back into
one of the shops of the company for which she had worked
before, and the child could be put with some decent woman
in the country.

"I can find someone who'll look after it well for seven
and sixpence a week. It'll be better for the baby and better
for me."

It seemed callous to Philip, but when he tried to reason
with her she pretended to think he was concerned with
the expense.

"You needn't worry about that," she said. "I shan't ask
you to pay for it."

"You know I don't care how much I pay."

At the bottom of her heart was the hope that the child
would be still-born. She did no more than hint it, but
Philip saw that the thought was there. He was shocked at
first ; and then, reasoning with himself, he was obliged to
confess that for all concerned such an event was to be de-
sired.

"It's all very fine to say this and that," Mildred re-
marked querulously, "but it's jolly difficult for a girl to
earn her living by herself ; it doesn't make it any easier
when she's got a baby."

"Fortunately you've got me to fall back on," smiled
Philip, taking her hand.

"You've been good to me, Philip."

"Oh, what rot !"

436 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

"You can't say I didn't offer anything in return for
what you've done."

"Good heavens, I don't want a return. If I've done any-
thing for you, I've done it because I love you. You owe me
nothing. I don't want you to do anything unless you love
me."

He was a little horrified by her feeling that her body
was a commodity which she could deliver indifferently as
an acknowledgment for services rendered.

"But I do want to, Philip. You've been so good to me."

"Well, it won't hurt for waiting. When you're all right
again we'll go for our little honeymoon."

"You are naughty," she said, smiling.

Mildred expected to be confined early in March, and as
soon as she was well enough she was to go to the seaside
for a fortnight: that would give Philip a chance to work
without interruption for his examination ; after that came
the Easter holidays, and they had arranged to go to Paris
together. Philip talked endlessly of the things they would
do. Paris was delightful then. They would take a room in
a little hotel he knew in the Latin Quarter, and they would
eat in all sorts of charming little restaurants ; they would
go to the play, and he would take her to music-halls. It
would amuse her to meet his friends. He had talked to
her about Cronshaw, she would see him; and there was
Lawson, he had gone to Paris for a couple of months ; and
they would go to the Bai Bullier ; there were excursions ;
they would make trips to Versailles, Charthes, Fontaine-
bleau.

"It'll cost a lot of money," she said.

"Oh, damn the expense. Think how I've been looking
forward to it. Don't you know what it means to me? I've
never loved anyone but you. I never shall."

She listened to his enthusiasm with smiling eyes. He
thought he saw in them a new tenderness, and he was
grateful to her. She was much gentler than she used to
be. There was in her no longer the superciliousness which
had irritated him. She was so accustomed to him now that
she took no pains to keep up before him any pretences.
She no longer troubled to do her hair with the old elabora-

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 437

tion, but just tied it in a knot; and she left off the vast
fringe which she generally wore: the more careless style
suited her. Her face was so thin that it made her eyes
seem very large; there were heavy lines under them, and
the pallor of her cheeks made their colour more profound.
She had a wistful look which was infinitely pathetic. There
seemed to Philip to be in her something of the Madonna.
He wished they could continue in that same way always.
He was happier than he had ever been in his life.

He used to leave her at ten o'clock every night, for she
liked to go to bed early, and he was obliged to put in an-
other couple of hours' work to make up for the lost eve-
ning. He generally brushed her hair for her before he
went. He had made a ritual of the kisses he gave her when
he bade her good-night; first he kissed the paflms of her
hands, (how thin the fingers were, the nails were beauti-
ful, for she spent much time in manicuring them,) then
he kissed her closed eyes, first the right one and then the
left, and at last he kissed her lips. He went home with ?.
h°art overflowing with love. He longed for an opportunity
to gratify ^he 4esire for self-sacrifice which consumed
him.

Presently the time came for her to move to the nursing-
home where she was to be confined. Philip was then able
to visit her only in the afternoons. Mildred changed her
story and represented herself as the wife of a soldier who
had gone to India to join his regiment, and Philip was in-
troduced to the mistress of the establishment as her
brother-in-law.

"I have to be rather careful what I say," she told him,
"as there's another lady here whose husband's in the Indian
Civil."

"I wouldn't let that disturb me if I were you," said
Philip. "I'm convinced that her husband and yours went
out on the same boat."

"What boat?" she asked innocently.

"The Flying Dutchman."

Mildred was safely delivered of a daughter, and when
Philip was allowed to see her the child was lying by her
side. Mildred was very weak, but relieved that everything

438 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

was over. She showed him the baby, and herself looked
at it curiously.

"It's a funny-looking little thing, isn't it? I can't believe
it's mine."

It was red and wrinkled and odd. Philip smiled when
he looked at it. He did not quite know what to say ; and it
embarrassed him because the nurse who owned the house
was standing by his side ; and he felt by the way she was
looking at him that, disbelieving Mildred's complicated
story, she thought he was the father.

"What are you going to call her?" asked Philip.

"I can't make up my mind if I shall call her Madeleine
or Cecilia."

The nurse left them alone for a few minutes, and Philip
bent down and kissed Mildred on the mouth.

"I'm so glad it's all over happily, darling."

She put her thin arms round his neck.

"You have been a brick to me, Phil dear."

"Now I feel that you're mine at last. I've waited so long
for you, my dear."

They heard the nurse at the door, and Philip hurriedly
got up. The nurse entered. There was a slight smile on
her lips.

LXXIII

THREE weeks later Philip saw Mildred and her baby oiF
to Brighton. She had made a quick recovery and looked
better than he had ever seen her. She was going to a
boarding-house where she had spent a couple of week-
ends with Emil Miller, and had written to say that her
husband was obliged to go to Germany on business and she
was coming down with her baby. She got pleasure out of
the stories she invented, and she showed a certain fertility
of invention in the working out of the details. Mildred pro-
posed to find in Brighton some woman who would be
willing to take charge of the baby. Philip was startled at
the callousness with which she insisted on getting rid of it
so soon, but she argued with common sense that the poor
child had much better be put somewhere before it grew
used to her. Philip had expected the maternal instinct to
make itself felt when she had had the baby two or three
weeks and had counted on this to help him persuade her
to keep it ; but nothing of the sort occurred. Mildred was
not unkind to her baby ; she did all that was necessary ; it
amused her sometimes, and she talked about it a good
deal ; but at heart she was indifferent to it. She could not
look upon it as part of herself. She fancied it resembled
its father already. She was continually wondering how she
would manage when it grew older ; and she was exasper-
ated with herself for being such a fool as to have it at all.

"If I'd only known then all I do now," she said.

She laughed at Philip, because he was anxious about
its welfare.

"You couldn't make more fuss if you was the father,"
she said. "I'd like to see Emil getting into such a stew
about it."

Philip's mind was full of the stories he had heard of
baby-farming and the ghouls who ill-treat the wretched

439

440 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

children that selfish, cruel parents have put in their
charge.

"Don't be so silly," said Mildred. "That's when you give
a woman a sum down to look after a baby. But when
you're going to pay so much a week it's to their interest to
look after it well."

Philip insisted that Mildred should place the child with
people who had no children of their own and would prom-
ise to take no other.

"Don't haggle about the price," he said. "I'd rather pay
half a guinea a week than run any risk of the kid being
starved or beaten."

"You're a funny old thing, Philip," she laughed.

To him there was something very touching in the child's
helplessness. It was small, ugly, and querulous. Its birth
had been looked forward to with shame and anguish. No-
body wanted it. It was dependent on him, a stranger, for
food, shelter, and clothes to cover its nakedness.

As the train started he kissed Mildred. He would have
kissed the baby too, but he was afraid she would laugh at
him.

"You will write to me, darling, won't you? And I shall
look forward to your coming back with oh! such impa-
tience."

"Mind you get through your exam."

He had been working for it industriously, and now with
only ten days before him he made a final effort. He was
very anxious to pass, first to save himself time and ex-
pense, for money had been slipping through his fingers
during the last four months with incredible speed; and
then because this examination marked the end of the
drudgery : after that the student had to do with medicine,
midwifery, and surgery, the interest of which was more
vivid than the anatomy and physiology with which he had
been hitherto concerned. Philip looked forward with in-
terest to the rest of the curriculum. Nor did he want to
have to confess to Mildred that he had failed : though the
examination was difficult and the majority of candidates
were ploughed at the first attempt, he knew that she would

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 44i

think less well of him if he did not succeed ; she had a pe-
culiarly humiliating way of showing what she thought.

Mildred sent him a postcard to announce her safe ar-
rival, and he snatched half an hour every day to write a
long letter to her. He had always a certain shyness in ex-
pressing himself by word of mouth, but he found he could
tell her, pen in hand, all sorts of things which it would
have made him feel ridiculous to say. Profiting by the
discovery he poured out to her his whole heart. He had
never been able to tell her before how his adoration filled
every part of him so that all his actions, all his thoughts,
were touched with it. He wrote to her of the future, the
happiness that lay before him, and the gratitude which he
owed her. He asked himself (he had often asked himself
before but had never put it into words) what it was in her
that filled him with such extravagant delight; he did not
know ; he knew only that when she was with him he was
happy, and when she was away from him the world was
on a sudden cold and gray; he knew only that when he
thought of her his heart seemed to grow big in his body
so that it was difficult to breathe (as if it pressed against
his lungs) and it throbbed, so that the delight of her pres-
ence was almost pain; his knees shook, and he felt
strangely weak as though, not having eaten, he were tremu-
lous from want of food. He looked forward eagerly to her
answers. He did not expect her to write often, for he
knew that letter-writing came difficultly to her ; and he was
quite content with the clumsy little note that arrived in
reply to four of his. She spoke of the boarding-house in
which she had taken a room, of the weather and the baby,
told him she had been for a walk on the front with a lady-
friend whom she had met in the boarding-house and who
had taken such a fancy to baby, she was going to the the-
atre on Saturday night, and Brighton was filling up. It
touched Philip because it was so matter-of-fact. "The
crabbed style, the formality of the matter, gave him a
queer desire to laugh and to take her in his arms and kiss
her.

He went into the examination with happy confidence.
There -was nothing in either of the papers that gave him

442 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

trouble. He knew that he had done well, and though the
second part of the examination was viva voce and he was
more nervous, he managed to answer the questions ade-
quately. He sent a triumphant telegram to Mildred when
the result was announced.

When he got back to his rooms Philip found a letter
from her, saying that she thought it would be better for
her to stay another week in Brighton. She had found a
woman who would be glad to take the baby for seven shil-
lings a week, but she wanted to make inquiries about her,
and she was herself benefiting so much by the sea-air that
she was sure a few days more would do her no end of
good. She hated asking Philip for money, but would he
send some by return, as she had had so buy herself a new
hat, she couldn't go about with her lady-friend always in
the same hat, and her lady-friend was so dressy. Philip
had a moment of bitter disappointment. It took away all
his pleasure at getting through his examination.

"If she loved me one quarter as much as I love her she
couldn't bear to stay away a day longer than necessary.*"

He put the thought away from him quickly ; it was pure
selfishness ; of course her health was more important than
anything else. But he had nothing to do now; he might
spend the week with her in Brighton, and they could be
together all day. His heart leaped at the thought. It would
be amusing to appear before Mildred suddenly with the
information that he had taken a room in the boarding-
house. He looked out trains. But he paused. He was not
certain that she would be pleased to see him ; she had made
friends in Brighton ; he was quiet, and she liked boisterous
joviality; he realised that she amused herself more with
other people than with him. It would torture him if he
felt for an instant that he was in the way. He was afraid
to risk it. He dared not even write and suggest that, with
nothing to keep him in town, he would like to spend the
week where he could see her every day. She knew he had
nothing to do; if she wanted him to come she would have
asked him to. He dared not risk the anguish he would suf-
fer if he proposed to come and she made excuses to pre-
vent him.

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 443

He wrote to her next day, sent her a five-pound note,
and at the end of his letter said that if she were very nice
and cared to see him for the week-end he would be glad
to run down ; but she was by no means to alter any plans
she had made. He awaited her answer with impatience. In
it she said that if she had only known before she could
have arranged it, but she had promised to go to a music-
hall on the Saturday night; besides, it would make the
people at the boarding-house talk if he stayed there. Why
did he not come on Sunday morning and spend the day?
They could lunch at the Metropole, and she would take
him afterwards to see the very superior lady-like person
who was going to take the baby.

Sunday. He blessed the day because it was fine. As the
train approached Brighton the sun poured through the
carriage window. Mildred was waiting for him on the
platform.

"How jolly of you to come and meet me !" he cried, as
he seized her hands.

"You expected me, didn't you ?"

"I hoped you would. I say, how well you're looking."

"It's done me a rare lot of good, but I think I'm wise to
stay here as long as I can. And there are a very nice class
of people at the boarding-house. I wanted cheering up
after seeing nobody all these months. It was dull some-
times."

She looked very smart in her new hat, a large black
straw with a great many inexpensive flowers on it; and
round her neck floated a long boa of imitation swans-
down She was still very thin, and she stooped a little
when she walked, (she had always done that,) but her eyes
did not seem so large ; and though she never had any col-
our, her skin had lost the earthy look it had. They walked
down to the sea. Philip, remembering he had not walked
with her for months, grew suddenly conscious of his limp
and walked stiffly in the attempt to conceal it.

"Are you glad to see me ?" he asked, love dancing- madly
in his heart.

"Of course I am. You needn't ask that."

"By the way, Griffiths sends you his love."

444 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

"What cheek!"

He had talked to her a great deal of Griffiths. He had
told her how flirtatious he was and had amused her often
with the narration of some adventure which Griffiths un-
der the seal of secrecy had imparted to him. Mildred had
listened, with some pretence of disgust sometimes, but gen-
erally with curiosity ; and Philip, admiringly, had enlarged
upon his friend's good looks and charm.

"I'm sure you'll like him just as much as I do. He's so
jolly and amusing, and he's such an awfully good sort."

Philip told her how, when they were perfect strangers,
Griffiths had nursed him through an illness; and in the
telling Griffiths' self-sacrifice lost nothing.

"You can't help liking him," said Philip.

"I don't like good-looking men," said Mildred. "They're
too conceited for me."

"He wants to know you. I've talked to him about you
an awful lot."

"What have you said ?" asked Mildred.

Philip had no one but Griffiths to talk to of his love for
Mildred, and little by little had told him the whole story
of his connection with her. He described her to him fifty
times. He dwelt amorously on every detail of her appear-
ance, and Griffiths knew exactly how her thin hands were
shaped and how white her face was, and he laughed at
Philip when he talked of the charm of her pale, thin lips.

"By Jove, I'm glad I don't take things so badly as that,"
he said. "Life wouldn't be worth living."

Philip smiled. Griffiths did not know the delight of being
so madly in love that it was like meat and wine and the
air one breathed and whatever else was essential to exis-
tence. Griffiths knew that Philip had looked after the girl
while she was having her baby and was now going away
with her.

"Well, I must say you've deserved to get something,"
he remarked. "It must have cost you a pretty penny. It's
lucky you can afford it."

"I can't," said Philip. "But what do I care!"

Since it was early for luncheon, Philip and Mildred sat
in one of the shelters on the parade, sunning themselves,

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 445

and watched the people pass. There were the Brighton
-shop-boys who walked in twos and threes, swinging their
canes, and there were the Brighton shop-girls who tripped
along in giggling bunches. They could tell the people who
had come down from London for the day; the keen air
gave a fillip to their weariness. There were many Jews,
stout ladies in tight satin dresses and diamonds, little
corpulent men with a gesticulative manner. There were
middle-aged gentlemen spending a week-end in one of the
large hotels, carefully dressed ; and they walked indus-
triously after too substantial a breakfast to give themselves
an appetite for too substantial a luncheon : they exchanged
the time of day with friends and talked of Dr. Brighton
or London-by-the-Sea. Here and there a well-known actor
passed, elaborately unconscious of the attention he excited :
sometimes he wore patent leather boots, a coat with an
astrakhan collar, and carried a silver-knobbed stick; and
sometimes, looking as though he had come from a day's
shooting, he strolled in knickerbockers, and ulster of Har-
ris tweed, and a tweed hat on the back of his head. The sun
shone on the blue sea, and the blue sea was trim and neat.

After luncheon they went to Hove to see the woman
who was to take charge of the baby. She lived in a small
house in a back street, but it was clean and tidy. Her
name was Mrs. Harding. She was an elderly, stout person,
with gray hair and a red, fleshy face. She looked motherly
in her cap, and Philip thought she seemed kind.

"Won't you find it an awful nuisance to look after a
baby ?" he asked her.

She explained that her husband was a curate, a good
deal older than herself, who had difficulty in getting
permanent work, since vicars wanted young men to assist
them; he earned a little now and then by doing locums
when someone took a holiday or fell ill, and a charitable
institution gave them a small pension; but her life was
lonely, it would be something to do to look after a child,
and the few shillings a week paid for it would help her
to keep things going. She promised that it should be well
fed.

446 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

"Quite the lady, isn't she?" said Mildred, when they
went away.

They went back to have tea at the Metropole. Mildred
liked the crowd and the band. Philip was tired of talking,
and he watched her face as she looked with keen eyes
at the dresses of the women who came in. She had a pecu-
liar sharpness for reckoning up what things cost, and now
and then she leaned over to him and whispered the result
ot her meditations.

"D'you see that aigrette there? That cost every bit of
seven guineas."

Or : "Look at that ermine, Philip. That's rabbit, that is
— that's not ermine." She laughed triumphantly. "I'd know
it a mile off."

Philip smiled happily. He was glad to see her pleasure,
and the ingenuousness of her conversation amused and
touched him. The band played sentimental music.

After dinner they walked down to the station, and
Philip took her arm. He told her what arrangements he
had made for their journey to France. She was to come
up to London at the end of the week, but she told him
that she could not go away till the Saturday of the week
after that. He had already engaged a room in a hotel
in Paris. He was looking forward eagerly to taking the
tickets.

"You won't mind going second-class, will you? We
mustn't be extravagant, and it'll be all the better if we
can do ourselves pretty well when we get there."

He had talked to her a hundred times of the Quarter.
They would wander through its pleasant old streets, and
they would sit idly in the charming gardens of the Luxem-
bourg. If the weather was fine perhaps, when they had had
enough of Paris, they might go to Fontainebleau. The
trees would be just bursting into leaf. The green of the
forest in spring was more beautiful than anything he
knew ; it was like a song, and it was like the happy pain
of love. Mildred listened quietly. He turned to her and
tried to look deep into her eyes.

"You do want to come, don't you?" he said.

"Of course I do," she smiled.

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 447

"You don't know how I'm looking forward to it. I don't
know how I shall get through the next days. I'm so afraid
something will happen to prevent it. It maddens me some-
times that I can't tell you how much I love you. And at
last, at last . . ."

He broke off. They reached the station, but they had
dawdled on the way, and Philip had barely time to say
good-night. He kissed her quickly and ran towards the
wicket as fast as he could. She stood where he left her.
He was strangely grotesque when he ran.

LXXIV

THE following Saturday Mildred returned, and that
evening Philip kept her to himself. He took seats for the
play, and they drank champagne.at dinner. It was her first
gaiety in London for so long that she enjoyed everything
ingenuously. She cuddled up to Philip when they drove
from the theatre to the room he had taken for her in
Pimlico.

"I really believe you're quite glad to see me," he said.

She did not answer, but gently pressed his hand. Dem-
onstrations of affection were so rare with her that Philip
was enchanted.

"I've asked Griffiths to dine with us tomorrow," he told
her.

"Oh, I'm glad you've done that. I wanted to meet him."

There was no place of entertainment to take her to on
Sunday night, and Philip was afraid she would be bored
if she were alone with him all day. Griffiths was amusing;
he would help them to get through the evening ; and Philip
was so fond of them both that he wanted them to know
and to like one another. He left Mildred with the words :

"Only six days more."

They had arranged to dine in the gallery at Romano's
on Sunday, because the dinner was excellent and looked
as though it cost a good deal more than it did. Philip and
Mildred arrived first and had to wait some time for
Griffiths.

"He's an unpunctual devil," said Philip. "He's probably
making love to one of his numerous flames."

But presently he appeared. He was a handsome creature,
tall and thin ; his head was placed well on the body, it gave
him a conquering air which was attractive : and his curly
hair, his bold, friendly blue eyes, his red mouth, were
charming. Philip saw Mildred look at him with apprecia-

448

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 449

tion, and he felt a curious satisfaction. Griffiths greeted
them with a smile.

"I've heard a great deal about you/' he said to Mildred,
as he took her hand.

"Not so much as I've heard about you," she answered.

"Nor so bad," said Philip.

"Has he been blackening my character?"

Griffiths laughed, and Philip saw that Mildred noticed
how white and regular his teeth were and how pleasant his
smile.

"You ought to feel like old friends," said Philip. "I've
talked so much about you to one another."

Griffiths was in the best possible humour, for, having at
length passed his final examination, he was qualified, and
he had just been appointed house-surgeon at a hospital in
the North of London. He was taking up his duties at the
beginning of May and meanwhile was going home for a
holiday ; this was his last week in town, and he was deter-
mined to get as much enjoyment into it as he could. He
began to talk the gay nonsense which Philip admired be-
cause he could not copy it. There was nothing much in
what he said, but his vivacity gave it point. There flowed
from him a force of life which affected everyone who
knew him; it was almost as sensible as bodily warmth.
Mildred was more lively than Philip had ever known her,
and he was delighted to see that his little party was a suc-
cess. She was amusing herself enormously. She laughed
louder and louder. She quite forgot the genteel reserve
which had become second nature to her.

Presently Griffiths said :

"I say, it's dreadfully difficult for me to call you Mrs.
Milter. Philip never calls you anything but Mildred."

"I daresay she won't scratch your eyes out if you call
her that too," laughed Philip.

"Then she must call me Harry."

Philip sat silent while they chattered away and thought
how good it was to see people happy. Now and then
Griffiths teased him a little, kindly, because he was always
so serious.

4SO OF HUMAN BONDAGE

"I believe he's quite fond of you, Philip," smiled Mil-
dred.

"He isn't a bad old thing," answered Griffiths, and
taking Philip's hand he shook it gaily.

It seemed an added charm in Griffiths that he liked
Philip. They were all sober people, and the wine they had
drunk went to their heads. Griffiths became more talkative
and so boisterous that Philip, amused, had to beg him to
be quiet. He had a gift for story-telling, and his adven-
tures lost nothing of their romance and their laughter in
his narration. He played in all of them a gallant, humorous
part. Mildred, her eyes shining with excitement, urged him
on. He poured out anecdote after anecdote. When the
lights began to be turned out she was astonished.

"My word, the evening has gone quickly. I thought it
wasn't more than half past nine."

They got up to go and when she said good-bye, she
added :

"I'm coming to have tea at Philip's room tomorrow.
You might look in if you can."

"All right," he smiled.

On the way back to Pimlico Mildred talked of nothing
but Griffiths. She was taken with his good looks, his well-
cut clothes, his voice, his gaiety.

"I am glad you like him," said Philip. "D'you remem-
ber you were rather sniffy about meeting him?"

"I think it's so nice of him to be so fond of you, Philip.
He is a nice friend for you to have."

She put up her face to Philip for him to kiss her. It was
a thing she did rarely.

"I have enjoyed myself this evening, Philip. Thank you
so much."

"Don't be so absurd," he laughed, touched by her appre-
ciation so that he felt the moisture come to his eyes.

She opened her door and just before she went in, turned
again to Philip.

"Tell Harry I'm madly in love with him," she said.

"All right," he laughed. "Good-night."

Next day, when they were having tea, Griffiths came
in. He sank lazily into an arm-chair. There was something

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 451

strangely sensual in the slow movements of his large
limbs. Philip remained silent, while the others chattered
away, but he was enjoying himself. He admired them both
so much that it seemed natural enough for them to admire
one another. He did not care if Griffiths absorbed Mil-
dred's attention, he would have her to himself during the
evening: he had something the attitude of a loving hus-
band, confident in his wife's affection, who looks on witb
amusement while she flirts harmlessly with a stranger.
But at half past seven he looked at his watch and said :

"It's about time we went out to dinner, Mildred."

There was a moment's pause, and Griffiths seemed to
be considering.

"Well, I'll be getting along," he said at last. "I didn't
know it was so late."

"Are you doing anything tonight?" asked Mildred.

"No."

There was another silence. Philip felt slightly irritated.

"I'll just go and have a wash," he said, and to Mildred
he added: "Would you like to wash your hands?"

She did not answer him.

"Why don't you come and dine with us?" she said to
Griffiths.

He looked at Philip and saw him staring at him som-
brely.

"I dined with you last night," he laughed. "I should be
in the way."

"Oh, that doesn't matter," insisted Mildred. "Make him
come, Philip. He won't be in the way, will he ?"

"Let him come by all means if he'd like to."

"All right, then," said Griffiths promptly. "I'll just go
upstairs and tidy myself."

The moment he left the room Philip turned to Mildred
angrily.

"Why on earth did you ask him to dine with us?"

"I couldn't help myself. It would have looked so funny
to say nothing when he said he wasn't doing anything."

"Oh, what rot ! And why the hell did you ask him if he
was doing anything?"

Mildred's pale lips tightened a little.

452 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

"I want a little amusement sometimes. I get tired always
being alone with you."

They heard Griffiths coming heavily down the stairs,
and Philip went into his bed-room to wash. They dined
in the neighbourhood in an Italian restaurant. Philip was
cross and silent, but he quickly realised that he was show-
ing to disadvantage in comparison with Griffiths, and he
forced himself to hide his annoyance. He drank a good
deal of wine to destroy the pain that was gnawing at his
heart, and he set himself to talk. Mildred, as though re-
morseful for what she had said, did all she could to make
herself pleasant to him. She was kindly and affectionate.
Presently Philip began to think he had been a fool to sur-
render to a feeling of jealousy. After dinner when they
got into a hansom to drive to a music-hall Mildred, sitting
between the two men, of her own accord gave him her
hand. His anger vanished. Suddenly, he knew not how, he
grew conscious that Griffiths was holding her other hand.
The pain seized him again violently, it was a real physical
pain, and he asked himself, panic-stricken, what he might
have asked himself before, whether Mildred and Griffiths
were in love with one another. He could not see anything
of the performance on account of the mist of suspicion,
anger, dismay, and wretchedness which seemed to be
before his eyes ; but he forced himself to conceal the fact
that anything was the matter; he went on talking and
laughing. Then a strange desire to torture himself seized
him, and he got up, saying he wanted to go and drink
something. Mildred and Griffiths had never been alone
together for a moment. He wanted to leave them by them-
selves.

"I'll come too," said Griffiths. "I've got rather a thirst
on."

"Oh, nonsense, you stay and talk to Mildred."

Philip did not know why he said that. He was throw-
ing them together now to make the pain he suffered more
intolerable. He did not go to the bar, but up into the bal-
cony, from where he could watch them and not be seen.
They had ceased to look at the stage and were smiling into
one another's eyes. Griffiths was talking with his usual

O F H U M A N B O N D A G E 453

happy fluency and Mildred seemed to hang- on his lips.
Philip's head began to ache frightfully. He stood there
motionless. He knew he would be in the way if he went
back. They were enjoying themselves without him, and he
was suffering, suffering. Time passed, and now he had an
extraordinary shyness about rejoining them. He knew they
had not thought of him at all, and he reflected bitterly that
he had paid for the dinner and their seats in the music-
hall. What a fool they were making of him! He was hot
with shame. He could see how happy they were without
him. His instinct was to leave them to themselves and go
home, but he had not his hat and coat, and it would neces-
sitate endless explanations. He went back. He felt a
shadow of annoyance in Mildred's eyes when she saw him,
and his heart sank.

"You've been a devil of a time," said Griffiths, with a
smile of welcome.

"I met some men I knew. I've been talking to them, and
I couldn't get away. I thought you'd be all right together."

"I've been enjoying myself thoroughly," said Griffiths.
"I don't know about Mildred."

She gave a little laugh of happy complacency. There
was a vulgar sound in the ring of it that horrified Philip.
He suggested that they should go.

"Come on," said Griffiths, "we'll both drive you home."

Philip suspected that she had suggested that arrange-
ment so that she might not be left alone with him. In the
cab he did not take her hand nor did she offer it, and he
kne*w all the time that she was holding Griffiths'. His chief
thought was that it was all so horribly vulgar. As they
drove along he asked himself what plans they had made
to meet without his knowledge, he cursed himself for hav-
ing left them alone, he had actually gone out of his way
to enable them to arrange things.

"Let's keep the cab," said Philip, when they reached the
house in which Mildred was lodging. "I'm too tired to
walk home."

On the way back Griffiths talked gaily and seemed indif-
ferent to the fact that Philip answered in monosyllables.
Philip felt he must notice that something was the matter.

454 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

Philip's silence at last grew too significant to struggle
against, and Griffiths, suddenly nervous, ceased talking.
Philip wanted to say something, but he was so shy he
could hardly bring himself to, and yet the time was passing
and the opportunity would be lost. It was best to get at
the truth at once. He forced himself to speak.

"Are you in love with Mildred?" he asked suddenly.

"I?" Griffiths laughed. "Is that what you've been so
funny about this evening? Of course not, my dear old
man."

He tried to slip his hand through Philip's arm, but
Philip drew himself away. He knew Griffiths was lying.
He could not bring himself to force Griffiths to tell him
that he had not been holding the girl's hand. He suddenly
felt very weak and broken.

"It doesn't matter to you, Harry," he said. "You've got
so many women — don't take her away from me. It means
my whole life. I've been so awfully wretched."

His voice broke, and he could not prevent the sob that
was torn from him. He was horribly ashamed of himself.

"My dear old boy, you know I wouldn't do anything to
hurt you. I'm far too fond of you for that. I was only
playing the fool. If I'd known you were going to take it
like that I'd have been more careful."

"Is that true ?" asked Philip.

"I don't care a twopenny damn for her. I give you my
word of honour."

Philip gave a sigh of relief. The cab stopped at their
door.

LXXV

NEXT day Philip was in a good temper. He was very
anxious not to bore Mildred with too much of his society,
and so had arranged that he should not see her till dinner"
time. She was ready when he fetched her, and he chaffed
her for her unwonted punctuality. She was wearing a new
dress he had given her. He remarked on its smartness.

"It'll have to go back and be altered," she said. "The
skirt hangs all wrong."

"You'll have to make the dressmaker hurry up if you
want to take it to Paris with you."

"It'll be ready in time for that."

"Only three more whole days. We'll go over by the
eleven o'clock, shall we ?"

"If you like."

He would have her for nearly a month entirely to him-
self. His eyes- rested on her with hungry adoration. He was
able to laugh a little at his own passion.

"I wonder what it is I see in you," he smiled.

"That's a nice thing to say," she answered.

Her body was so thin that one could almost see her
skeleton. Her chest was as flat as a boy's. Her mouth,
with its narrow pale lips, was ugly, and her skin was
faintly green.

"I shall give you Blaud's Pills in quantities when we're
away," said Philip, laughing. "I'm going to bring you back
fat and rosy."

"I don't want to get fat," she said.

She did not speak of Griffiths, and presently while they
were dining Philip half in malice, for he felt sure of him-
self and his power over her, said :

"It seems to me you were having a great flirtation with
Harry last night ?" "

"I told you I was in love with him," she laughed.

"I'm glad to know that he's not in love with you."

455

456 O F H U M A N B O « u A G £

"How d'you know ?"

"I asked him."

She hesitated a moment, looking at Philip, and a curi-
ous gleam came into her eyes.

"Would you like to read a letter I had from him this
morning?"

She handed him an envelope and Philip recognised
Griffiths' bold, legible writing. There were eight pages. It
was well written, frank and charming; it was the letter
of a man who was used to making love to women. He told
Mildred that he loved her passionately, he had fallen in
love with her the first moment he saw her ; he did not
want to love her, for he knew how fond Philip was of her,
but he could not help himself. Philip was such a dear, and
he was very much ashamed of himself, but it was not his
fault, he was just carried away. He paid her delightful
compliments. Finally he thanked her for consenting to
lunch with him next day and said he was dreadfully im-
patient to see her. Philip noticed that the letter was dated
the night before ; Griffiths must have written it after leav-
ing Philip, and had taken the trouble to go out and post
it when Philip thought he was in bed.

He read it with a sickening palpitation of his heart, but
gave no outward sign of surprise. He handed it back to
Mildred with a smile, calmly.

"Did you enjoy your lunch?"

"Rather," she said emphatically.

He felt that his hands were trembling, so he put them
under the table.

"You mustn't take Griffiths too seriously. He's just a
butterfly, you know."

She took the letter and looked at it again.

"I can't help it either," she said, in a voice which she
tried to make nonchalant. "I don't know what's come over
me."

"It's a little awkward for me, isn't it?" said Philip.

She gave him a quick look.

"You're taking it pretty calmly, I must say."

"What do you expect me to do ? Do you want me to tear
out my hair in handfuls?"

OFHUMANBONDAGE 457

"I knew you'd be angry with me."

"The funny thing is, I'm not at all. I ought to have
known this would happen. I was a fool to bring you to-
gether. I know perfectly well that he's got every advan-
tage over me; he's much jollier, and he's very handsome,
he's more amusing, he can talk to you about the things
that interest you."

"I don't know what you mean by that. If I'm not clever
I can't help it, but I'm not the fool you think I am, not
by a long way, I can tell you. You're a bit too superior for
me, my young friend."

"D'you want to quarrel with me?" he asked mildly.

"No, but I don't see why you should treat me as if I was
I don't know what."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. I just wanted
to talk things over quietly. We don't want to make a mess
of them if we can help it. I saw you were attracted by
him and it seemed to me very natural. The only thing that
really hurts me is that he should have encouraged you. He
knew how awfully keen I was on you. I think it's rather
shabby of him to have written that letter to you five min-
utes after he told me he didn't care twopence about you."

"If you think you're going to make me like him any the
less by saying nasty things about him, you're mistaken."

Philip was silent for a moment. He did not know what
w6rds he could use to make her see his point of view. He
wanted to speak coolly and deliberately, but he was in such
a turmoil of emotion that he could not clear his thoughts.

"It's not worth while sacrificing everything for an in-
fatuation that you know can't last. After all, he doesn't
care for anyone more than ten days, and you're rather
cold ; that sort of thing doesn't mean very much to you."

"That's what you think."

She made it more difficult for him by adopting a can-
tankerous tone.

"If you're in love with him you can't help it. I'll just
bear it as best I can. We get on very well together, you
and I, and I've not behaved badly to you, have I? I've
always known that you're not in love with me, but you
like me all right, and when we get over to Paris you'll

458 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

forget about Griffiths. If you make up your mind to put
him out of your thoughts you won't find it so hard as all
that, end I've deserved that you should do something for
me."

She did not answer, and they went on eating their din-
ner. When the silence grew oppressive Philip began to talk
of indifferent things. He pretended not to notice that Mil-
dred was inattentive. Her answers were perfunctory, and
she volunteered no remarks of her own. At last she inter-
rupted abruptly what he was saying :

"Philip, I'm afraid I shan't be able to go away on Satur-
day. The doctor says I oughtn't to."

He knew this was not true, but he answered :

''When will you be able to come away?"

She glanced at him, saw that his face was white and
rigid, and looked nervously away. She was at that moment
a little afraid of him.

"I may as well tell you and have done with it, I can't
come away with you at all."

"I thought you were driving at that. It's too late to
change your mind now. I've got the tickets and every-
thing."

"You said you didn't wish me to go unless I wanted it
too, and I don't."

"I've changed my mind. I'm not going to have any more
tricks played with me. You must come."

"I like you very much, Philip, as a friend. But I can't
bear to think of anything else. I don't like you that way.
I couldn't, Philip."

"You were quite willing to a week ago."

"It was different then."

"You hadn't met Griffiths?"

"You said yourself I couldn't help it if I'm in love with
him."

Her face was set into a sulky look, and she kept her
eyes fixed on her plate. Philip was white with rage. He
would have liked to hit her in the face with his clenched
fist, and in fancy he saw how she would look with a black
eye. There were two lads of eighteen dining at a table near
them, and now and then they looked at Mildred ; he won-

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 459

dered if they envied him dining with a pretty girl; per-
haps they were wishing they stood in his shoes. It was
Mildred who broke the silence.

"What's the good of our going away together? I'd be
thinking of him all the time. It wouldn't be much fun for
you."

"That's my business," he answered.

She thought over all his reply implicated, and she red-
dened.

"But that's just beastly."

"What of it?"

"I thought you were a gentleman in every sense of the
word."

"You were mistaken."

His reply entertained him, and he laughed as he said it.

"For God's sake don't laugh," she cried. "I can't come
away with you, Philip. I'm awfully sorry. I know I haven't
behaved well to you, but one can't force themselves."

"Have you forgotten that when you were in trouble I
did everything for you ? I planked out the money to keep
you till your baby was born, I paid for your doctor and
everything, I paid for you to go to Brighton, and I'm pay
ing for the keep of your baby, I'm paying for your clothes,
I'm paying for every stitch you've got on now."

"If you was a gentleman you wouldn't throw what
you've done for me in my face."

"Oh, for goodness' sake, shut up. What d'you suppose
I care if I'm a gentleman or not? If I were a gentleman
I shouldn't waste my time with a vulgar slut like you. J.
don't care a damn if you like me or not. I'm sick of being
made a blasted fool of. You're jolly well coming to Parin
with me on Saturday or you can take the consequences."

Her cheeks were red with anger, and when she answered
her voice had the hard commonness which she concealed
generally by a genteel enunciation.

"I never liked you, not from the beginning, but you
forced yourself on me, I always hated it when you kissed
me. I wouldn't let you touch me now not if I was starv-
ing."

Philip tried to swallow the food on his plate, but the

460 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

muscles of his throat refused to act. He gulped down
something to drink and lit a cigarette. He was trembling
i? every part. He did not speak. He waited for her to
move, but she sat in silence, staring at the white table-
cloth. If they had been alone he would have flung his
arms round her and kissed her passionately ; he fancied the
throwing back of her long white throat as he pressed upon
her mouth with his lips. They passed an hour without
speaking, and at last Philip thought the waiter began to
stare at them curiously. He called for the bill.

"Shall we go?" he said then, in an even tone.

She did not reply, but gathered together her bag and
her gloves. She put on her coat.

"When are you seeing Griffiths again?"

"Tomorrow," she answered indifferently.

"You'd better talk it over with him."

She opened her bag mechanically and saw a piece of
paper in it. She took it out.

"Here's the bill for this dress," she said hesitatingly.

"What of it?"

"I promised I'd give her the money tomorrow."

"Did you?"

"Does that mean you won't pay for it after having told
me I could get it?"

"It does."

"I'll ask Harry," she said, flushing quickly.

"He'll be glad to help you. He owes me seven pounds
at the moment, and he pawned his microscope last week,
because he was so broke."

"You needn't think you can frighten me by that. I'm
quite capable of earning my own living."

"It's the best thing you can do. I don't propose to give
you a farthing more."

She thought of her rent due on Saturday and the baby's
keep, but did not say anything. They left the restaurant,
and in the street Philip asked her :

"Shall I call a cab for you? I'm going to take a little
stroll."

"I haven't got any money. I had to pay a bill this after-
noon."

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 461

"It won't hurt you to walk. If you want to see me to-
morrow I shall be in about tea-time."

He took oft his hat and sauntered away. He looked
round in a moment and saw that she was standing help-
lessly where he had left her, looking at the traffic. He went
back and with a laugh pressed a coin into her hand.

"Here's two bob for you to get home with."

Before she could speak he hurried away.

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 Medi-
cal 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 hesi-
tated 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 fol-
lowed by a suspicion.

O F H U M A N B O N D A G E 463

"Because of the money?" he asked.

"Partly," she answered simply. "Harry can't do any-
thing. 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 al-
ready. 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 wait-
ing 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
y6u 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 in-
deed, 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 wretched-
ness, 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

*64 O F H U M A N B O N D A G E

horribly painful, and his heart was torn. Without realis-
ing what he did, he went up to her and put his arms round
her; she did not resist, but in her wretchedness surren-
dered 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 drap-
eries 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 some-
thing 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

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 465

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 Satur-
day 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."

»66 OFHUMANBONDAGE

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 to-
wards 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, Grif-
fiths was stupid, oh so stupid ! he had known that all along,
but had shut his eyes to it, stupid and empty-headed : that

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 467

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 ; tha*
was his highest praise for man or woman. Smart ! It war
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, hav-
ing 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."

468 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

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 per-
suade 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 to-
wards him ; if he tempted them a little more they would
yield, and he took a fierce joy at the thought of their dis-
honour. 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.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 469

"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?"

"L 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 ar-
range 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 iood, and /he baby's keep for a week. He gave her
«ight pounds ten.

"Thanks very much," she said.

She left him.

LXXVII

AFTER lunching in the basement of the Medical School
Philip went back to his rooms. It was Saturday after-
noon, 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 Li-
brary ; 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 Grif-
fiths 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 desper-
ately 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 ""ic ^nduring. 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 sen-
tence over and over again; and now it weaved itself in
with his thoughts, horribly, like some formula in a night-
mare. 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

470

•

O F H U M A N B O N D A G E 4'/i

••joyed the thought of their disappointment. He repeated
•Kt sentence to himself mechanically. But he could not do
|Hit. Let them come and take the money, and he would
IjHow then to what depths of infamy it was possible for
^Bn to descend. He could not read any more now. He
simply could not see the words. He leaned back in his
dlair," closing his eyes, and, numb with misery, waited
{Or Mildred.
•The landlady came in.
r Will you see Mrs. Miller, sir ?"
• *Show her in."

Ithilip pulled himself together to receive her without any

kVki of what he was feeling. He had an impulse to throw

himself on his knees and seize her hands and beg her not.

••go ; but he knew there was no way of moving her ; she

anbuld tell Griffiths what he had said and how he acted. He

wtts 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

+73 0 F H U M A X B O N D A G F.

screwed up his body to prevent them; but he could no

J

t. U

and great painful sobs were forced from him.

He got up at last, exhausted and ashamed, and was!
his face. He mixed himself a strong whiskey and soda,
made him feel a little better. Then he caught sight of tbe
tickets to Paris, which were on the chimney-piece, ai,
seizing them, with an impulse of rage he flung them in the
fire. He knew he could have got the money hack on them,
but it relieved him to destroy them. Then he went out ii
search of someone to be with. The club was empty,
felt he would go mad unless he found someone to ts
to; but Lawson was abroad; he went on to HaywaH
rooms : the maid who opened the door told him that
had gone down to Brighton for the week-end. Then Phij
went to a gallery and found it was just closing. He
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, j
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 Qarendon:
Griffiths had been in the habit of dining1 there when he j
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 cot a fierce de-

OF HUMAN BOND AGE 473

<ight 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 un-
used to alcohol, and it affected him quickly, but his drunk-
enness 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, som-
brely 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 Mil-
dred. He noticed as they walked along that she looked
down at his limb.

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

"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.

LXXVIII

AT last Monday came, and Philip thought his long tor-
ture 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 after-
noon when, distraught, he went in search of human com-
fort : 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 dis-
gusting? 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,

474

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 475

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 Wed-
nesday 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 re-
peated to himself over and over again that he loathed
Mildred, and, ascribing to Griffiths this new disappoint-
ment, 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 my-
self 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 tell-
ing 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 cas?

476 OFHUMANBONDAGE

tny 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 for-
give 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 uncon-
sciously he uttered a prayer to the God he did not believe
in to make her receive him kindly. He only wanted to for-
get. 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
t"> save his face.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 477

"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 gro-
tesque 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 re-
minded 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 dis-
gusted 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

4?8 OFHUMANBONDAGE

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 lit-
tle 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 church-
warden. 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 quaint-
ness ; and Philip stood in front of that in which things use-
ful to seamen were sold, sea-boots and tarpaulins and
tackle, and remembered that he had felt there in his child-
hood 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 Mil-
dred 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 be-
side it. Because he had not attracted Mildred sexually,
nothing that he did had any effect upon her. The idea re-
volted 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 man-
ner, carried out his supposition; and yet she was capable
of sudden passions which made her willing to risk every-
thing to gratify them. He had never understood her ad-
venture 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

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 479

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 refine-
ment which shuddered at the facts of life, she looked upon
the bodily functions as indecent, she had all sorts of eu-
phemisms for common objects, she always chose an elabor-
ate 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 un-
furnished 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 pro-
tective 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 power-
less. 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

480 OFHUMANBONDAGE

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 him-
self, 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 per-
sonality ; 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.

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 Ken-
nington 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 an-
nounced 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 re-
ceive his rent. She told him that, if he inquired at the gro-
cer'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 an-
other ten pounds Philip bought himself whatever else was
essential. He spent ten shillings on putting a corn-coloured

481

482 OFHU MAN BONDAGE

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 bes*. 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 impres-
sive ; 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 ex-
posure, 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 quizzi-
cally. 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.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 483

"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 bit-
terly that she would never have treated him so. His im-
pulse 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 to-
gether in the cosy sitting-room in Vincent Square, their
visits to galleries and to the play, and the charming eve-
nings of intimate conversation. He recollected her solici-
tude for his welfare and her interest in all that concerned
him. She had loved him with a love that was kind and last-
ing, 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 great-
ness 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 disease
from which he had suffered, he knew her worth and now
she might trust him. His imagination leaped forward TO

484 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

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 perma-
nent treasure in his recollection; and on the warm sum-
mer 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 hap-
piness. 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 ncse, a large mouth; the bones of his face were

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 485

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 ease with which she car-
ried 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 inci-
dent 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. Kings-
ford took no particular notice of him. He talked fluently
and well, not without humour, but with a slightly dog-
matic 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 suc-
ceeded 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 per-
haps 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 Kings ford 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 out-
side for a couple of minutes. Philip wondered what they
were talking about.

486 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

"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 al-
ways 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 com-
fortable 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 be-
tween 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

OF HUMAN BONDAGE

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 neces-
sary 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 mut-
tered at length.

488 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

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 af-
fected 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 mirth-
lessly. It is not very comfortable to have the gift of being
amused at one's own absurdity.

LXXX

FOR the next three months Philip worked on subject*
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 ex-
aminations 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 har-
assed 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 imi-
tation 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 inter-
jectional 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 palpita-
tion of the heart: he yearned for the broad skies and the
open, desolate places among which his childhood had been

489

490 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

spent ; and he walked off one day, without a word to any-
body, 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 sur-
gery. On certain mornings in the week he practised ban-
daging 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 va-
rious 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

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 49'

a very insignificant person, and he can do very well with-
out 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 re-
lations 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 in-
duce 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 po-
liteness and a desire to make himself pleasant to every-
body, 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

492 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

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 prac-
tised. This frightened Griffiths ; and he, this time, made use
of the telegraph wires to tell her that she must do noth-
ing 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 per-
son 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 ex-
cuse 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
doorstep for hours, and she had been obliged to tell her at

I

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 493

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 sec-
ond she was going to make such a blooming nuisance of
herself he'd have seen himself damned before he had any-
thing 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 sum-
mer 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, Har-
ry's wonderful at dropping people. This is about the tough-
est nut he's ever had to crack, but he's cracked it all right."

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

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 pleas-
ant 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 consised of three rooms, leading
into one another, and a large, dark waiting-room with mas-
sive 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

494

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 495

of humanity. The first room was the largest and in the
middle of it were a table and an office chair for the physi-
cian ; 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
disease.

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 'ack-
ing 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 be-
ing 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

496 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

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 su-
perior, 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 hos-
pital 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 ques-
tions, examined his lungs, his heart, and his liver, made

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 497

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 twin-
kle 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 exer-
cised 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 fhey 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 cir-

493 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

cular 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 physi-
cian looked at his watch.

"Are there many new women to-day?" 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 stand-
ing 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 in-
terest. There was humanity there in the rough, the ma-
terials 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 end-
less excitement in looking at their faces and hearing them
speak ; they came in each with his peculiarity, some shuf-
fling 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 discov-
ered on what subjects nearly all lied, and by what inquiries

OF HUMAN BOND AGE 499

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 sympa-
thy 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 aston-
ished 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 tha*.
room human nature taken by surprise, and often the mask
of custom was torn off rudely, showing you the soul aU
raw. Sometimes you saw an untaught stoicism which waft
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 him-
self, face to face with his soul, or would he then surren-
der 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 sun-
shine 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

500 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

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 indi-
cated 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 hasnt' 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 any-
body."

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 be-
cause 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.

OFHU MAN BONDAGE 501

"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 ex-
ercise 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.

$02 OFHU MAN BONDAGE

"It's what they call a winter cough," answered Dr. Ty-
rell 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 mani-
fold 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 sim-
ple 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 in-
evitable price ; death sighed in these rooms ; and the be-
ginning of life, rilling some poor girl with terror and
shame, was diagnosed there. There was neither good nor
bad there. There were just facts. It was life.

LXXXII

TOWARDS the end of the year, when Philip was bringing
to a close his three months as clerk in the out-patients' de-
partment, 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 ^vhere
it is, but I daresay you zuill be able to find out. Be a brick
and look after him a bit. He is very dozvn 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 stu-
dio 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 £150 if they're quite willing to
give £300.

Yours ever,
Frederick Lawson.

Philip wrote to Cronshaw and received in reply the fol-
lowing letter. It was written on a half-sheet of common

504 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

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 De-
spond in which myself am hopelessly immersed. I shall
be glad to sec 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 restau-
rant, 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 trol-
lops 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 wrinkled ; 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 hand-
writing which scrawled over the page with shapeless, hap-
hazard letters. Cronshaw was evidently very ill.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 505

"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 ap-
pears 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

506 O F H U M A N B 0 N D A G E

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 after-
wards 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 sin-
gle action of the wise man. I know that I shall die strug-
gling for breath, and I know that I shall be horribly afraid.
I know that I shall not be able to keep myself from regret-
ting 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 mv soul in my hands, and I regret noth-
ing."

"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 un-
less you discover it fr»r yourself."

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 obso-
lete, 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 him-
self 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 be-
so?

5o8 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

gan 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 ex-
pected 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 disdain-
fully 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 persua-
sion Upjohn had persuaded him to give ten pounds in ad-
vance of royalties.

"In advance of royalties, mind you," said Cronshaw t<>
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 tak-
ing 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, laun-
dries, 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,

OFHUMANBONDAGE 509

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 re-
volting 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 cer-
tain 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 im-
moble; 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.

5io OF HUMAN BONDAGE

"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. Re-
member that I am indifferent to discomforts which would
harass other folk. What do the circumstances of life mat-
ter 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 ex-
pense 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
uve with me for a while? It'll save you the rent of this."

OF HUM AN BOND AGE 511

"Oh, my dear boy, you'd insist on my keeping my win-
dow 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, sit-
ting 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 sta-
tion. 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 draw-
ers, 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 Cron-
shaw 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 bril-

Si2 O F H U M A X BONDAGE

liancy 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.

LXXXIV

AT the new year Philip became dresser in the surgical
out-patients' department. The work was of the same char-
acter 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 prudish-
ness, 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 pa-
tients and on the students. He took a great pleasure in
making his dressers 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

513

Si4 OF HUM AN BOND AGE

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 op-
pressed 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 stu-
dents. 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 blush-
ing. 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 im-
pulse 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

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 51$

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 opera-
tion. 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 par-
ticular 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 at-
tention 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 treat-
ment 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

Si6 OFHUMANBONDAGE

him to wear a more ordinary boot and to limp less. He re-
membered how passionately he had prayed for the miracle
which his uncle had assured him was possible to omnipo-
tence. He smiled ruefully.

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

Towards the end of February it was clear that Cron-
shaw 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 ciga-
rettes : Philip knew that he should have neither, but Cron-
shaw'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 that 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 con-
versation. 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 real-
ised that he was tel'ing people what they knew already.
With measured words he told Philip what to think of
Rodin, Albert Samain, and Caesar Franck. Philip's char-
woman only came in for an hour in the morning, and since
Philip was obliged to be at the hospital all day Cronshavv
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 !"

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 517

"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 surround
ings 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 com-
placency.

"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 af<
ford," said Philip.

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

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

Philip's face darkened.

5i8 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

"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, not-
withstanding Philip's tidying up, had the bedraggled look
*vhich 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 be-
cause 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 doc-
tor, 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 Cron-

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 519

shaw he found him quietly reading. He did not trouble to
enquire what the doctor had said.

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

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

"Nothing," smiled Cronshaw.

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 answser 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, be-
cause 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 Cron-
shaw'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 morn-
ing," 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 won-
dered 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.

520

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 521

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, jet 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 under-
taker 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, Celer-
ity, 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 fi-
nally 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

S22 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

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, 'av-
ing 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 tele-
gram arrived from Leonard Upjohn.

Shocked and grieved beyond measure. Regret cannot
conic tonight. Dining out. With you early tomorrow. Deep-
est 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 per-
formed 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 sin-
gularly 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 noth-
ing, frightened him. The silence seemed alive, as if some
mysterious movement were taking place within it ; the pres-
ence of death weighed upon these rooms, unearthly and
terrifying: Philip felt a sudden horror for what had once

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 523

been his friend. He tried to force himself to read, but pres-
ently 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 imagina-
tion 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 be-
cause 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 inextrica-
ble 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
'he 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 give a thin smile.

"Only a poet knows where lies a poet's heart," he an-
swered.

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

"I hope 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."

S24 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

"As the cost of the funeral will apparently fall on ma
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 medioc-
rity."

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 pref-
ace. I began thinking of it during the drive to the ceme-
tery. 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 pic-
turesque figure, an English Verlaine ; and Leonard Up-
john'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

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 525

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 Ken-
nington ! Leonard Upjohn described Kennington with that
restrained humour which a strict adherence to the vocabu-
lary 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 out-
cast poet to die amid the trappings of vulgar respecta-
bility ; 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 lau-
rel 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.

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 excite-
ment, 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 suffer-
ings, 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 bit-
terly 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 journal-
ist: 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

526

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 523

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 Sed-
ley, 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 lead-
ing 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 ques-
tion 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

5a8 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

sjave 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 Glutton 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 sho./ 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 nor-
mal. 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 Span-
ish 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 aii about San Juan de la Cruz, don't
you ?"

"I don't indeed."

"He was ope of the Spanish mystics. He's one of the

OFHUMANBONDAGE 529

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,

530 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

with picturesque expressions and the fire of a real enthu-
siasm, 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 when-
ever 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 superi-
ority ; but he was in the hospital a recipient of charity, sub-
ject 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 edu-
cated 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.

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 every-
thing, 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 bal-
usters.

"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

531

S32 OFHUMANBONDAGE

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 im-
petuous 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 any-
thing."

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 nar-
row table of teak on trestle legs, with two supporting bars
of iron, of the kind called in Spain mesa de hieraje. They

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 533

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 fur-
niture 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 concep-
tion, they had a glow of passion. There was nothing in the
room of any value, but the effect was lovely. It was mag-
nificent 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 orna-
mentation 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 Cas-
tile ; but her mother calls her Sally and her brother Pud-
ding-Face."

The girl smiled shyly, she had even, white teeth, and
blushed. She was well set-up, tall for her age, with pleas-
ant 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

534 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

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 crea-
ture, 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 Athel-
stan, 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 tortur-
ing these wretched brats with soap."

OF HUMAN BOND AGE 535

"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 ac-
count," 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 fathei
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, hav<
ing 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

536 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

much embarrassed, for she was accustomed to her father's
outbursts, but with an easy modesty which was very attrac-
tive.

"Don't let your dinner get cold, father," she said, draw-
ing 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 be-
neath 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 poli-
tics 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 ta
swear."

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

"One of the rules_pf this house is that Sunday dinner

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 53^

should never alter. It is a ritual. Roast beef and rice pud-
ding 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
Dears 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 hun-
dred 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 charm-
ing still, and she lives in the little red brick house in Ken-
sington, 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.

S38 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

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 linen-draper,
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 bohe-
mianism, but he had an infinitely more vivacious tempera-
ment; 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 Athelny s 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, Athel-

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 539

fetan, 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.

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 embar-
rassed 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

540

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 541

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 Ter-
canbury, 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

542 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

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 cathe-
drals 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, Cordoba, 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 wind-
swept.

"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. Se-
ville: 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 Span-
ish 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

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 543

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 draw-
ing : 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 curi-
ously moved. These pictures seemed to offer some mean-
ing 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 feel-
ing 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 impresison 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 man-
ner, his hostile aloofness, had made it difficult to know
him; but it seemed to Philip, looking back, that there had

544 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

been in him a tragic force, which sought vainly to express
itself in painting. He was a man of unusual character, mys-
tical after the fashion of a time that had no leaning to mys-
ticism, who was impatient with life because he found him-
self 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 gentle-
men, 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 angejs. It was a landscape alien to
all Philip's notions, for he had lived in circles that wor-
shipped exact realism; and yet here again, strangely to

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 545

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 pic-
ture they recognised their houses. The painter had painted
exactly vfhsi he saw but he had seen with the eyes of the
spirit. Ther j 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 un-
amazed 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 unknow-
able, 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 ap-
parition 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 Diego 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 in-
visible. 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

546 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

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 some-
thing more ; because they were human they were unsatis-
fied; and they threw this eager vitality of theirs into a
vehement striving after the ineffable. Athelny was not dis-
pleased to find someone to whom he could read the trans-
lations with which for some time he had amused his lei-
sure ; 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 nna 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 vul-
gar; 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, lan-
guid, too fat now and rather bald, still cherishing the re-
mains 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
mat 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

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 547

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 land-
scape 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 some-
thing 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 Cas-
tile; and the gestures of the saints, which at first had
seemed wild and distorted, appeared to have some mys-
terious significance. But he could not tell what that sig-
nificance 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.

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
/ithelny 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 natural-
uess. 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 straw-
berry jam. While she placed the things on the table her
father chaffed her. He said it was quite time she was
v;alking out ; he told Philip that she was very proud, and
would have nothing to do with aspirants to that honour

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 549

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 assis-
tant has enlisted in the army because she would not say
how d'you do to him and an electrical engineer, an elec-
trical 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 pro-
ceeded 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 Feme."

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

"That's a funny thing now," she said. "I was wonder-
ing 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 Black-
stable 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
Feme. It was a pretty village about ten miles across coun-

Sso OFHUMANBONDAGE

try from Blackstable, and the Vicar had come over some-
times to Blackstable for the harvest thanksgiving. She
mentioned names of various farmers in the neighbour-
hood. 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 mem-
ory 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," re-
marked 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

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 551

they should all have tea together in the kitchen, and the
meal was noisy and hilarious.

Soon Philip got into the hat-., of going to Athelny's
every Sunday. He became a great favourite with the chil-
dren, 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 fol-
lowed 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 em-
ployments ; 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 un-
usual; and he poured forth his stores of abstruse knowl-
edge with childlike 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 un-
worthy his abilities, which he rated highly, the firmness
of his wife and the needs of his family had made him stick
to it.

xc

WHEN he left the Athelnys' Philip walked down Chan-
cery 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 shel-
ter 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 Picca-
dilly. 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

553

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 553

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 meet you to-
morrow."

SS4 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

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 an-
nouncement 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 under-
tone. 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 bedroom 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.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 555

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

"Ch, 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 re-
proach 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 de-
served."

"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 recollec-
tion 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 f ree-
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

556 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

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 dis-
agreeable 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 over-
whelming 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."

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 5S»

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, put-
ting 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.

SS8 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

"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.

XCI

NEXT day he got up eaily 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 pa-
thetic figure as she stepped out of the cab with the baby
in her arms. She seemed a little shy, and they found noth-
ing 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 Cron-
shaw had died. Philip, though he thought it absurd, had
never liked the idea of going back to it ; and since Cron-
shaw'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

559

j6o OF HUMAN BONDAGE

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' 11 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 re-
pasts," he retorted lightly.

"I see there's nothing in. I'd better go out and get some-
thing."

"Yes, but I venture to remind you that we must be dev-
ilish economical."

"What shall I get for supper ?"

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 561

"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 dos<
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
half a bottle of whiskey, and he thought a little would do
Mildred good. He did his best to make the supper pass

S62 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

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 absolutely 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 Osier'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 imag-
ine 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 bedroom, and in a little while he heard
the creaking of the bed as she got in.

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 to-
bacco and put on his hat. It was on Tuesdays that he gen-
erally went to the tavern in Beak Sjtreet, and he was glad

563

564 O F H U M A X B O N D A G E

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 pleas-
ure. Macalister, the philosophic stockbroker, was gener-
ally 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 scorn-
ful 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 Hay-
ward 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 adver-
tised 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 sat-
isfaction.

"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.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 565

"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 my-
self."

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 quali-
fied, 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. "Some-
thing 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."

566 OFHUMANBONDAGE

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 as-
sumed 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 set-
tled 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, but made her-
self some cocoa and ate bread and butter; then she took
the baby out in the go-cart, 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 Mil-
dred 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

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 567

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 pas-
sion 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 an-
other, of the passing traffic, of a barrel-organ in the dis-
tance.

"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

,68 OFHUMANBONDAGE

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 circum-
stances she might have been a charming girl. She was ex-
traordinarily 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 vir-
ginal. 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 Mil-
dred 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

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 569

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.

xcm

NEXT morning Mildred was sulky and taciturn. She re-
mained 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 oppo-
site 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 delight-
ful and an unexpected thing to realise that everyone in that
household looked forward with pleasure to his visit. Mil-
dred had gone to bed when he came back, but next day she
was still silent. At supper she sat with a haughty expres-
sion 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 ex-
pected 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 rela-
tions to be merely friendly. I suggested it because I thought
you wanted a home and you would have a chance of look-
ing about for something to do."

"Oh, don't think I care."

570

OFHUMANBONDAGE 571

"I don't for a moment," he hastened to say. "You
mustn't think I'm ungrateful. I realise that you only pro-
posed 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 ex-
cept 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 men-
vioned it. Occasionally he took her to a music-hall. He car-
ried 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 try-
ing 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 mater-
nal passion which might have induced her to forget her*

572 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

self. 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
tl e 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 any-
body'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 Klein fonteins ; it's a gold mine in Rhodesia. If you'd
like to have a flutter you might make a bit."

OF HUMAN BOND AGE 573

Philip had been waiting anxiously for such an oppor-
tunity, but now that it came he hesitated. He was desper-
ately 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 i
donkey.

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

"You can't make money unless you're prepared to risl:
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 sar-
castic 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 monev 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 ad-
vanced 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.

5/4 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

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

"No," said Mildred.

His face fell, and in bitter disappointment he sank heav-
ily 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 think-
ing 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
war. ted 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 Mie," 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 oper-
ated 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 ex-
plain what had so much puzzled her. He flushed, for he
nated 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 sum-
mer. 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 Mil-
dred would be bored to death there.

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

OFHU MAN BONDAGE 575

He did not know why, but he had suddenly an irresisti-
ble 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 ?"

XCIV

PHILIP asked Mr. Jacobs, the assistant-surgeon for
whom he had dressed, to do the operation. Jacobs accepted
wf :h 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 be^n 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 any-
thing 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 any-
one 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 an-

576

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 577

swered ; 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
buarding-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 noth-
ing. 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 an-
other night in London. Mildred recovered her good tem-
per 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.

578 OFHUMANBONDAGE

"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
*han I have."

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

The house the stout woman sugr^sted 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,
und 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'llthey think of us?"

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 579

"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 mar-
ried ?" 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 unreason-
able, 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 volu-
ble 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 ex-
plained 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, Mil-
dred?"

"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 ?"

58o OF HUMAN BOND AGE

"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 incon-
venient, 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 dis-
cussed Miss Corelli'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 explana-
tions of their presence: one of the single gentlemen gen-
erally 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

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 581

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 su-
perior, 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 after-
noons were long and dreary. They sat on the beach. Mil-
dred 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

582 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

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 mid-
dle 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 in-
vited him to come over for a day, he had certain medita-
tions 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

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 583

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 play-
ing 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 play-
ing a mysterious and complicated game known only to her-
self. 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 gro-
tesque fashion. His eyes had been resting on her vaguely,
but now he looked at her with peculiar attention. He re-
membered how passionately he had loved her, and he won-
dered 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 be-
cause, 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 al-
ways been. It revolted Philip to hear the insolence with

584 OF HUM AN BOND AGE

which she treated the hard-worked sen-ant 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 hun-
dred 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 liv-
ing. 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 Shang-
hai, 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
beat with passionate desire for the beauty and the strange-
ness 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."

xcv

WHEN they returned to London Philip began his dress-
ing 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 operat-
ing 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 com-
mon 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 in-
stinctively. Saturday night was of course the busiest time

585

S86 OF HUM AN BOND AGE

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 hus-
bands had given them: some would vow to have the law
on him, and others, ashamed, would declare that it had
beer, 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
.Sfreat gash from ear to ear, and he was in the ward for
weeks afterwards in charge of a constable, silent, angry be-
cause 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 sta-
tion 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 talk-
ing 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 mis-
tress 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

OFHUMANBONDAGE 587

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 hu-
man 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 cer-
tain 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 pawned his clothes and bought a re-
volver ; 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 blown away, he came to the

after

you'd

expect, that's just a fancy of novelists ; they commit sui-
cide because they haven't got any money. I wonder why
that is."

"I suppose money's more important than love," sug-
gested 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 impossi-
ble for her to 4o 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

588 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

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 four-
teen 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
cowards the expenses of the household, and Mildred was
already beginning to hint that she did not get a place be-
cause she had not got a decent dress to interview employ-
ers 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

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 589

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 be-
cause they were the best things he had done, and they re-
minded 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
«sked 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 pleasuie every morn-
ing 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.

590 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

I'm her mother, and I ought to know what's good foi 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 com-
fortable. 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 re-
membering 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 curi-
ously.

"D'you know that you haven't kissed me once since 1
came here ?" she said suddenly.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 59;

"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 pres-
ently, 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 Phi.lip to hear her make use of the sort of
phrase she read in the penny novelettes which she de.-
voured. Then he wondered whether what she said had any
meaning for her: perhaps she knew no other way to ex-
press 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 con-
scious 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 my-
self."

592 OF HUMAN' BONDAGE

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.

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 be-
cause 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 criticis-
ing her manners.

When she first came to live in the little rooms in Ken-
nington 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 rough-
ness 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 re-
fused 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

593

594 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

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 for-
given. 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, ],ay no attention to him,
just pretend you didn't notice his tempers, leave him
severely alone, and in a little whiie 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 any-
thing 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 in-
tended 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

OF HUMAN BONDAGE S9S

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 peo-
ple he met out; but artful questions led her to the con-
clusion 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 ap-
parently 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 rea-
sons for his conduct were chivalrous ; and, her imagina-
tion 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 misunder-
standings, 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 noth-
ing 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

SQ6 OF HUM AN BOND AGE

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 after-
wards 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

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 59;

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 sup-
porting 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 inces-
santly. 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. Mil-
dred 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 : Mil-
dred did not think it sounded very amusing; if she were
a painter she would have half a dozen models about. She

598 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

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 cneeks 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."

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 599

"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

suppose it's because I loved you too Iftuch. I wore
the passion out. The thought of anything of that sort hor-
rifies 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
.^o 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.,

6oo OF HUMAN BONDAGE

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 pas-
sion, 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. And at last she turned to go. She kept on, with
hysterical violence, shouting at him an opprobrious, filthy
epithet. She seized the hand 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!"

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 knock-
ing, 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 him-
self. 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
h~lp thinking it grotesque ; he supposed he had been ridicu-
lous, 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 out-

601

i 602 OFHUMANBONDAGE

burst 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 Ion?
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 ani-
mal, 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 sis-
ter 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

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 603

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 ques-
tions. 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 heart-strings, 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 win-
dows, 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 bewild-
ered. He went into his own room, and here too every-
thing was in confusion. The basin and the ewer had been
smashed, the looking-glass was in fragments, and the

004 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

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. Every-
thing 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 photo-
graphs, Manet's Olympla 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 con-
tained 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 associa-
tions. 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

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 605

hearth in bits. Everything that it had been possible to de-
stroy 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 per-
haps, 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 bore-
dom.

"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-

6o6

OF HUMAN BONDAGE

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
\odge so cheaply.

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. His-
tory 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, Co-
lenso, Spion Kop, lost on the playing fields of Eton, had
humiliated the nation and dealt the death-blow to the pres-
tige of the aristocracy and gentry who till then had found
no one seriously to oppose their assertion that they pos-
sessed 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, Lady smith was re-
lieved,, 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, Rob-
erts 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.

607

6o8 OFHUMANBONDAGE

"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 there-
fore 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 Ex-
change 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 opti-
mistic, 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 ac-
count Philip had to pay out nearly forty pounds. It wor-
ried 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 A'as sick with anxiety. He could not sleep at
night; he bolted his breakfast, reduced now to tea and

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 609

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 hun-
dred 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 ; some-
thing 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 begin-
ning 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 hun-
dred and fifty pounds ; but that was the least it could pos-
sibly 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 any-
one 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 youth-
ful intimacy which had come from Philip's enthusiastic

610 OFHUMANBONDAtilS

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 con-
tempt 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 Hay-
ward 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 cosmopoli-
tanism, 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

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 611

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 noth-
ing.

"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 some-
thing, 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

6i2 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

to talk to Macalister. He was dum founded; his head sud-
denly 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 be-
tween 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 hap-
pened 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 dread-
fully.

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 sum-
mer 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 instal-
ments ; he would pay interest on this and promised to re-
fund 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

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 613

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 blank-
ness : 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 course*
and now saw himself justified.

XCIX

PHILIP began to pawn his clothes. He reduced his ex-
penses by eating only one meal a day beside his break-
fast; 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 to 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 him-
self 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

614

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 615

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 con-
stantly being sent out. He went to the secretary of the
Medical School and asked if he could give him the coach-
ing 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 insuffi-
cient : 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 ap-
plication, 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 disap-
proved of him. He had gathered from Philip's year in the
accountant's office that he was idle and incompetent.

t>i6 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

"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 hos-
pital dispensary, and it was a comfort to think that if the
worst came to the worst he had at hand means of making
2 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 them-
selves 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 some-
body, 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 ot 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.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 617

"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.

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 Embank-
ment, because the river was restful and quiet, till he was
tired, and then sat on a bench and dozed. He did 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 Chis-
wick, 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 com-
mit suicide. He could not go on like that : Lawson would

618

OFHUMANBONDAGE 619

help him when he knew what straits he was in; it was
absurd to let his pride prevent him from asking for assist-
ance. He wondered why he had come such a cropper. He
had always tried to do what he thought best, and every
thing had gone wrong. He had helped people when he
could, he did not think he had been more selfish than any-
one else, it seemed horribly unjust that he should be re-
duced 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 gar-
dens of the palace and lie down. His bones ached. Per-
haps 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 pleas-
ure 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 him-
self 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

620 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

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 won-
dered 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 be-
cause 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 adver-
tisement 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, feel"
ing horribly shy, in the department at nine o'clock he

OFHUMANBONDAGE 621

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 corpu-
lent, 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 con-
tained only an American roll-desk in the corner, a book-
case, and a cupboard. The men standing outside watched
him mechanically take the geranium out of his coat and put
it in an ink-pot rilled 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
cue stepped into the office. They filed past him one by one

522 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

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 par-
ticular 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 al-
most 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 after-
noon. 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

OFHUMANBONDAGE 623

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 with-
out 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 dreamed that he was sud-
denly 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 adver-
tised 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 mid-
night he was so hungry that he could not go without food
any more, so he went to a coffee stall at Hyde Park Cor-
ner 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 drea^d 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 Picca-
dilly and towards morning he strolled down to the Em-

024 O F H U M A X B O N D A G E

bankment. He listened to the striking of Big Ben, markint.
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 advertise-
ments, 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, be-
cause 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

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 625

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 humili-
ating 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 com-
mon sense. He would have to tell the whole history of his
folly. He had an uneasy feeling that Lawson, after help-
ing 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 hap-
pened. 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 desper-
ate, 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 dread-
fully afraid that Athelny would put him off with airy
phrases : that would be so horrible that he wanted to de-
lay 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 hor-
ribly. From mid-day 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.

CI

WHEN Philip rang a head was put out of the window,
and in a minute he heard a noisy clatter on the stairs as the
children ran down to let him in. It was a pale, anxious, thin
face that he bent down for them to kiss. He was so moved
by their exuberant affection that, to give himself time to
recover, he made excuses to linger on the stairs. He was
in a hysterical state and almost anything was enough to
make him cry. They asked him why he had not come on
the previous Sunday, and he told them he had been ill;
they wanted to know what was the matter with him ; and
Philip, to amuse them, suggested a mysterious ailment,
the name of which, double-barrelled and barbarous with
its mixture of Greek and Latin (medical nomenclature
bristled with such), made them shriek with delight. They
dragged Philip into the parlour and made him repeat it for
their father's edification. Athelny got up and shook hands
with him. He stared at Philip, but with his round, bulging
eyes he always seemed to stare. Philip did not know why
on this occasion it made him self-conscious.

"We missed you last Sunday," he said.

Philip could never tell lies without embarrassment, and
he was scarlet when he finished his explanation for not
coming. Then Mrs. Athelny entered and shook hands with
him.

"I hope you're better, Mr. Carey," she said.

He did not know why she imagined that anything had
been the matter with him, for the kitchen door was closed
when he came up with the children, and they had not left
him.

"Dinner won't be ready for another ten minutes," she
said, in her slow drawl. "Won't you have an egg beaten up
in a glass of milk while you're waiting?"

There was a look of concern on her face which made
Philip uncomfortable. He forced a laugh and answered

626

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 627

that he was not at all hungry. Sally came in to lay the ta-
ble, and Philip began to chaff her. It was the family joke
that she would be as fat as an aunt of Mrs. Athelny, called
Aunt Elizabeth, whom the children had never seen but re-
garded as the type of obscene corpulence.

"I say, what has happened since I saw you last, Sally ?"
Philip began.

"Nothing that I know of."

"I believe you've been putting on weight."

"I'm sure you haven't," she retorted. "You're a perfect
skeleton."

Philip reddened.

"That's a tu quoque, Sally," cried her father. "You will
be fined one golden hair of your head. Jane, fetch the
shears."

"Well, he is thin, father," remonstrated Sally. "He's just
skin and bone."

"That's not the qeustion, child. He is at perfect liberty to
be thin, but your obesity is contrary to decorum."

As he spoke he put his arm proudly round her waist and
looked at her with admiring eyes.

"Let me get on with the table, father. If I am com-
fortable there are some who don't seem to mind it."

"The hussy !" cried Athelny, with a dramatic wave of the
hand. "She taunts me with the notorious fact that Joseph,
a son of Levi who sells jewels in Holborn, has made her an
offer of marriage."

"Have you accepted him, Sally ?" asked Philip.

"Don't you know father better than that by this time?
There's not a word of truth in it."

"Well, if he hasn't made you an offer of marriage," cried
Athelny, "by Saint George and Merry England, I will
seize him by the nose and demand of him immediately
what are his intentions."

"Sit down, father, dinner's ready. Now then, you chil-
dren, get along with you and wash your hands all of you,
and don't shirk it, because I mean to look at them before
you have a scrap of dinner, so there."

Philip thought he was ravenous till he began to eat, but
then discovered that his stomach turned against food, and

6z8 O F H U M A N B O N D A G E

he could eat hardly at all. His brain was weary ; and he did
not notice that Athelny, contrary to his habit, spoke very
little. Philip was relieved to be sitting in a confortable
house, but every now and then he could not prevent him-
self from glancing out of the window. The day was tem-
pestuous. The fine weather had broken ; and it was cold,
and there was a bitter wind ; now and again gusts of rain
drove against the window. Philip wondered what he should
do that night. The Athelnys went to bed early, and he could
not stay where he was after ten o'clock. His heart sank at
the thought of going out into the bleak darkness. It seemed
more terrible now that he Was with his friends than when
he was outside and alone. He kept on saying to himself
that there were plenty more who would be spending
the night out of doors. He strove to distract his mind by
talking, but in the middle of his words a spatter of rain
against the window would make him start.

"It's like March weather," said Athelny. "Not the sort
of day one would like to be crossing the Channel."

Presently they finished, and Sally came in and cleared
away.

"Would you like a twopenny stinker?" said Athelny,
handing him a cigar.

Philip took it and inhaled the smoke with delight. It
soothed him extraordinarily. When Sally had finished
Athelny told her to shut the door after her.

"Now we shan't be disturbed," he said, turning to Philip.
"I've arranged with Betty not to let the children come in
till I call them."

Philip gave him a startled look, but before he could take
in the meaning of his words, Athelny, fixing his glasses on
his nose with the gesture habitual to him, went on.

"I wrote to you last Sunday to ask if anything was the
matter with you, and as you didn't answer I went to your
rooms on Wednesday."

Philip turned his head away and did not answer. His
heart began to beat violently. Athelny did not speak, and
presently the silence seemed intolerable to Philip. He could
not think of a single word to say.

629

"Your landlady told me you hadn't been in since Satur-
day night, and she said you owed her for the last month,
Where have you been sleeping all this week?"

It made Philip sick to answer. He stared out of the win«-
dow.

"Nowhere."

"I tried to find you."

"Why?" asked Philip.

"Betty and I have been just as broke in our day, only
we had babies to look after. Why didn't you come here?"

"I couldn't."

Philip was afraid he was going to cry. He felt very
weak. He shut his eyes and frowned, trying to control him-
self. He felt a sudden flash of anger with Athelny because
he would not leave him alone; but he was broken; and
presently, his eyes still closed, slowly in order to keep his
voice steady, he told him the story of his adventures dur-
ing the last few weeks. As he spoke it seemed to him that
he had behaved inanely, and it made it still harder to tell.
He felt that Athelny would think him an utter fool.

"Now you're coming to live with us till you find some-
thing to do," said Athelny, when he had finished.

Philip flushed, he knew not why.

"Oh, it's awfully kind of you, but I don't think I'll do
that."

"Why not?"

Philip did not answer. He had refused instinctively from
fear that he would be a bother, and he had a natural bash-
fulness of accepting favours. He knew besides that the
Athelnys lived from hand to mouth, and with their large
family had neither space nor money to entertain a stran-
ger.

"Of course you must come here," said Athelny. "Thorpe
will tuck in with one of his brothers and you can sleep ii?
his bed. You don't suppose your food's going to make any
difference to us."

Philip was afraid to speak, and Athelny, going to the
door, called his wife.

"Betty," he said, when she came in, "Mr. Carey's com-
ing to live with us."

630 OFHUMANBONDAGE

"Oh, that is nice," she said. "I'll go and get the bed
ready."

She spoke in such a hearty, friendly tone, taking every-
thing for granted, that Philip was deeply touched. He
never expected people to be kind to him, and when they
were it surprised and moved him. Now he could not pre-
vent two large tears from rolling down his cheeks. The
Athelnys discussed the arrangements and pretended not
to notice to what a state his weakness had brought him.
When Mrs. Athelny left them Philip leaned back in his
chair, and looking out of the window laughed a little.

"It's not a very nice night to be out, is it ?"

CII

ATHELNY told Philip that he could easily get him soma-
thing to do in the large firm of linendrapers in which him-
self worked. Several of the assistants had gone to the war,
and Lynn and Sedley with patriotic zeal had promised to
keep their places open for them. They put the work of the
heroes on those who remained, and since they did not in-
crease the wages of these were able at once to exhibit
public spirit and effect an economy; but the war contin-
ued and trade was less depressed ; the holidays were com-
ing, when numbers of the staff went away for a fortnight
at a time: they were bound to engage more assistants.
Philip's experience had made him doubtful whether even
then they would engage him; but Athelny, representing
himself as a person of consequence in the firm, insisted
that the manager could refuse him nothing. Philip, with his
training in Paris, would be very useful ; it was only a mat-
ter of waiting a little and he was bound to get a well-paid
job to design costumes and draw posters. Philip made a
poster for the summer sale and Athelny took it away. Two
days later he brought it back, saying that the manager ad-
mired it very much and regretted with all his heart that
there was no vacancy just then in that department. Philip
asked whether there was nothing else he could do.

"I'm afraid not."

"Are you quite sure?"

"Well, the fact is they're advertising for a shop-walker
tomorrow," said Athelny, looking at him doubtfully
through his glasses.

"D'you think I stand any chance of getting it ?"

Athelny was a little confused ; he had led Philip to ex-
pect something much more splendid ; on the other hand he
was too poor to go on providing him indefinitely with
board and lodging.

"You might take it while you wait for something better

632 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

You always stand a better chance if you're engaged by the
firm already."

"I'm not proud, you know," smiled Philip.

"If you decide on that you must be there at a quarter to
nine tomorrow morning."

Notwithstanding the war there was evidently much
difficulty in finding work, for when Philip went to the shop
many men were waiting already. He recognised some
whom he had seen in his own searching, and there was one
whom he had noticed lying about the park in the after-
noon. To Philip now that suggested that he was as home-
less as himself and passed the night out of doors. The men
were of all sorts, old and young, tall and short ; but every
one had tried to make himself smart for the interview
with the manager: they had carefully brushed hair and
scrupulously clean hands. They waited in a passage which
Philip learnt afterwards led up to the dining-hall and the
work rooms ; it was broken every few yards by five or six
steps. Though there was electric light in the shop here was
only gas, with wire cages over it for protection, and it
flared noisily. Philip arrived punctually, but it was nearly
ten o'clock when he was admitted into the office. It was
three-cornered, like a cut of cheese lying on its side : on
the walls were pictures of women in corsets, and two
poster-proofs, one of a man in pyjamas, green and white
in large stripes, and the other of a ship in full sail plough -
ing an azure sea: on the sail was printed in large letters
'great white sale.' The widest side of the office was the
back of one of the shop-windows, which was being dressed
at the time, and an assistant went to and fro during the
interview. The manager was reading a letter. He was a
florid man, with sandy hair and a large sandy moustache ;
from the middle of his watch-chain hung a bunch of foot-
ball medals. He sat in his shirt-sleeves at a large desk with
a telephone by his side ; before him were the day's adver-
tisements, Athelny's work, and cuttings from newspapers
pasted on a card. He gave Philip a glance but did not speak
to him ; he dictated a letter to the typist, a girl who sat at
a small table in one corner ; then he asked Philip his name,
age, and what experience he had had. He spoke with a

OFHUMANBONDAGE 633

cockney twang in a high, metallic voice which he seemed
not able always to control ; Philip noticed that his upper
teeth were large and protruding; they gave you the im-
pression that they were loose and would come out if you
gave them a sharp tug.

"I think Mr. Athelny has spoken to you about me," said
Philip.

"Oh, you are the young feller who did that poster?''

"Yes, sir."

"No good to us, you know, not a bit of good."

He looked Philip up and down. He seemed to notice that
Philip was in some way different from the men who /iad
preceded him.

"You'd 'ave to get a frock coat, you know. I suppose
you 'aven't got one. You seem a respectable young feller. I
suppose you found art didn't pay."

Philip could not tell whether he meant to engage him or
rut. He threw remarks at him in a hostile way.

"Where's your home ?"

"My father and mother died when I was a child."

"I like to give young fellers a chance. Many's the one,
I've given their chance to and they're managers of de-
partments now. And they're grateful to me, I'll say that
for them. They know what I done for them. Start at the
bottom of the ladder, that's the only way to learn the busi-
ness, and then if you stick to it there's no knowing what it
can lead to. If you suit, one of these days you may find
yourself in a position like what mine is. Bear that in mind,
young feller."

"I'm very anxious to do my best, sir," said Philip.

He knew that he must put in the sir whenever he could,
but it sounded odd to him, and he was afraid of overdoing
it. The manager liked talking. It gave him a happy con-
sciousness of his own importance, and he did not give
Philip his decision till he had used a great many words.

"Well, I daresay you'll do," he said at last, in a pom-
pous way. "Anyhow I don't mind giving you a trial."

"Thank you very much, sir."

"You can start at once. I'll give you six shillings a week
and your keep. Everything found, you know ; the six shil-

C ?4 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

lings is only pocket money, to do what you like with, paid
monthly. Start on Monday. I suppose you've got no cause
of complaint with that."

"No, sir."

"Harrington Street, d'you know where that is, Shaftes-
bury Avenue. That's where you sleep. Number ten, it is.
You can sleep there on Sunday night, if you like; that's
just as you please, or you can send your box there on Mon-
day." The manager nodded : "Good-morning."

cm

MRS. ATHELNY lent Philip money to pay his landlady
enough of her bill to let him take his things away. For five
shillings and the pawn-ticket on a suit he was able to get
from a pawnbroker a frock coat which fitted him fairly
well. He redeemed the rest of his clothes. He sent his box
to Harrington Street by Carter Patterson and on Monday
morning went with Athelny to the shop. Athelny intro-
duced him to the buyer of the costumes and left him. The
buyer was a pleasant, fussy little man of thirty, named
Sampson; he shook hands with Philip, and, in order to
show his own accomplishment of which he was very proud,
asked him if he spoke French. He was surprised when
Philip told him he did.

"Any other language ?"

"I speak German."

"Oh ! I go over to Paris myself occasionally. Parles-vous
•f ran foist Ever been to Maxim's?"

Philip was stationed at the top of the stairs in the 'cos-
tumes.' His work consisted in directing people to the vari-
ous departments. There seemed a great many of them as
Mr. Sampson tripped them off his tongue. Suddenly he
noticed that Philip limped.

"What's the matter with your leg?" he asked.

"I've got a club-foot," said Philip. "But it doesn't pre-
vent my walking or anything like that."

The buyer looked at it for a moment doubtfully, and
Philip surmised that he was wondering why the manager
had engaged him. Philip knew that he had not noticed
there was anything the matter with him.

"I don't expect you to get them all correct the first day.
If you're in any doubt all you ve got to do is to ask one of
the young ladies."

Mr. Sampson turned away; and Philip, trying to re-
member where this or the other department was, watched

635

636 OF HUM AN BOND AGE

anxiously for the customer in search of information. At
one o'clock he went up to dinner. The dining-room, on the
top floor of the vast building, was large, long, and well lit ;
but all the windows were shut to keep out the dust, and
there was a horrid smell of cooking. There were long ta-
bles covered with cloths, with big glass bottles of water at
intervals, and down the centre salt cellars and bottles of
vinegar. The assistants crowded 'n noisily, and sat down on
forms still warm from those who had dined at twelve-
thirty.

"No pickles," remarked the man next to Philip.

He was a tall thin young man, with a hooked nose and a
pasty face ; he had a long head, unevenly shaped as though
the skull had been pushed in here and there oddly, and on
his forehead and neck were large acne spots red and in-
flamed. His name was Harris. Philip discovered that on
some days there were large soup-plates down the table full
of mixed pickles. They were very popular. There were no
knives and forks, but in a minute a large fat boy in a white
coat came in with a couple of handfuls of them and threw
them loudly on the middle of the table. Each man took
what he wanted; they were warm and greasy from re-
cent washing in dirty water. Plates of meat swimming in
gravy were handed round by boys in white jackets, and as
they flung each plate down with the quick gesture of a
prestidigitator the gravy slopped over on to the table-cloth.
Then they brought large dishes of cabbages and potatoes ;
the sight of them turned Philip's stomach; he noticed that
everyone poured quantities of vinegar over them. The
noise was awful. They talked and laughed and shouted,
and there was the clatter of knives and forks, and strange
sounds of eating. Philip was glad to get back into the de-
partment. He was beginning to remember where each one
was, and had less often to ask one of the assistants, when
somebody wanted to know the way.

"First to the right. Second on the left, madam."

One or two of the girls spoke to him, just a word when
things were slack, and he felt they were taking his measure.
At five he was sent up again to the dining-room for tea.
He was glad to sit down. There were large slices of bread

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 637

heavily spread with butter; and many had pots of jam,
which were kept in the 'store' and had their names written
on.

Philip was exhausted when work stopped at half past
six. Harris, the man he had sat next to at dinner, offered
to take him over to Harrington Street to show him where
he was to sleep. He told Philip there was a spare bed in his
room, and, as the other rooms were full, he expected Philip
would be put there. The house in Harrington Street had
been a bootmaker's ; and the shop was used as a bed-room ;
but it was very dark, since the window had been boarded
three parts up, and as this did not open the only ventila-
tion came from a small skylight at the far end. There was
a musty smell, and Philip was thankful that he would not
have to sleep there. Harris took him up to the sitting-room,
which was on the first floor ; it had an old piano in it with
a keyboard that looked like a row of decayed teeth ; and on
the table in a cigar-box without a lid was a set of domi-
noes; old numbers of The Strand Magazine and of The
Graphic were lying about. The other rooms were used as
bed-rooms. That in which Philip was to sleep was at the
top of the house. There were six beds in it, and a trunk or
a box stood by the side of each. The only furniture was a
chest of drawers : it had four large drawers and two small
ones, and Philip as the new-comer had one of these ; there
were keys to them, but as they were all alike they were not
of much use, and Harris advised him to keep his valuables
in his trunk. There was a looking-glass on the chimney-
piece. Harris showed Philip the lavatory, which was a
fairly large room with eight basins in a row, and here all
the inmates did their washing. It led into another room in
which were two baths, discoloured, the woodwork stained
with soap; and in them were dark rings at various inter-
vals which indicated the water marks of different baths.

When Harris and Philip went back to their bedroom
they found a tall man changing his clothes and a boy of
sixteen whistling as loud as he could while he brushed his
hair. In a minute or two without saying a word to anybody
the tall man went out. Harris winked at the boy, and the
boy, whistling still, winked back. Harris told Philip that

638 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

the man was called Prior; he had been in the army and
now served in the silks; he kept pretty much to himself,
and he went off every night, just like that, without so
much as a good-evening, to see his girl. Harris went out
too, and only the boy remained to watch Philip curiously
while he unpacked his things. His name was Bell and he
was serving his time for nothing in the haberdashery. He
was much interested in Philip's evening clothes. He told
him about the other men in the room and asked him every
sort of question about himself. He was a cheerful youth,
and in the intervals of conversation sang in a half-broken
voice snatches of music-hall songs. When Philip had fin-
ished he went out to walk about the streets and look at the
crowd ; occasionally he stopped outside the doors of res-
taurants and watched the people going in ; he felt hungry,
so he bought a bath bun and ate it while he strolled along.
He had been given a latch-key by the prefect, the man
who turned out the gas at a quarter past eleven, but afraid
of being locked out he returned in good time ; he had
learned already the system of fines : you had to pay a shil-
ling if you came in after eleven, and half a crown after a
quarter past, and you were reported besides: if it hap-
pened three times you were dismissed.

All but the soldier were in when Philip arrived and two
were already in bed. Philip was greeted with cries.

"Oh, Clarence! Naughty boy!"

He discovered that Bell had dressed up the bolster in his
evening clothes. The boy was delighted with his joke.

"You must wear them at the social evening, Clarence."

"He'll catch the belle of Lynn's, if he's not careful."

Philip had already heard of the social evenings, for the
money stopped from the wages to pay for them was one of
the grievances of the staff. It was only two shillings a
month, and it covered medical attendance and the use of a
library of worn novels ; but as four shillings a month be-
sides 'vas stopped for washing, Philip discovered that a
quarter of his six shillings a week would never be paid to
him.

Most of the men were eating thick slices of fat bacon
between a roll of bread cut in two. These sandwiches, the

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 63c

assistants' usual supper, were supplied by a small shop a
few doors off at twopence each. The soldier rolled in ; si-
lently, rapidly, took off his clothes and threw himself into
bed. At ten minutes past eleven the gas gave a big jump
and five minutes later went out. The soldier went to sleep,
but the others crowded round the big window in their py-
jamas and night-shirts and, throwing remains of their
sandwiches at the women who passed in the street below,
shouted to them facetious remarks. The house opposite, six
storeys high, was a workshop for Jewish tailors who left
off work at eleven; the rooms were brightly lit and there
were no blinds to the windows. The sweater's daughter —
the family consisted of father, mother, two small boys, and
a girl of twenty — went round the house to put out the
lights when work was over, and sometimes she allowed
herself to be made love to by one of the tailors. The shop
assistants in Philip's room got a lot of amusement out of
watching the manoeuvres of one man or another to stay
behind, and they made small bets on which would succeed.
At midnight the people were turned out of the Harrington
Arms at the end of the street, and soon after they all went
to bed: Bell, who slept nearest the door, made his way
across the room by jumping from bed to bed, and even
when he got to his own would not stop talking. At last
everything was silent but for the steady snoring of the sol-
dier, and Philip went to sleep.

He was awaked at seven by the loud ringing of a bell,
and by a quarter to eight they were all dressed and hurry-
ing downstairs in their stockinged feet to pick out their
boots. They laced them as they ran along to the shop in
Oxford Street for breakfast. If they were a minute later
than eight they got none, nor, once in, were they allowed
out to get themselves anything to eat. Sometimes, if they
knew they could not get into the building in time, they
stopped at the little shop near their quarters and bought a
couple of buns ; but this cost money, and most went with-
out food till dinner. Philip ate some bread and butter,
drank a cup of tea, and at half past eight began his day's
work again.

"First to the right. Second on the left, madam."

«40 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

Soon he began to answer the questions quite mechani-
cally. The work was monotonous and very tiring. After a
few days his feet hurt him so that he could hardly stand :
the thick soft carpets made them burn, and at night his
socks were painful to remove. It was a common complaint,
and his fellow 'floormen* told him that socks and boots just
rotted away from the continual sweating. All the men in
his room suffered in the same fashion, and they relieved
the pain by sleeping with their feet outside the bed-clothes.
At first Philip could not walk at all and was obliged to
spend a good many of his evenings in the sitting-room at
Harrington Street with his feet in a pail of cold water. His
companion on these occasions was Bell, the lad in the ha-
berdashery, who stayed in often to arrange the stamps
he collected. As he fastened them with little pieces of
stamp-paper he whistled monotonously.

CIV

THE social evenings took place on alternate Mondays.
There was one at the beginning of Philip's second week at
Lynn's. He arranged to go with one of the women in his
department.

"Meet 'em 'alf-way," she said, "same as I do."

This was Mrs. Hodges, a little woman of five and forty,
with badly dyed hair; she had a yellow face with a net-
work of small red veins all over it, and yellow whites to
her pale blue eyes. She took a fancy to Philip and called
him by his Christian name before he had been in the shop
a week.

"We've both known what it is to come down," she said.

She told Philip that her real name was not Hodges, but
she always referred to "me 'usband Misterodges ;" he was
a barrister and he treated her simply shocking, so she left
him as she preferred to be independent like ; but 'she had
known what it was to drive in her own carriage, dear — she
called everyone dear — and they always had late dinner at
home. She used to pick her teeth with the pin of an enor-
mous silver brooch. It was in the form of a whip and a
hunting-crop crossed, with two spurs in the middle. Philip
was ill at ease in his new surroundings, and the girls in the
shop called him 'sidey.' One addressed him as Phil, and
he did not answer because he had not the least idea that
she was speaking to him; so she tossed her head, saying
he was a 'stuck-up thing,' and next time with ironical em-
phasis called him Mister Carey. She was a Miss Jewell,
and she was going to marry a doctor. The other girls had
never seen him, but they said he must be a gentleman as h^
gave her such lovely presents.

"Never you mind what they say, dear," said Mrs.
Hodges. "I've 'ad to go through it same as you 'ave. They
don't know any better, poor things. You take my word for

641

642 OF HUMAN BO N D A G E

it, they'll like you all right if you 'old your own same as I
'ave."

The social evening was held in the restaurant in the
basement. The tables were put on one side so that there
might be room for dancing, and smaller ones were set out
for progressive whist.

"The 'eads 'ave to get there early," said Mrs. Hodges.

She introduced him to Miss Bennett, who was the belle
of Lynn's. She was the buyer in the 'Petticoats,' and when
Philip entered was engaged in conversation with the buyer
in the 'Gentlemen's Hosiery ;' Miss Bennett was a woman
of massive proportions, with a very large red face heavily
powdered and a bust of imposing dimensions; her flaxen
hair was arranged with elaboration. She was overdressed,
but not badly dressed, in black with a high collar, and she
wore black glace gloves, in which she played cards ; she had
several heavy gold chains round her neck, bangles on her
wrists, and circular photograph pendants, one being of
Queen Alexandra; she carried a black satin bag and
chewed Sen-sens.

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Carey," she said. "This is
your first visit to our social evenings, ain't it ? I expect you
feel a bit shy, but there's no cause to, I promise you that."

She did her best to make people feel at home. She
slapped them on the shoulders and laughed a great deal.

"Ain't I a pickle?" she cried, turning to Philip. "What
must you think of me? But I can't 'elp meself."

Those who were going to take part in the social evening
came in, the younger members of the staff mostly, boys
who had not girls of their own, and girls who had not yet
found anyone to walk with. Several of the young gentle-
men wore lounge suits with white evening ties and red silk
handkerchiefs ; they were going to perform, and they had
a busy, abstracted air ; some were self-confident, but others
were nervous, and they watched their public with an
anxious eye. Presently a girl with a great deal of hair sat
at the piano and ran her hands noisily across the key-
board. When the audience had settled itself she looked
round and gave the name of her piece.

"A Drive in Russia."

643

There was a round of clapping during which she deftly
fixed bells to her wrists. She smiled a little and immedi-
ately burst into energetic melody. There was a great deal
more clapping when she finished, and when this was over,
as an encore, she gave a piece which imitated the sea ; there
were little trills to represent the lapping waves and thun-
dering chords, with the loud pedal down, to suggest a
storm. After this a gentleman sang a song called Bid me
Good-bye, and as an encore obliged with Sing me to Sleep.
The audience measured their enthusiasm with a nice dis-
crimination. Everyone was applauded till he gave an en-
core, and so that there might be no jealousy no one was
applauded more than anyone else. Miss Bennett sailed up
to Philip.

"I'm sure you play or sing, Mr. Carey," she said archly.
"I can see it in your face."

"I'm afraid I don't."

"Don't you even recite ?"

"I have no parlour tricks."

The buyer in the 'gentleman's hosiery' was a well-known
reciter, and he was called upon loudly to perform by all the
assistants in his department. Needing no pressing, he gave
a long poem of tragic character, in which he rolled his
eyes, put his hand on his chest, and acted as though he
were in great agony. The point, that he had eaten cucum-
ber for supper, was divulged in the last line and was
greeted with laughter, a little forced because everyone
knew the poem well, but loud and long. Miss Bennett did
not sing, play, or recite.

"Oh no, she 'as a little game of her own," said Mrs.
Hodges.

"Now, don't you begin chaffing me. The fact is I know
quite a lot about palmistry and second sight."

"Oh, do tell my 'and, Miss Bennett," cried the girls in
her department, eager to please her.

"I don't like telling 'ands, I don't really. I've told people
such terrible things and they've all come true, it makes one
superstitious like."

"Oh, Miss Bennett, just for once."

A little crowd collected round her, and, amid screams of

644 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

embarrassment, giggles, blushings, and cries of dismay or
admiration, she talked mysteriously of fair and dark men,
of money in a letter, and of journeys, till the sweat stood
in heavy beads on her painted face.

"Look at me," s"he said. "I'm all of a perspiration."

Supper was at nine. There were cakes, buns, sand-
wiches, tea and coffee, all free; but if you wanted mineral
water you had to pay for it. Gallantry often led young
men to offer the ladies ginger beer, but common decency
made them refuse. Miss Bennett was very fond of ginger
beer, and she drank two and sometimes three bottles dur-
ing the evening; but she insisted on paying for them her-
self. The men liked her for that.

"She's a rum old bird," they said, "but mind you, she's
not a bad sort, she's not like what some are."

After supper progressive whist was played. This was
very noisy, and there was a great deal of laughing and
shouting, as people moved from table to table. Miss Ben-
nett grew hotter and hotter.

"Look at me," she said. "I'm all of a perspiration."

In due course one of the more dashing of the young men
remarked that if they wanted to dance they'd better begin.
The girl who had played the accompaniments sat at the
piano and placed a decided foot on the loud petal. She
played a dreamy waltz, marking the time with the bass,
while with the right hand she 'tiddled' in alternate octaves.
By way of a change she crossed her hands and played the
air in the bass.

"She does play well, doesn't she?" Mrs. Hodges re-
marked to Philip. "And what's more she's never 'ad a les-
son in 'er life ; it's all ear."

Miss Bennett liked dancing and poetry better than any-
thing in the world. She danced well, but very, very slowly,
and an expression came into her eyes as though her
thoughts were far, far away. She talked breathlessly of
the floor and the heat and the supper. She said that the
Portman Rooms had the best floor in London and she al-
ways liked the dances there ; they were very select, and
she couldn't bear dancing with all sorts of men you didn't
know anything about ; why, you might be exposing your-

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 645

self to you didn't know what all. Nearly all the people
danced very well, and they enjoyed themselves. Sweat
poured down their faces, and the very high collars of the
young men grew limp.

Philip looked on, and a greater depression seized him
than he remembered to have felt for a long time. He felt
intolerably alone. He did not go, because he was afraid to
seem supercilious, and he talked with the girls and laughed,
but in his heart was unhappiness. Miss Bennett asked him
if he had a girl.

"No," he smiled.

"Oh, well, there's plenty to choose from here. And
they're very nice respectable girls, some of them. I expect
you'll have a girl before you've been here long.''

She looked at him very archly.

"Meet 'em 'alf-way," said Mrs. Hodges. "That's what
I tell him."

It was nearly eleven o'clock, and the party broke up.
Philip could not get to sleep. Like the others he kept his
aching feet outside the bed-clothes. He tried with all his
might not to think of the life he was leading. The soldier
was snoring quietly.

cv

THE wages were paid once a month by the secretary, Pn
pay-day each batch of assistants, coming down from tea,
went into the passage and joined the long line of people
waiting orderly like the audience in a queue outside a gal-
lery door. One by one they entered the office. The secre-
tary sat at a desk with wooden bowls of money in front
of him, and he asked the employe's name ; he referred to
a book, quickly, after a suspicious glance at the assistant,
said aloud the sum due, and taking money out of the bowl
counted it into his hand.

"Thank you," he said. "Next."

"Thank you," was the reply.

The assistant passed on to the second secretary and be-
fore leaving the room paid him four shillings for washing
money, two shillings for the club, and any fines that he
might have incurred. With what he had left he went back
into his department and there waited till it was time to go.
Most of the men in Philip's house were in debt with the
woman who sold the sandwiches they generally ate for
supper. She was a funny old thing, very fat, with a broad,
red face, and black hair plastered neatly on each side of
the forehead in the fashion shown in early pictures of
Queen Victoria. She always wore a little black bonnet and
a white apron ; her sleeves were tucked up to the elbow ;
she cut the sandwiches with large, dirty, greasy hands;
and there was grease on her bodice, grease on her apron,
grease on her skirt. She was called Mrs. Fletcher, but
everyone addressed her as 'Ma;' she was really fond of the
shop assistants, whom she called her boys; she never
minded giving credit towards the end of the month, and it
was known that now and then she had lent someone or
other a few shillings when he was in straits. She was a
good woman. When they were leaving or when they came
back from the holidays, the boys kissed her fat red cheek ;

646

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 647

and more than one, dismissed and unable to find another
job, had got for nothing food to keep body and soul to-
gether. The boys were sensible of her large heart and re-
paid her with genuine affection. There was a story they
liked to tell of a man who had done well for himself at
Bradford, and had five shops of his own, and had come
back after fifteen years and visited Ma Fletcher and given
her a gold watch.

Philip found himself with eighteen shillings left out of
his month's pay. It was the first money he had ever earned
in his life. It gave him none of the pride which might have
been expected, but merely a feeling of dismay. The small-
ness of the sum emphasised the hopelessness of his posi-
tion. He took fifteen shillings to Mrs. Athelny to pay back
part of what he owed her, but she would not take more
than half a sovereign.

"D'you know, at that rate it'll take me eight months to
settle up with you."

"As long as Athelny's in work I can afford to wait, and
who knows, p'raps they'll give you a rise."

Athelny kept on saying that he would speak to the man-
ager about Philip, it was absurd that no use should be
made of his talents; but he did nothing, and Philip soon
came to the conclusion that the press-agent was not a per-
son of so much importance in the manager's eyes as in his
own. Occasionally he saw Athelny in the shop. His flam-
boyance was extinguished; and in neat, commonplace,
shabby clothes he hurried, a subdued, unassuming little
man, through the departments as though anxious to escape
notice.

"When I think of how I'm wasted there," he said at
home, "I'm almost tempted to give in my notice. There's
no scope for a man like me. I'm stunted, I'm starved."

Mrs. Athelny, quietly sewing, took no notice of his com-
plaints. Her mouth tightened a little.

"It's very hard to get jobs in these times. It's regular
and it's sate ; I expect you'll stay there as long as you give
satisfaction."

It was evident that Athelny would. It was interesting to
see the ascendency which the uneducated woman, bound to

j4S OF HUM AN BONDAGE

him by no legal tie, had acquired over the brilliant, un-
stable man. Mrs. Athelny treated Philip with motherly
kindness now that he was in a different position, and he
was touched by her anxiety that he should make a good
meal. It was the solace of his life (and when he grew used
to it, the monotony of it was what chiefly appalled him)
that he could go every Sunday to that friendly house. It
was a joy to sit in the stately Spanish chairs and discuss
all manner of things with Athelny. Though his condition
seemed so desperate he never left him to go back to Har-
rington Street without a feeling of exultation. At first
Philip, in order not to forget what he had learned, tried to
go on reading his medical books, but he found it useless ;
lie could not fix his attention on them after the exhausting
work of the day ; and it seemed hopeless to continue work-
ing when he did not know in how long he would be able to
go Jsack to the hospital. He dreamed constantly that he was
in the wards. The awakening was painful. The sensation
of other people sleeping in the room was inexpressibly
irksome to him ; he had been used to solitude, and to be
with others always, never to be by himself for an instant,
was at these moments horrible to him. It was then that he
found it most difficult to combat his despair. He saw him-
self going on with that life, first to the right, second on the
left, madam, indefinitely; and having to be thankful if he
was not sent away : the men who had gone to the war
would be coming home soon, the firm had guaranteed to
take them back, and this must mean that others would be
sacked ; he would have to stir himself even to keep the
wretched post he had.

There was only one thing to free him and that was the
death of his uncle. He would get a few hundred pounds
then, and on this he could finish his course at the hospital.
Philip began to wish with all his might for the old man's
death. He reckoned out how long he could possibly live;
he was well over seventy, Philip did not know his exact
age, but he must be at least seventy-five ; he suffered from
chronic bronchitis and every winter had a bad cough.
Though he knew them by heart Philip read over and over
again the details in his text-book of medicine of chronic

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 649

bronchitis in the old. A severe winter might be too much
for the old man. With all his heart Philip longed for cold
and rain. He thought of it constantly, so that it became a
monomania. Uncle William was affected by the great heat
too, and in August they had three weeks of sweltering
weather. Philip imagined to himself that one day perhaps
a telegram would come saying that the Vicar had died sud-
denly, and he pictured to himself his unutterable relief.
As he stood at the top of the stairs and directed people to
the departments they wanted, he occupied his mind with
thinking incessantly what he would do with the money. He
did not know how much it would be, perhaps no more than
five hundred pounds, but even that would be enough. He
would leave the shop at once, he would not bother to give
notice, he would pack his box and go without saying a
word to anybody; and then he would return to the hos-
pital. That was the first thing. Would he have forgotten
much ? In six months he could get it all back, and then he
would take his three examinations as soon as he could,
midwifery first, then medicine and surgery. The awful
fear seized him that his uncle, notwithstanding his prom-
ises, might leave everything he had to the parish or the
church. The thought made Philip sick. He could not be so
cruel. But if that happened Philip was quite determined
what to do, he would not go on in that way indefinitely ;
his life was only tolerable because he could look forward to
something better. If he had no hope he would have no fear.
The only brave thing to do then would be to commit sui-
cide, and, thinking this over too, Philip decided minutely
what painless drug he would take and how he would get
hold of it. It encouraged him to think that, if things be-
came unendurable, he had at all events a way out.

"Second to the right, madam, and down the stairs. First
on the left and straight through. Mr. Philips, forward
please."

Once a month, for a week, Philip was 'on duty.' He had
to go to the department at seven in the morning and keep
an eye on the sweepers. When they finished he had to take
the sheets off the cases and the models. Then, in the eve-
ning when the assistants left, he had to put back the sheets'

6so O F H U M A N B O N D A G E

on the models and the cases and 'gang' the sweepers again.
It was a dusty, dirty job. He was not allowed to read or
write or smoke, but just had to walk about, and the time
hung heavily on his hands. When he went off at half past
nine he had supper given him, and this was the only con-
solation ; for tea at five o'clock had left him with a healthy
appetite, and the bread and cheese, the abundant cocoa
which the firm provided, were welcome.

One day when Philip had been at Lynn's for three
months, Mr. Sampson, the buyer, came into the depart-
ment, fuming with anger. The manager, happening to
notice the costume window as he came in, had sent for the
buyer and made satirical remarks upon the colour scheme.
Forced to submit in silence to his superior's sarcasm. Mr.
Sampson took it out of the assistants ; and he rated the
wretched fellow whose duty it was to dress the window.

"If you want a thing well done you must do it yourself,"
Mr. Sampson stormed. "I've always said it and I always
shall. One can't leave anything to you chaps. Intelligent
you call yourselves, do you ? Intelligent !"

He threw the word at the assistants as though it were the
bitterest term of reproach.

"Don't you know that if you put an electric blue in the
window it'll kill all the other blues?"

He looked round the department ferociously, and his eye
fell upon Philip.

"You'll dress the window next Friday, Carey. Let's see
what you can make of it."

He went into his office, muttering angrily. Philip's heart
sank. When Friday morning came he went into the win-
dow with a sickening sense of shame. His cheeks were
burning. It was horrible to display himself to the passers-
by, and though he told himself it was foolish to give way
to such a feeling he turned his back to the street. There
was not much chance that any of the students at the hos-
pital would pass along Oxford Street at that hour, and he
knew hardly anyone else in London ; but as Philip worked,
with a huge lump in his throat, he fancied that on turning
round he would catch the eye of some man he knew. He
made all the haste he could. By the simple observation that

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 651

all reds went together, and by spacing the costumes more
than was usual, Philip got a very good effect; and when
the buyer went into the street to look at the result he was
obviously pleased.

"I knew I shouldn't go far wrong in putting you on the
window. The fact is, you and me are gentlemen, mind you
i wouldn't say this in the department, but you and me are
gentlemen, and that always tells. It's no good your telling
me it doesn't tell, because I know it does tell."

Philip was put on the job regularly, but he could not
accustom himself to the publicity ; and he dreaded Friday
morning, on which the window was dressed, with a terror
that made him "awake at five o'clock and lie sleepless with
sickness in his heart. The girls in the department noticed
his shamefaced way, and they very soon discovered his
trick of standing with his back to the street. They laughed
at him and called him 'sidey.'

"I suppose you're afraid your aunt'll come along and cut
you out of her will."

On the whole he got on well enough with the girls. They
thought him a little queer ; but his club-foot seemed to ex<
cuse his not being like the rest, and they found in due
course that he was good-natured. He never minded help-
ing anyone, and he was polite and even tempered.

"You can see he's a gentleman," they said.

"Very reserved, isn't he?" said one young woman, to
whose passionate enthusiasm for the theatre he had lis-
tened unmoved.

Most of them had 'fellers,' and those who hadn't said
they had rather than have it supposed that no one had an
inclination for them. One or two showed signs of being
willing to start a flirtation with Philip, and he watched
their manoeuvres with grave amusement. He had had
enough of love-making for some time; and he was nearly
always tired and often hungry.

CVI

PHILIP avoided the places he had known in happier times.
The little gatherings at the tavern in Beak Street were
broken up: Macalister, having let down his friends, no
longer went there, and Hay ward was at the Cape. Only
Lawson remained ; and Philip, feeling that now the painter
and he had nothing in common, did not wish to see him ;
but one Saturday afternoon, after dinner, having changed
his clothes he walked down Regent Street to go to the free
library in St. Martin's Lane, meaning to spend the after-
noon there, and suddenly found himself face to face with
him. His first instinct was to pass on without a word, but
Lawson did not give him the opportunity.

"Where on earth have you been all this time?" he cried.

"I ?" said Philip.

"I wrote you and asked you to come to the studio for a
beano and you never even answered."

"I didn't get your letter."

"No, I know. I went to the hospital to ask for you, and
I saw my letter in the rack. Have you chucked the Medi
cal?"

Philip hesitated for a moment. He was ashamed to tell
the truth, but the shame he felt angered him, and he forced
himself to speak. He could not help reddening.

"Yes, I lost the little money I had. I couldn't afford to
go on with it."

"I say, I'm awfully sorry. What are you doing?"

"I'm a shop-walker."

The words choked Philip, but he was determined not to
shirk the truth. He kept his eyes on Lawson and saw his
embarrassment. Philip smiled savagely.

"If you went into Lynn and Sedley, and made your way
into the 'made robes' department, you would see me in a
frock coat, walking about with a dcgagc air and directing

652

'OFHUMANBONDAGE 653

ladies who want to buy petticoats or stockings. First to the
right, madam, and second on the left."

Lawson, seeing that Philip was making a jest of it,
laughed awkwardly. He did not know what to say. The pic-
ture that Philip called up horrified him, but he was afraid
to show his sympathy.

"That's a bit of a change for you," he said.

His words seemed absurd to him, and immediately he
wished he had not said them. Philip flushed darkly.

"A bit," he said. "By the way, I owe you five bob."

He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out some silver.

"Oh, it doesn't matter. I'd forgotten all about it."

"Go on, take it."

Lawson received the money silently. They stood in the
middle of the pavement, and people jostled them as they
passed. There was a sardonic twinkle in Philip's eyes,
which made the painter intensely uncomfortable, and he
tould not tell that Philip's heart was heavy with despair.
Lawson wanted dreadfully to do something, but he did not
know what to do.

"I say, won't you come to the studio and have a talk?"

"No," said Philip.

"Why not?"

"There's nothing to talk about."

He saw the pain come into Lawson's eyes, he coufcf not
help it, he was sorry, but he had to think of himself ; he
could not bear the thought of discussing his situation, he
could endure it only by determining resolutely not to think
about it. He was afraid of his weakness if once he began
to open his heart. Moreover, he took irresistible dislikes to
the places where he had been miserable: he remembered
the humiliation he had endured when he had waited in
that studio, ravenous with hunger, for Lawson to offer him
a meal, and the last occasion when he had taken the five
shillings off him. He hated the sight of Lawson, because
he recalled those days of utter abasement.

"Then look here, come and dine with me one night.
Choose your own evening."

Philip was touched with the painter's kindness. All sorts
of people were strangely kind to him, he thought.

6S4 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

"It's awfully good of you, old man, but I'd rather not."
He held out his hand. "Good-bye."

Lawson, troubled by a behaviour which seemed inex-
plicable, took his hand, and Philip quickly limped away.
His heart was heavy ; and, as was usual with him, he be-
gan to reproach himself for what he had done: he did not
know what madness of pride had made him refuse the
offered friendship. But he heard someone running behind
him and presently Lawson's voice calling him ; he stopped
and suddenly the feeling of hostility got the better of him ;
he presented to Lawson a cold, set face.

"What is it?"

"I suppose you heard about Hayward. didn't you ?"

"I know he went to the Cape."

"He died, you know, soon after landing."

For a moment Philip did not answer. He could hardly
believe his ears.

"How?" he asked.

"Oh, enteric. Hard luck, wasn't it? I thought you
mightn't know. Gave me a bit of a turn when I heard it."

Lawson nodded quickly and walked away. Philip felt a
shiver pass through his heart. He had never before lost a
friend of his own age, for the death of Cronshaw, a man
so much older than himself, had seemed to come in the nor-
mal course of things. The news gave him a peculiar shock.
It reminded him of his own mortality, for like everyone
else Philip, knowing perfectly that all men must die, had
no intimate feeling that the same must apply to himself ;
and Hayward's death, though he had long ceased to have
any warm feeling for him, affected him deeply. He re-
membered on a sudden all the good talks they had had.
and it pained him to think that they would never talk with
one another again : he remembered their first meeting and
the pleasant months they had spent together in Heidelberg.
Philip's heart sank as he thought of the lost years. He
walked on mechanically, not noticing where he went, and
realised suddenly, with a movement of irritation, that in-
stead of turning down the Haymarket he had sauntered
along Shaftesbury Avenue. It bored him to retrace his
steps ; and besides, with that news, he did not want to read,

O F H U M A N B O N D A G E 655

he wanted to sit alone and think. He made up his mind to
go to the British Museum. Solitude was now his only lux-
ury. Since he had been at Lynn's he had often gone there
and sat in front of the groups from the Parthenon; and,
not deliberately thinking, had allowed their divine masses
to rest his troubled soul. But this afternoon they had noth-
ing to say to him, and after a few minutes, impatiently, he
wandered out of the room. There were too many people,
provincials with foolish faces, foreigners poring over
guide-books ; their hideousness besmirched the everlasting
masterpieces, their restlessness troubled the god's immor-
tal repose. He went into another room and here there was
hardly anyone. Philip sat down wearily. His nerves were
on edge. He could not get the people out of his mind.
Sometimes at Lynn's they affected him in the same way,
and he looked at them file past him with horror ; they were
so ugly and there was such meanness in their faces, it was
terrifying; their features were distorted with paltry de-
sires, and you felt they were strange to any ideas of beauty.
They had furtive eyes and weak chins. There was no wick-
edness in them, but only pettiness and vulgarity. Their hu-
mour was a low facetiousness. Sometimes he found him-
self looking at them to see what animal they resembled,
(he tried not to, for it quickly became an obsession,) and
he saw in them all the sheep or the horse or the fox or
the goat. Human beings filled him with disgust.

But presently the influence of the place descended upon
him. He felt quieter. He began to look absently at the
tombstones with which the room was lined. They were the
work of Athenian stone masons of the fourth and fifth
centuries before Christ, and they were very simple, work
of no great talent but with the exquisite spirit of Athens
upon them; time had mellowed the marble to the colour
of honey, so that unconsciously one thought of the bees of
Hymettus, and softened their outlines. Some represented a
nude figure, seated on a bench, some the departure of
the dead from those who loved him, and some the dead
clasping hands with one who remained behind. On all was
the tragic word farewell; that and nothing more. Theif
simplicity was infinitely touching FrJe^ parted froru

656 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

friend, the son from his mother, and the restraint made the
survivor's grief more poignant. It was so long, long ago,
and century upon century had passed over that unhappi-
ness ; for two thousand years those who wept had been
dust as those they wept for. Yet the woe was alive still,
and it filled Philip's heart so that he felt compassion spring
up in it, and he said :

"Poor things, poor things."

And it came to him that the gaping sight-seers and the
fat strangers with their guide-books, and all those mean,
common people who thronged the shop, with their trivial
desires and vulgar cares, were mortal and must die. They
too loved and must part from those they loved, the son
from his mother, the wife from her husband; and per-
haps it was more tragic because their lives were ugly and
sordid, and they knew nothing that gave beauty to the
world. There was one stone which was very beautiful, a
has relief of two young men holding each other's hand ;
and the reticence of line, the simplicity, made one like to
think that the sculptor here had been touched with a genu-
ine emotion. It was an exquisite memorial to that than
which the world offers but one thing more precious, to a
friendship; and as Philip looked at it, he felt the tears
come to his eyes. He thought of Hay ward and his eager
admiration for him when first they met, and how disillu-
sion had come and then indifference, till nothing held them
together but habit and old memories. It was one of the
queer things of life that you saw a person every day foi
months and were so intimate with him that you could not
imagine existence without him ; then separation came, and
everything went on in the same way, and the companion
who had seemed essential proved unnecessary. Your life
proceeded and you did not even miss him. Philip thought
of those early days in Heidelberg when Hayward, capable
of great things, had been full of enthusiasm for the fu-
ture, and how, little by little, achieving nothing, he had re-
signed himself to failure. Now he was dead. His death had
been as futile as his life. He died ingloriously, of a stupid
disease, failing once more, even at the end. to accomplish

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 657

anything. It was just the same now as if he had never
lived.

Philip asked himself desperately what was the use of
living at all. It all seemed inane. It was the same with
Cronshaw : it was quite unimportant that he had lived ; he
was dead and forgotten, his book of poems sold in re-
mainder by second-hand booksellers; his life seemed to
have served nothing except to give a pushing journalist
occasion to write an article in a review. And Philip cried
out in his soul :

"What is the use of it ?"

The effort was so incommensurate with the result. The
bright hopes of youth had to be paid for at such a bitter
price of disillusionment. Pain and disease and unhappiness
weighed down the scale so heavily. What did it all mean?
He thought of his own life, the high hopes with which he
had entered upon it, the limitations which his body forced
upon him, his friendlessness, and the lack of affection
which had surrounded his youth. He did not know that he
had ever done anything but what seemed best to do, and
what a cropper he had come ! Other men, with no more ad-
vantages than he, succeeded, and others again, with many
more, failed. It seemed pure chance. The rain fell alike
upon the just and upon the unjust, and for nothing was
there a why and a wherefore.

Thinking of Cronshaw, Philip remembered the Pgrsian
rug which he had given him, telling him that it offered an
answer to his question upon the meaning of life ; and sud-
denly the answer occurred to him : he chuckled : now that
he had it, it was like one of the puzzles which you worry
over till you are shown the solution and then cannot ima-
gine how it could ever have escaped you. The answer was
obvious. Life had no meaning. On the earth, satellite of a
star speeding through space, living things had arisen under
the influence of conditions which were part of the planet's
history ; and as there had been a beginning of life upon it
so, under the influence of other conditions, there would be
an end : man, no more significant than other forms of life,
had come not as the climax of creation but as a physical

658 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

reaction to the environment. Philip remembered the story
of the Eastern King who, desiring to know the history of
man, was brought by a sage five hundred volumes; busy
with affairs of state, he bade him go and condense it ; in
twenty years the sage returned and his history now was
in no more than fifty volumes, but the King, too old then
to read so many ponderous tomes, bade him go and shorten
it once more; twenty years passed again and the sage, old
and gray, brought a single book in which was the knowl-
edge the King had sought ; but the King lay on his death-
bed, and he had no time to read even that ; and then the
sage gave him the history of man in a single line; it was
this : he was born, he suffered, and he died. There was no
meaning in life, and man by living served no end. It was
immaterial whether he was born or not born, whether he
lived or ceased to live. Life was insignificant and death
without consequence. Philip exulted, as he had exulted in
his boyhood when the weight of a belief in God was lifted
from his shoulders : it seemed to him that the last burden
of responsibility was taken from him; and for the first
time he was utterly free. His insignificance was turned to
power, and he felt himself suddenly equal with the cruel
fate which had seemed to persecute him; for, if life was
meaningless, the world was robbed of its cruelty. What he
did or left undone did not matter. Failure was unimportant
and success amounted to nothing. He was the most incon-
siderate creature in that swarming mass of mankind which
for a brief space occupied the surface of the earth ; and he
was almighty because he had wrenched from chaos the
secret of its nothingness. Thoughts came tumbling over
one another in Philip's eager fancy, and he took long
breaths of joyous satisfaction. He felt inclined to leap and
sing. He had not been so happy for months.

"Oh life," he cried in his heart, "Oh life, where is du-
sting?"

For the1 same uprush of fancy which had shown him
with all the force of mathematical demonstration that life
had no meaning, brought with it another idea; and that
was why £ronshaw, he imagined, had given him the Per-
sian rug. As the weaver elaborated his pattern for no end

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 659

but the pleasure of his aesthetic sense, so might a man live
his life, or if one was forced to believe that his actions
were outside his choosing, so might a man look at his life,
that it made a pattern. There was as little need to do this
as there was use. It was merely something he did for his
own pleasure. Out of the manifold events of his life, his
deeds, his feelings, his thoughts, he might make a design,
regular, elaborate, complicated, or beautiful; and though
it might be no more than an illusion that he had the power
of selection, though it might be no more than a fantastic
legerdemain in which appearances were interwoven with
moonbeams, that did not matter : it seemed, and so to him
it was. In the vast warp of life, (a river arising from no
spring and flowing endlessly to no sea,) with the back-
ground to his fancies that there was no meaning and that
nothing was important, a man might get a personal satis-
faction in selecting the various strands that worked out the
pattern. There was one pattern, the most obvious, perfect,
and beautiful, in which a man was born, grew to manhood,
married, produced children, toiled for his bread, and died ;
but there were others, intricate and wonderful, in which
happiness did not enter and in which success was not at-
tempted ; and in them might be discovered a more trou-
bling grace}" Some lives, and Hayward's was. among them,
the blind indifference of chance cut off while the design
was still imperfect; and then the solace was comfortable
that it did not matter ; other lives, such as Crptyshaw's,
offered a pattern which was difficult to follow: the point
of view had to be shifted and old standards had to be
altered before one could understand that such a life was
its own justification. Philip thought that in throwing over
the desire for happiness he was casting aside the last of his
illusions. His life had seemed horrible when it was meas-
ured by its happiness, but now he seemed to gather
strength as he realised that it might be measured by some-
thing else. Happiness mattered as little as pain. They came
in, both of them, as all the other details of his life came
in, to the elaboration of the design. He seemed for an in-
stant to stand above the accidents of his existence, and he
felt that they could not affect him again as they had done

660 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

before. Whatever happened to him now would be one more
motive to add to the complexity of the pattern, and when
the end approached he would rejoice in its completion. It
would be a work of art, and it would be none the less beau-
tiful because he alone knew of its existence, and with his
jeath it would at once cease to be
Philip was happy.

CVII

MR. SAMPSON, the buyer, took a fancy to Philip. Mr.
Sampson was very dashing, and the girls in his department
said they would not be surprised if he married one of the
rich customers. He lived out of town and often impressed
the assistants by putting on his evening clothes in the office.
Sometimes he would be seen by those on sweeping duty
coming in next morning still dressed, and they would wink
gravely to one another while he went into his office and
changed into a frock coat. On these occasions, having
slipped out for a hurried breakfast, he also would wink at
Philip as he walked up the stairs on his way back and rub
his hands.

"What a night ! What a night !" he said. "My word !"

He told Philip that he was the only gentleman there, and
he and Philip were the only fellows who knew what life
was. Having said this, he changed his manner suddenly,
called Philip Mr. Carey instead of old boy, assumed the
importance due to his position as buyer, and put Philip
back into his place of shop-walker.

Lynn and Sedley received fashion papers from Paris
once a week and adapted the costumes illustrated in them
to the needs of their customers. Their clientele was pecul-
iar. The most substantial part consisted of women from
the smaller manufacturing towns, who were too elegant to
have their frocks made locally and not sufficiently ac-
quainted with London to discover good dressmakers within
their means. Beside these, incongruously, was a large num-
ber of music-hall artistes. This was a connection that Mr.
Sampson had worked up for himself and took great pride
in. They had begun by getting their stage-costumes at
Lynn's, and he had induced many of them to get their
other clothes there as well.

''As good as Paquin and half the price," he said.

He had a persuasive, hail-fellow well-met air with him

661

662 O F H U M A X B O X D A G E

which appealed to customers of this sort, and they said to
one another :

"What's the good of throwing money away when you
can get a coat and skirt at Lynn's that nobody knows don't
come from Paris?"

Mr. Sampson was very proud of his friendship with
the popular favourites whose frocks he made, and when
he went out to dinner at two o'clock on Sunday with Miss
Victoria Virgo — "she was wearing that powder blue we
made her and I lay she didn't let on it come from us, I 'ad
to tell her meself that if I 'adn't designed it with my own
'ands I'd have said it must come from Paquin" — at her
beautiful house in Tulse Hill, he regaled the department
next day with abundant details. Philip had never paid
much attention to women's clothes, but in course of time
he began, a little amused at himself, to take a technical in-
terest in them. He had an eye for colour which was more
highly trained than that of anyone in the department, and
he had kept from his student days in Paris some knowledge
of line. Mr. Sampson, an ignorant man conscious of his
incompetence, but with a shrewdness that enabled him to
combine other people's suggestions, constantly asked the
opinion of the assistants in his department in making up
new designs ; and he had the quickness to see that Philip's
criticisms were valuable. But he was very jealous, and
would never allow that he took anyone's advice. When he
had altered some drawing in accordance with Philip's sug-
gestion, he always finished up by saying :

"Well, it comes round to my own idea in the end."

One day, when Philip had been at the shop for five
months, Miss Alice Antonia, the well-known serio-comic,
came in and asked to see Mr. Sampson. She was a large
woman, with flaxen hair, and a boldly painted face, a me-
tallic voice, and the breezy manner of a comedienne accus-
tomed to be on friendly terms with the gallery boys of
provincial music-halls. She had a new song and wished
Mr. Sampson to design a costume tor her.

"I want something striking." she said. "I don't want any
old thing, you know. I want something different from
what anybody else has."

OF HUMAN BOND AGE 663

Mr. Sampson, bland and familiar, said he was quite cer-
tain they could get her the very thing she required. He
showed her sketches.

"I know there's nothing here that would do, but I just
want to show you the kind of thing I would suggest."

"Oh no, that's not the sort of thing at all/' she said, as
she glanced at them impatiently. "What I want is some-
thing that'll just hit 'em in the jaw and make their front
teeth rattle."

"Yes, I quite understand, Miss Antonia," said the buyer,
with a bland smile, but his eyes grew blank and stupid.

"I expect I shall 'ave to pop over to Paris for it in the
end."

"Oh, I think we can give you satisfaction, Miss An~
tonia. What you can get in Paris you can get here."

When she had swept out of the department Mr. Samp-
son, a little worried, discussed the matter with Mrs.
Hodges.

"She's a caution and no mistake," said Mrs. Hodges.

"Alice, where art thou?" remarked the buyer, irritably,
and thought he had scored a point against her.

His ideas of music-hall costumes had never gone be-
yond short skirts, a swirl of lace, and glittering sequins;
but Miss Antonia had expressed herself on that subject
in no uncertain terms.

"Oh, my aunt !" she said.

And the invocation was uttered in such a tone as to in-
dicate a rooted antipathy to anything so commonplace,
even if she had not added that sequins gave her the sick.
Mr. Sampson 'got out' one or two ideas, but Mrs. Hodges
told him frankly she did not think they would do. It was
she who gave Philip the suggestion:

"Can you draw, Phil? Why don't you try your 'and
and see what you can do?"

Philip bought a cheap box of water colours, and in the
evening while Bell, the noisy lad of sixteen, whistling three
notes, busied himself with his stamps, he made one or two
sketches. He remembered some of the costumes he had
seen in Paris, and he adapted one of them, getting hi?
effect from a combination of violent, unusual colours. The

664 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

result amused him and next morning he showed it to Mrs.
Hodges. She was somewhat astonished, but took it at once
to the buyer.

"It's unusual," he said, "there's no denying that."

It puzzled him, and at the same time his trained eye saw
that it would make up admirably. To save his face he be-
gan making suggestions for altering it, but Mrs. Hodges,
with more sense, advised him to show it to Miss Antonia
as it was.

"It's neck or nothing with her, and she may take a fancy
to it."

"It's a good deal more nothing than neck," said Mr.
Sampson, looking at the dc collet age. "He can draw, can't
he? Fancy 'im keeping it dark all this time."

When Miss Antonia was announced, the buyer placed
the design on the table in such a position that it must catch
her eye the moment she was shown into his office. She
pounced on it at once.

"What's that ?" she said. "Why can't I 'ave that?"

"That's just an idea we got out for you," said Mr.
Sampson casually. "D'you like it?"

"Do I like it !" she said. "Give me 'alf a pint with a little
drop of gin in it."

"Ah, you see, you don't have to go to Paris. You've
only got to say what you want and there you are."

The work was put in hand at once, and Philip felt quite
a thrill of satisfaction when he saw the costume completed.
The buyer and Mrs. Hodges took all the credit of it ; but
he did not care, and when he went with them to the Tivoli
to see Miss Antonia wear it for the first time he was
filled with elation. In answer to her questions he at last
told Mrs. Hodges how he had learnt to draw — fearing
that the people he lived with would think he wanted to
put on airs, he had always taken the greatest care to say
nothing about his past occupations — and she repeated the
information to Mr. Sampson. The buyer said nothing to
him on the subject, but began to treat him a little more
deferentially and presently gave him designs to do for two
of the country customers. They met with satisfaction.
Then he began to speak to his clients of a "clever young

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 665

feller, Paris art-student, you know" who worked for him;
and soon Philip, ensconced behind a screen, in his shirt-
sleeves, was drawing from morning till night. Sometimes
he was so busy that he had to dine at three with the
'stragglers.' He liked it, because there were few of them
and they were all too tired to talk; the food also was bet-
ter, for it consisted of what was left over from the buyers'
table. Philip's rise from shop-walker to designer of cos-
tumes had a great effect on the department. He realised
that he was an object of envy. Harris, the assistant with
the queer-shaped head, who was the first person he had
known at the shop and had attached himself to Philip,
could not conceal his bitterness.

"Some people- 'ave all the luck," he said. "You'll be a
buyer yourself one of these days, and we shall all be call •
ing you sir."

He told Philip that he should demand higher wages, for
notwithstanding the difficult work he was now engaged in,
he received no more than the six shillings a week with
which he started. But it was a ticklish matter to ask for a
rise. The manager had a sardonic way of dealing with such
applicants.

"Think you're worth more, do you? How much d'you
think you're worth, eh?"

The assistant, with his heart in his mouth, would sug-
gest that he thought he ought to have another two shillings
a week.

"Oh, very well, if you think you're worth it. You can
'ave it." Then he paused and sometimes, with a steely eye,
added: "And you can 'ave your notice too."

It was no use then to withdraw your request, you had to
go. The manager's idea was that assistants who were dis-
satisfied did not work properly, and if they were not worth
a rise it was better to sack them at once. The result was
that they never asked for one unless they were pre-
pared to leave. Philip hesitated. He was a little suspicious
of the men in his room who told him that the buyer could
not do without him. They were decent fellows, but their
sense of humour was primitive, and it would have seemed
funny to them if they had persuaded Philip to ask for

666

OF HUMAN BONDAGE

more wages and he were sacked. He could not forget the
mortification he had suffered in looking for work, he did
not wish to expose himself to that again, and he knew
there was small chance of his getting elsewhere a post as
designer : there were hundreds of people about who could
draw as well as he. But he wanted money very badly ; his
clothes were worn out, and the heavy carpets rotted hL
socks and boots ; he had almost persuaded himself to take
the venturesome step when one morning, passing up from
breakfast in the basement through the passage that led to
the manager's office, he saw a queue of men waiting in
answer to an advertisement. There were about a hundred
of them, and whichever was engaged would be offered his
keep and the same six shillings a week that Philip had. He
saw some of them cast envious glances at him because
he had employment. It made him shudder. He dared not
risk it.

CVIII

3 THE winter passed. Now and then Philip went to the
hospital, slinking in when it was late and there was little
chance of meeting anyone he knew, to see whether there
were letters for him. At Easter he received one from his
uncle. He was surprised to hear from him, for the Vicar
of Blackstable had never written him more than half a
dozen letters in his whole life, and they were on business
matters.

Dear Philip,

If you are thinking of taking a holiday soon and care
to come down here I shall be pleased to see you. I -was
very ill with my bronchitis in the winter and Doctor Wig-
ram never expected me to pull through. I have a wonderful
constitution and I made, thank God, a marvellous re*

Yours affectionately,

William Carey.

The letter made Philip angry. How did his uncle think
he was living? He did not even trouble to inquire. He
might have starved for all the old man cared. But as he
walked home something struck him; he stopped under a
lamp-post and read the letter again; the handwriting had
no longer the business-like firmness which had character-
ised it ; it was larger and wavering : perhaps the illness had
shaken him more than he was willing to confess, and he
sought in that formal note to express a yearning to see
the only relation he had in the world. Philip wrote back
that he could come down to Blackstable for a fortnight in
July. The invitation was convenient, for he had not known
what to do, with his brief holiday. The Athelnys went
hopping in September, but he could not then be spared,
since during that month the autumn models were prepared

667

068 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

The rule of Lynn's was that everyone must take a fort-
night whether he wanted it or not ; and during that time,
if he had nowhere to go, the assistant might sleep in his
room, but he was not allowed food. A number had no
friends within reasonable distance of Ixmdon, and to these
the holiday was an awkward interval when they had to
provide food out of their small wages and, with the whole
day on their hands, had nothing to spend. Philip had not
been out of London since his visit to Brighton with Mil-
dred, now two years before, and he longed for fresh air
and the silence of the sea. He thought of it with such a
passionate desire, all through May and June, that, when at
length the time came for him to go, he was listless.

On his last evening, when he talked with the buyer of
one or two jobs he had to leave over, Mr. Sampson sud-
denly said to him :

"What wages have you been getting?"

"Six shillings."

"I don't think it's enough. I'll see that you're put up to
twelve when you come back."

"Thank you very much," smiled Philip. "I'm beginning
fa want some new clothes badly."

"If you stick to your work and don't go larking about
with the girls like what some of them do, I'll look after
you, Carey. Mind you, you've got a lot to learn, but you're
promising, I'll say that for you, you're promising, and I'll
see that you get a pound a week as soon as you deserve it."

Philip wondered how long h; would have to wait for
that. Two years ?

He was startled at the change in his uncle. When last
he had seen him he was a stout man. who held himself
upright, clean-shaven, with a round, sensual tace; but he
had fallen in strangely, his skin was yellow: there were
great bags under the eyes, and he was bent and old. He
had grown a beard during his last illness, and he walked
very slowly.

"I'm not at my best today," he said when Philip, having
just arrived, was sitting with him in the dining-room. "The
heat upsets me."

Philip, asking after the affairs of the parish, looked at

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 669

him and wondered how much longer he could last. A hot
summer would finish him; Philip noticed how thin his
hands were ; they trembled. It meant so much to Philip.
If he died that summer he could go back to the hospital
at the beginning of the winter session; his heart leaped
at the thought of returning no more to Lynn's. At dinner
the Vicar sat humped up on his chair, and the house-
keeper who had been with him since his wife's death said :

"Shall Mr. Philip carve, sir?"

The old man, who had been about to do so from dis-
inclination to confess his weakness, seemed glad at the
first suggestion to relinquish the attempt.

"You've got a very good appetite," said Philip.

"Oh yes, I always eat well. But I'm thinner than when
you were here last. I'm glad to be thinner, I didn't like
being so fat. Dr. Wigram thinks I'm all the better for
being thinner than I was."

When dinner was over the housekeeper brought him
some medicine.

"Show the prescription to Master Philip," he said. "He's
a doctor too. I'd like him to see that he thinks it's all
right. I told Dr. Wigram that now you're studying to be a
doctor he ought to make a reduction in his charges. It's
dreadful the bills I've had to pay. He came every day for
two months, and he charges five shillings a visit. It's a
lot of money, isn't it? He comes twice a week still. I'm
going to tell him he needn't come any more. I'll send for
him if I want him."

He looked at Philip eagerly while he read the prescrip-
tions. They were narcotics. There were two of them, and
one was a medicine which the Vicar explained he was to
use only if his neuritis grew unendurable.

"I'm very careful," he said. "I don't want to get into
the opium habit."

He did not mention his nephew's affairs. Philip fancied
that it was by way of precaution, in case he asked for
money, that his uncle kept dwelling on the financial calls
upon him. He had spent so much on the doctor and so
much more on the chemist, while he was ill they had had to
have a fire every day in his bed-room, and now on Sunday he

670 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

needed a carriage to go to church in the evening as well
as in the morning. Philip felt angrily inclined to say he
need not be afraid, he was not going to borrow from him,
but he held his tongue. It seemed to him that everything
had left the old man now but two things, pleasure in his
food and a grasping desire for money. It was a hideous old
age.

In the afternoon Dr. Wigram came, and after the visit
Philip walked with him to the garden gate.

"How d'you think he is?" said Philip.

Dr. Wigram was more anxious not to do wrong than
to do right, and he never hazarded a definite opinion if
he could help it. He had practised at Blackstable for five-
and-thirty years. He had the reputation of being very safe,
and many of his patients thought it much better that a
doctor should be safe than clever. There was a new man
at Blackstable — he had been settled there for ten years,
but they still looked upon him as an interloper — and he
was said to be very clever; but he had not much practice
among the better people, because no one really knew any-
thing about him.

"Oh, he's as well as can be expected," said Dr. Wigram
in answer to Philip's inquiry.

"Has he got anything seriously the matter with him ?"

"Well, Philip, your uncle is no longer a young man,"
said the doctor with a cautious little smile, which sug-
gested that after all the Vicar of Blackstable was not an
old man either.

"He seems to think his heart's in a bad way."

"I'm not satisfied with his heart," hazarded the doctor,
"I think he should be careful, very careful."

On the tip of Philip's tongue was the question: how
much longer can he live ? He was afraid it would shock. In
these matters a periphrase was demanded by the decorum
of life, but, as he asked another question instead, it flashed
through him that the doctor must be accustomed to the
impatience of a sick man's relatives. He must see through
their sympathetic expressions. Philip, with a faint smile
at his own hypocrisy, cast down his eyes.

"I suppose he's in no immediate danger?"

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 671

This was the kind of question the doctor hated. If you
said a patient couldn't live another month the family pre-
pared itself for a bereavement, and if then the patient lived
on they visited the medical attendant with the resentment
they felt at having tormented themselves before it was
necessary. On the other hand, if you said the patient might
live a year and he died in a week the family said you did
not know your business. They thought of all the affection
they would have lavished on the defunct if they had known
the end was so near. Dr. Wigram made the gesture of
washing his hands.

"I don't think there's any grave risk so long as he —
remains as he is," he ventured at last. "But on the other
hand, we mustn't forget that he's no longer a young man,
and well, the machine is wearing out. If he gets over the
hot weather I don't see why he shouldn't get on very
comfortably till the winter, and then if the winter does not
bother him too much, well, I don't see why anything should
happen."

Philip went back to the dining-room where his uncle was
sitting. With his skull-cap and a crochet shawl over his
shoulders he looked grotesque. His eyes had been fixed
on the door, and they rested on Philip's face as he entered.
Philip saw that his uncle had been waiting anxiously for
his return.

"Well, what did he say about me ?"

Philip understood suddenly that the old man was fright-
ened of dying. It made Philip a little ashamed, so that he
looked away involuntarily. He was always embarrassed by
the weakness of human nature.

"He says he thinks you're much better," said Philip.

A gleam of delight came into his uncle's eyes.

"I've got a wonderful constitution," he said. "What else
did he say?" he added suspiciously.

Philip smiled.

"He said that if you take care of -yourself there's no
reason why you shouldn't live to be a hundred."

"I don't know that I can expect to do that, but I don't
see why I shouldn't see eighty. My mother lived till she
was eighty-four."

<J7« OFHUMANBONDAGE

There was a little table by the side of Mr. Carey's chair,
and on it were a Bible and the large volume of the Com-
mon Prayer from which for so many years he had been
accustomed to read to his household. He stretched out now
his shaking hand and took his Bible.

"Those old patriarchs lived to a jolly good old age,
didn't they?" he said, with a queer little laugh in which
Philip read a sort of timid appeal

The old man clung to life. Yet he believed implicitly all
that his religion taught him. He had no doubt in the im-
mortality of the soul, and he felt that he had conducted
himself well enough, according to his capacities, to make it
very likely that he would go to heaven. In his long career
to how many dying persons must he have administered the
consolations of religion! Perhaps he was like the doctor
who could get no benefit from his own prescriptions.
Philip was puzzled and shocked by that eager cleaving to
the earth. He wondered what nameless horror was at the
back of the old man's mind. He would have liked to probe
into his soul so that he might see in its nakedness the
dreadful dismay of the unknown which he suspected.

The fortnight passed quickly and Philip returned to
London. He passed a sweltering August behind his screen
in the costumes department, drawing in his shirt-sleeves.
The assistants in relays went for their holidays. In the
evening Philip generally went into Hyde Park and listened
to the band. Growing more accustomed to his work it tired
him less, and his mind, recovering from its long stagna-
tion, sought for fresh activity. His whole desire now was
set on his uncle's death. He kept on dreaming the same
dream : a telegram was handed to him one morning, early,
which announced the Vicar's sudden demise, and freedom
was in his grasp. When he awoke and found it was noth-
ing but a dream he was filled with sombre rage. He occu-
pied himself, now that the event seemed likely to happen
at any time, with elaborate plans for the future. In these
he passed rapidly over the year which he must spend be-
fore it was possible for him to be qualified and dwelt on
the journey to Spain on which his heart was set. He read
books about that country, which he borrowed from the free

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 673

library, and already he knew from photographs exactly
what each city looked like. He saw himself lingering in
Cordova on the bridge that spanned the Guadalquivir ; he
wandered through tortuous streets in Toledo and sat in
churches where he wrung from El Greco the secret which
he felt the mysterious painter held for him. Athelny en-
tered into his humour, and on Sunday afternoons they
made out elaborate itineraries so that Philip should miss
nothing that was noteworthy. To cheat his impatience
Philip began to teach himself Spanish, and in the deserted
sitting-room in Harrington Street he spent an hour every
evening doing Spanish exercises and puzzling out with an
English translation by his side the magnificent phrases of
Don Quixote. Athelny gave him a lesson once a week, and
Philip learned a few sentences to help him on his journey.
Mrs. Athelny laughed at them.

"You two and your Spanish !" she said. "Why don't you
do something useful ?"

But Sally, who was growing up and was to put up her
hair at Christmas, stood by sometimes and listened in her
grave way while her father and Philip exchanged remarks
in a language she did not understand. She thought her
father the most wonderful man who had ever existed, and
she expressed her opinion of Philip only through her
father's commendations.

"Father thinks a rare lot of your Uncle Philip," she
remarked to her brothers and sisters.

Thorpe, the eldest boy, was old enough to go on the
Arethusa, and Athelny regaled his family with magnifi-
cent descriptions of the appearance the lad would make
when he came back in uniform for his holidays. As soon as
Sally was seventeen she was to be apprenticed to a dress-
maker. Athelny in his rhetorical way talked of the birds,
strong enough to fly now, who were leaving the parental
nest, and with tears in his eyes told them that the nest
would be there still if ever they wished to return to it. A
shakedown and a dinner would always be theirs, and the
heart of a father would never be closed to the troubles of
his children.

"You do talk, Athelny," said his wife. "I don't know

674 OFHUMANBONDAGE

what trouble they're likely to get into so long as they're
steady. So long as you're honest and not afraid of work
you'll never be out of a job, that's what I think, and I can
tell you I shan't be sorry when I see the last of them
earning their own living."

Child-bearing, hard work, and constant anxiety were
beginning to tell on Mrs. Athelny ; and sometimes her back
ached in the evening so that she had to sit down and rest
herself. Her ideal of happiness was to have a girl to do
the rough work so that she need not herself get up before
seven. Athelny waved his beautiful white hand.

"Ah, my Betty, we've deserved well of the state, you
and I. We've reared nine healthy children, and the boys
shall serve their king; the girls shall cook and sew and
in their turn breed healthy children." He turned to Sally,
and to comfort her for the anti-climax of the contrast
added grandiloquently: "They also serve who only stand
and wait."

Athelny had lately added socialism to the other con-
tradictory theories he vehemently believed in, and he stated
now:

"In a socialist state we should be richly pensioned, you
and I, Betty."

"Oh, don't talk to me about your socialists, I've got
no patience with them," she cried. "It only means that
another lot of lazy loafers will make a good thing out of
the working classes. My motto is, leave me alone ; I don't
want anyone interfering with me; I'll make the best of
a bad job, and the devil take the hindmost."

"D'you call life a bad job?" said Athelny. "Never!
We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles,
we've always been poor, but it's been worth it, ay, worth
it a hundred times I say when I look round at my chil-
dren."

"You do talk, Athelny," she said, looking at him, not
with anger but with scornful calm. "You've had the pleas-
ant part of the children, I've had the bearing of them, and
the bearing with them. I don't say that I'm not fond of
them, now they're there, but if I had my time over again
I'd remain single. Why, if I'd remained single I might

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 675

have a little shop by now, and four or five hundred pounds
in the bank, and a girl to do the rough work. Oh, I
wouldn't go over my life again, not for something."

Philip thought of the countless millions to whom life
is no more than unending labour, neither beautiful nor
ugly, but just to be accepted in the same spirit as one
accepts the changes of the seasons. Fury seized him be-
cause it all seemed useless. He could not reconcile himself
to the belief that life had no meaning and yet everything
he saw, all his thoughts, added to the force of his convic-
tion. By though fury seized him it was a joyful fury. Life
was not so horrible if it was meaningless, and he faced it
with a strange sense of power.

CIX

THE autumn passed into winter. Philip had left his ad-
dress with Mrs. Foster, his uncle's housekeeper, so that
she might communicate with him, but still went once a
week to the hospital on the chance of there being a letter.
One evening he saw his name on an envelope in a hand-
writing he had hoped never to see again. It gave him a
queer feeling. For a little while he could not bring himself
to take it. It brought back a host of hateful memories. But
at length, impatient with himself, he ripped open the en-
velope.

7 William Street,

Fitzroy Square.
Dear Phil,

Can I see you for a minute or two as soon as possible.
I am in awful trouble and don't know what to do. It's not
money.

Yours trul\,

Mildred.

He tore the letter into little bits and going out into the
street scattered them in the darkness.

"I'll see her damned," he muttered.

A feeling of disgust surged up in him at the thought of
seeing her again. He did not care if she was in distress, it
served her right whatever it was, he thought of her with
hatred, and the love he had had for her aroused his loath-
ing. His recollections filled him with nausea, and as he
walked across the Thames he drew himself aside in an
instinctive withdrawal from his thought of her. He went
to bed, but he could not sleep ; he wondered what was the
matter with her, and he could not get out of his head the
fear that she was ill and hungry ; she would not have writ-
ten to him unless she were desperate. He was angry with

676

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 677

himself for his weakness, but he knew that he would have
no peace unless he saw her. Next morning he wrote a
letter-card and posted it on his way to the shop. He made
it as stiff as he could and said merely that he was sorry
she was in difficulties and would come to the address she
had given at seven o'clock that evening.

It was that of a shabby lodging-house in a sordid street ;
and when, sick at the thought of seeing her, he asked
whether she was in, a wild hope seized him that she had
left. It looked the sort of place people moved in and out
of frequently. He had not thought of looking at the post-
mark on her letter and did not know how many days it
had lain in the rack. The woman who answered the bell
did not reply to his inquiry, but silently preceded him
along the passage and knocked on a door at the back.

"Mrs. Miller, a gentleman to see you," she called.

The door was slightly opened, and Mildred looked out
suspiciously.

"Oh, it's you," she said. "Come in."

He walked in and she closed the door. It was a very
small bed-room, untidy as was every place she lived in;
there was a pair of shoes on the floor, lying apart fron?
one another and uncleaned; a hat was on the chest of
drawers, with false curls beside it ; and there was a blouse
on the table. Philip looked for somewhere to put his hat.
The hooks behind the door were laden with skirts, and
he noticed that they were muddy at the hem.

"Sit down, won't you?" she said. Then she gave a little
awkward laugh. "I suppose you were surprised to hear
from me again."

"You're awfully hoarse," he answered. "Have you got
a sore throat?"

"Yes, I have had for some time."

He did not say anything. He waited for her to explain
why she wanted to see him. The look of the room told him
clearly enough that she had gone back to the life from
which he had taken her. He wondered what had happened
to the bafoy ; there was a photograph of it on the chimney-
piece, but no sign in the room that a child was ever there.
Mildred was holding her handkerchief. She made it into a

5?8 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

little ball, and passed it from hand to hand. He saw that
she was very nervous. She was staring at the fire, and he
could look at her without meeting her eyes. She was much
thinner than when she had left him ; and the skin, yellow
and dryish, was drawn more tightly over her cheek-bones.
She had dyed her hair and it was now flaxen: it altered
her a good deal, and made her look more vulgar.

"I was relieved to get your letter, I can tell you," she
said at last. "I thought p'raps you weren't at the 'ospital
any more."

Philip did not speak.

"I suppose you're qualified by now, aren't you?"

"No."

"How's that?"

"I'm no longer at the hospital. I had to give it up eight-
een months ago."

"You are changeable. You don't seem as if you could
stick to anything."

Philip was silent for another moment, and when he went
on it was with coldness.

"I lost the little money I had in an unlucky speculation
and I couldn't afford to go on with the medical. I had to
earn my living as best I could."

"What are you doing then?"

"I'm in a shop."

"Oh!"

She gave him a quick glance and turned her eyes away
at once. He thought that she reddened. She dabbed her
palms nervously with the handkerchief.

"You've not forgotten all your doctoring, have you?"
She jerked the words out quite oddly.

"Not entirely."

"Because that's why I wanted to see you." Her voice
sank to a hoarse whisper. "I don't know what's the matter
with me."

"Why don't you go to a hospital ?"

"I don't like to do that, and have all the stoodents star-
ing at me, and I'm afraid they'd want to keep me."

"What are you complaining of?" asked Philip coldly,

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 679

with the stereotyped phrase used in the out-patients' room.

"Well, I've come out in a rash, and I can't get rid of
it."

Philip felt a twinge of horror in his heart. Sweat broke
out on his forehead.

"Let me look at your throat?"

He took her over to the window and made such exami-
nation as he could. Suddenly he caught sight of her eyes.
There was deadly fear in them. It was horrible to see.
She was terrified. She wanted him to reassure her ; she
looked at him pleadingly, not daring to ask for words of
comfort but with all her nerves astrung to receive them :
he had none to offer her.

"I'm afraid you're very ill indeed," he said.

"What d'you think it is?"

When he told her she grew deathly pale, and her lips
even turned yellow; she began to cry, hopelessly, quietly
at first and then with choking sobs.

"I'm awfully sorry," he said at last. "But I had to tell
you."

"I may just as well kill myself and have done with it."

He took no notice of the threat.

"Have you got any money ?" he asked.

"Six or seven pounds."

"You must give up this life, you know. Don't you think
you could find some work to do? I'm afraid I can't help
you much, I only get twelve bob a week."

"What is there I can do now?" she cried impatiently.

"Damn it all, you must try to get something."

He spoke to her very gravely, telling her of her own
danger and the danger to which she exposed others, and
she listened sullenly. He tried to console her. At last he
brought her to a sulky acquiescence in which she promised
to do all he advised. He wrote a prescription, which he said
he would leave at the nearest chemist's, and he impressed
upon her the necessity of taking her medicine with the
utmost regularity. Getting up to go, he held out his hand.

"Don't be downhearted, you'll soon get over your
throat."

680 OFHUMANBONDAGE

But as he went her face became suddenly distorted, and
she caught hold of his coat.

"Oh, don't leave me," she cried hoarsely. "I'm so
afraid, don't leave me alone yet. Phil, please. There's no
one else I can go to, you're the only friend I've ever had."

He felt the terror of her soul, and it was strangely like
that terror he had seen in his uncle's eyes when he feared
that he might die. Philip looked down. Twice that woman
had come into his life and made him wretched ; she had no
claim upon him ; and yet, he knew not why, deep in his
heart was a strange aching; it was that which, when he
received her letter, had left him no peace till he obeyed her
summons.

"I suppose I shall never really quite get over it," he said
to himself.

What perplexed him was that he felt a curious physical
distaste, which made it uncomfortable for him to be near
her.

"What do you want me to do ?" he asked.

"Let's go out and dine together. I'll pay."

He hesitated. He felt that she was creeping back again
into his life when he thought she was gone out of it for
ever. She watched him with sickening anxiety.

"Oh, I know I've treated you shocking, but don't leave
me alone now. You've had your revenge. If you leave me
by myself now I don't know what I shall do."

"All right, I don't mind," he said, "but we shall have
to do it on the cheap, I haven't got money to throw away
these days."

She sat down and put her shoes on, then changed her
skirt and put on a hat; and they walked out together till
they found a restaurant in the Tottenham Court Road.
Philip had got out of the habit of eating at those hours,
and Mildred's throat was so sore that she could not swal-
low. They had a little cold ham and Philip drank a glass
of beer. They sat opposite one another, as they had so
often sat before; he wondered if she remembered; they
had nothing to say to one another and would have sat in
silence if Philip had not forced himself to talk. In the
bright light of the restaurant, with its vulgar looking-

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 681

glasses that reflected in an endless series, she looked old
and haggard. Philip was anxious to know about the child,
but he had not the courage to ask. At last she said :

"You know baby died last summer."

"Oh !" he said.

"You might say you're sorry."

"I'm not," he answered, "I'm very glad."

She glanced at him and, understanding what he meant,
looked away.

"You were rare stuck on it at one time, weren't you?
I always thought it funny like how you could see so much
in another man's child."

When they had finished eating they called at the chem-
ist's for the medicine Philip had ordered, and going back
to the shabby room he made her take a dose. Then they
sat together till it was time for Philip to go back to Har-
rington Street. He was hideously bored.

Philip went to see her every day. She took the medi-
cine he had prescribed and followed his directions, and
soon the results were so apparent that she gained the great-
est confidence in Philip's skill. As she grew better she
grew less despondent. She talked more freely.

"As soon as I can get a job I shall be all right," she said.
"I've had my lesson now and I mean to profit by it. No
more racketing about for yours truly."

Each time he saw her, Philip asked whether she had
found work. She told him not to worry, she would find
something to do as scon as she wanted it ; she had several
strings to her bow; it was all the better not to do any-
thing for a week or two. He could not deny this, but at the
end of that time he became more insistent. She laughed at
him, she was much more cheerful now, and said he was a
fussy old thing. She told him long stories of the manager-
esses she interviewed, for her idea was to get work at some
eating-house; what they said and what she answered.
Nothing definite was fixed, but she was sure to settle some-
thing at the beginning of the following week: there was
no use hurrying, and it would be a mistake to take some-
thing unsuitable.

"It's absurd to talk like that," he said impatiently. "You

682 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

must take anything you can get. I can't help you, and your
money won't last for ever."

"Oh, well, I've not come to the end of it yet and chance
it."

He looked at her sharply. It was three weeks since his
first visit, and she had then less than seven pounds. Sus-
picion seized him. He remembered some of the things she
had said. He put two and two together. He wondered
whether she had made any attempt to find work. Per-
haps she had been lying to him all the time. It was very
strange that her money should have lasted so long.

"What is your rent here?"

"Oh, the landlady's very nice, different from what some
of them are ; she's quite willing to wait till it's convenient
for me to pay."

He was silent. What he suspected was so horrible that
he hesitated. It was no use to ask her, she would deny
everything; if he wanted to know he must find out for
himself. He was in the habit of leaving her every evening
at eight, and when the clock struck he got up ; but instead
of going back to Harrington Street he stationed himself
at the corner of Fitzroy Square so that he could see any-
one who came along William Street. It seemed to him that
he waited an interminable time, and he was on the point
of going away, thinking his surmise had been mistaken,
when the door of No. 7 opened and Mildred came out. He
fell back into the darkness and watched her walk towards
him. She had on the hat with a quantity of feathers on it
which he had seen in her room, and she wore a dress he
recognised, too showy for the street and unsuitable to the
time of year. He followed her slowly till she came into the
Tottenham Court Road, where she slackened her pace ; at
the corner of Oxford Street she stopped, looked round,
and crossed over to a music-hall. He went up to her and
touched her on the arm. He saw that she had rouged her
cheeks and painted her lips.

"Where are you going, Mildred?"

She started at the sound of his voice and reddened as
she always did when she was caught in a lie ; then the flash
of anger which he knew so well came into her eyes as she

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 683

instinctively sought to defend herself by abuse. But she
did not say the words which were on the tip of her tongue.

"Oh, I was only going to see the show. It gives me the
hump sitting every night by myself."

He did not pretend to believe her.

"You mustn't. Good heavens, I've told you fifty times
how dangerous it is. You must stop this sort of thing at
once."

"Oh, hold your jaw," she cried roughly. "How d'you
suppose I'm going to live ?"

He took hold of her arm and without thinking what he
was doing tried to drag her away.

"For God's sake come along. Let me take you home.
You don't know what you're doing. It's criminal."

"What do I care? Let them take their chance. Men
haven't been so good to me that I need bother my head
about them."

She pushed him away and walking up to the box-office
put down her money. Philip had threepence in his pocket.
He could not follow. He turned away and walked slowly
down Oxford Street.

"I can't do anything more," he said to himself.

That was the end. He did not see her again.

ex

CHRISTMAS that year falling on Thursday, the shop was
to close for four days: Philip wrote to his uncle asking
whether it would be convenient for him to spend the holi-
days at the vicarage. He received an answer from Mrs.
Foster, saying that Mr. Carey was not well enough to
write himself, but wished to see his nephew and would be
glad if he came down. She met Philip at the door, and
when she shook hands with him, said :

"You'll find him changed since you was here last, sir;
but you'll pretend you don't notice anything, won't you,
sir? He's that nervous about himself."

Philip nodded, and she led him into the dining-room.

"Here's Mr. Philip, sir."

The Vicar of Blackstable was a dying man. There was
no mistaking that when you looked at the hollow cheeks
and the shrunken body. He sat huddled in the arm-chair,
with his head strangely thrown back, and a shawl over
his shoulders. He could not walk now without the help of
sticks, and his hands trembled so that he could only feed
himself with difficulty.

"He can't last long now," thought Philip, as he looked
at him.

"How d'you think I'm looking?" asked the Vicar.
"D'you think I've changed since you were here last?"

"I think you look stronger than you did last summer."

"It was the heat. That always upsets me."

Mr. Carey's history of the last few months consisted in
the number of weeks he had spent in his bed-room and
the number of weeks he had spent downstairs. He had a
hand-bell by his side and while he talked he rang it for
Mrs. Foster, who sat in the next room ready to attend to
his wants, to ask on what day of the month he had first
left his room.

"On the seventh of November, sir."

684

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 685

Mr. Carey looked at Philip to see how he took the infor-
mation.

"But I eat well still, don't I, Mrs. Foster?"

"Yes, sir, you've got a wonderful appetite."

"I don't seem to put on flesh though."

Nothing interested him now but his health. He was set
upon one thing indomitably and that was living, just liv-
ing, notwithstanding the monotony of his life and the con-
stant pain which allowed him to sleep only when he was
under the influence of morphia.

"It's terrible, the amount of money I have to spend on
doctor's bills." He tinkled his bell again. "Mrs. Foster,
show Master Philip the chemist's bill."

Patiently she took it off the chimney-piece and handed
it to Philip.

"That's only one month. I was wondering if as you're
doctoring yourself you couldn't get me the drugs cheaper.
I thought of getting them down from the stores, but then
there's the postage."

Though apparently taking so little interest in him that
he did not trouble to inquire what Phil was doing, he
seemed glad to have him there. He asked how long he
could stay, and when Philip told him he must leave on
Tuesday morning, expressed a wish that the visit might
have been longer. He told him minutely all his symptoms
and repeated what the doctor had said of him. He broke
off to ring his bell, and when Mrs. Foster came in, said :

"Oh, I wasn't sure if you were there. I only rang to see
if you were."

When she had gone he explained to Philip that it made
him uneasy if he was not certain that Mrs. Foster was
within ear-shot; she knew exactly what to do with him if
anything happened. Philip, seeing that she was tired and
that her eyes were heavy from want of sleep, suggested
that he was working her too hard.

"Oh, nonsense," said the Vicar, "she's as strong as a
horse." And when next she came in to give him his medi-
cine he said to her :

"Master Philip says you've got too much to do, Mrs.
Foster. You like looking after me, don't you?"

686 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

"Oh, I don't mind, sir. I want to do everything I can.''

Presently the medicine took effect and Mr. Carey fell
asleep. Philip went into the kitchen and asked Mrs. Foster
whether she could stand the work. He saw that for some
months she had had little peace.

"Well, sir, what can I do?" she answered. "The poor
old gentleman's so dependent on me, and, although he is
troublesome sometimes, you can't help liking him, can
you? I've been here so many years now, I don't know what
I shall do when he comes to go."

Philip saw that she was really fond of the old man. She
washed and dressed him, gave him his food, and was up
half a dozen times in the night; for she slept in the next
room to his and whenever he awoke he tinkled his little
bell till she came in. He might die at any moment, but he
might live for months. It was wonderful that she should
look after a stranger with such patient tenderness, and
it was tragic and pitiful that she should be alone in the
world to care for him.

It seemed to Philip that the religion which his uncle
had preached all his life was now of no more than formal
importance to him : every Sunday the curate came and
administered to him Holy Communion, and he often read
his Bible ; but it was clear that he looked upon death with
horror. He believed that it was the gateway to life ever-
lasting, but he did not want to enter upon that life. In con-
stant pain, chained to his chair and having given up the
hope of ever getting out into the open again, like a child
in the hands of a woman to whom he paid wages, he clung
to the world he knew.

In Philip's head was a question he could not ask, be-
cause he was aware that his uncle would never give any but
a conventional answer: he wondered whether at the very
end, now that the machine was painfully wearing itself
out, the clergyman still believed in immortality; perhaps
at the bottom of his soul, not allowed to shape itself into
words in case it became urgent, was the conviction that
there was no God and after this life nothing.

On the evening of Boxing Day Philip sat in the dining-
room with his uncle. He had to start very early next morn-

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 68y

ing in order to get to the shop by nine, and he was to say
good-night to Mr. Carey then. The Vicar of Blackstable
was dozing and Philip, lying on the sofa by the window,
let his book fall on his knees and looked idly round the
room. He asked himself how much the furniture would
fetch. He had walked round the house and looked at the
things he had known from his childhood ; there were a few
pieces of china which might go for a decent price and
Philip wondered if it would be worth while to take them
up to London; but the furniture was of the Victorian
order, of mahogany, solid and ugly ; it would go for noth-
ing at an auction. There were three or four thousand
books, but everyone knew how badly they sold, and it was
not probable that they would fetch more than a hundred
pounds. Philip did not know how much his uncle would
leave, and he reckoned out for the hundredth time what
was the least sum upon which he could finish the curri-
culum at the hospital, take his degree, and live during the
time he wished to spend on hospital appointments. He
looked at the old man, sleeping restlessly : there was no
humanity left in that shrivelled face; it was the face of
some queer animal. Philip thought how easy it would be to
finish that useless life. He had thought it each evening
when Mrs. Foster prepared for his uncle the medicine
which was to give him an easy night. There were two bot-
tles : one contained a drug which he took regularly, and
the other an opiate if the pain grew unendurable. This was
poured out for him and left by his bed-side. He generally
took it at three or four in the morning. It would be a
simple thing to double the dose ; he would die in the night,
and no one would suspect anything; for that was how
Doctor Wigram expected him to die. The end would be
painless. Philip clenched his hands as he thought of the
money he wanted so badly. A few more months of that
wretched life could matter nothing to the old man, but the
few more months meant everything to him : he was getting
to the end of his endurance, and when he thought of going
back to work in the morning he shuddered with horror.
His heart beat quickly at the thought which obsessed him,
and though he made an effort to put it out of his mind he

688 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

could not. It would be so easy, so desperately easy. He had
no feeling for the old man, he had never liked him; he
had been selfish all his life, selfish to his wife who adored
him, indifferent to the boy who had been put in his charge ;
he was not a cruel man, but a stupid, hard man, eaten up
with a small sensuality. It would be easy, desperately easy.
Philip did not dare. He was afraid of remorse; it would
be no good having the money if he regretted all his life
what he had done. Though he had told himself so often
that regret was futile, there were certain things that came
back to him occasionally and worried him. He wished they
were not on his conscience.

His uncle opened his eyes; Philip was glad, for he
looked a little more human then. He was frankly horrified
at the idea that had come to him, it was murder that he
was meditating; and he wondered if other people had
such thoughts or whether he was abnormal and depraved.
He supposed he could not have done it when it came to
the point, but there the thought was, constantly recurring :
if he held his hand it was from fear. His uncle spoke.

"You're not looking forward to my death, Philip?"

Philip felt his heart beat against his chest.

"Good heavens, no."

"That's a good boy. I shouldn't like you to do that.
You'll get a little bit of money when I pass away, but
you mustn't look forward to it. It wouldn't profit you if
you did."

He spoke in a low voice, and there was a curious anxiety
in his tone. It sent a pang in Philip's heart. He wondered
what strange insight might have led the old man to sur-
mise what strange desires were in Philip's mind.

"I hope you'll live for another twenty years," he said.

"Oh, well, I can't expect to do that, but if I take care
of myself I don't see why I shouldn't last another three
or four."

He was silent for a while, and Philip found nothing to
say. Then, as if he had been thinking it all over, the old
man spoke again.

"Everyone has the right to live as long- as he can."

Philip wanted to distract his mind.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 689

"By the way, I suppose you never hear from Miss Wil-
kinson now ?"

"Yes, I had a letter some time this year. She's married,
you know."

"Really?"

"Yes, she married a widower. I believe they're quit*;
comfortable."

CXI

NEXT day Philip began work again, but the end which
he expected within a few weeks did not come. The weeks
passed into months. The winter wore away, and in the
parks the trees burst into bud and into leaf. A terrible
lassitude settled upon Philip. Time was passing, though it
went with such heavy feet, and he thought that his youth
was going and soon he would have lost it and nothing
would have been accomplished. His work seemed more
aimless now that there was the certainty of his leaving it.
He became skilful in the designing of costumes, and
though he had no inventive faculty acquired' quickness in
the adaptation of French fashions to the English market.
Sometimes he was not displeased with his drawings, but
they always bungled them in the execution. He was amused
to notice that he suffered from a lively irritation when his
ideas were not adequately carried out. He had to walk
warily. Whenever he suggested something original Mr.
Sampson turned it down : their customers did not want
anything outre, it was a very respectable class of business,
and when you had a connection of that sort it wasn't
worth while taking liberties with it. Once or twice he
spoke sharply to Philip; he thought the young man was
getting a bit above himself, because Philip's ideas did not
always coincide with his own.

"You jolly well take care, my fine young fellow, or one
of these days you'll find yourself in the street."

Philip longed to give him a punch on the nose, but he
restrained himself. After all it could not possibly last much
longer, and then he would be done with all these people
for ever. Sometimes in comic desperation he cried out that
his uncle must be made of iron. What a constitution! The
ills he suffered from would have killed any decent person
twelve months before. When at last the news came that
the Vicar was dying Philip, who had been thinking of

690

OFHUMANBONDAGE 691

other thiugs, was taken by surprise. It was in July, and
in another fortnight he was to have gone for his holiday.
He received a letter from Mrs. Foster to say the doctor
did not give Mr. Carey many days to live, and if Philip
wished to see him again he must come at once. Philip went
to the buyer and told him he wanted to leave. Mr. Samp-
son was a decent fellow, and when he knew the circum-
stances made no difficulties. Philip said good-bye to the
people in his department; the reason of his leaving had
spread among them in an exaggerated form, and they
thought he had come into a fortune. Mrs. Hodges had
tears in her eyes when she shook hands with him.

"I suppose we shan't often see you again," she said.

"I'm glad to get away from Lynn's," he answered.

It was strange, but he was actually sorry to leave these
people whom he thought he had loathed, and when he
drove away from the house in Harrington Street it was
with no exultation. He had so anticipated the emotions he
would experience on this occasion that now he felt noth-
ing: he was as unconcerned as though he were going for
a few days' holiday.

"I've got a rotten nature," he said to himself. "I look
forward to things awfully, and then when they come I'm
always disappointed."

He reached Blackstable early in the afternoon. Mrs.
Foster met him at the door, and her face told him that
his uncle was not yet dead.

"He's a little better today," she said. "He's got a won-
derful constitution."

She led him into the bed-room where Mr. Carey lay
on his back. He gave Philip a slight smile, in which was a
trace of satisfied cunning at having circumvented his
enemy once more.

"I thought it was all up with me yesterday," he said, in
an exhausted voice. "They'd all given me up, hadn't you,
Mrs. Foster?"

"You've got a wonderful constitution, there's no deny-
ing that."

"There's life in the old dog yet."

Mrs. Foster said that the Vicar must not talk, it would

6gz OFHU MAN BOND AGE

tire him ; she treated him like a child, with kindly despot-
ism; and there was something childish in the old man's
satisfaction at having cheated all their expectations. It
struck him at once that Philip had been sent for, and he
was amused that he had been brought on a fool's errand.
If he could only avoid another of his heart attacks he
would get well enough in a week or two ; and he had had
the attacks several times before; he always felt as if he
were going to die, but he never did. They all talked of
his constitution, but they none of them knew how strong
it was.

"Are you going to stay a day or two?" he asked Philip,
pretending to believe he had come down for a holiday.

"I was thinking of it," Philip answered cheerfully.

"A treath of sea-air will do you good."

Presently Dr. Wigram came, and after he had seen the
Vicar talked with Philip. He adopted an appropriate man-
ner.

"I'm afraid it-is the end this time, Philip," he said. "It'll
be a great loss to all of us. I've known him for five-and-
thirty years."

"He seems well enough now," said Philip.

"I'm keeping him alive on drugs, but it can't last. It was
dreadful these last two days, I thought he was dead half
a dozen times."

The doctor was silent for a minute or two, but at the
gate he said suddenly to Philip:

"Has Mrs. Foster said anything to you?"

"What d'you mean?"

"They're very superstitious, these people : she's got
hold of an idea that he's got something on his mind, and he
can't die till he gets rid of it ; and he can't bring himsetf
to confess it."

Philip did not answer, and the doctor went on.

"Of course it's nonsense. He's led a very good life, he's
done his duty, he's been a good parish priest, and I'm sure
we shall all miss him ; he can't have anything to reproach
himself with. I very much doubt whether the next vicar
will suit us half so well."

For several days Mr. Carey continued without change.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 693

His appetite which had been excellent left him, and he
could eat little. Dr. Wigram did not hesitate now to still
the pain of the neuritis which tormented him; and that,
with the constant shaking of his palsied limbs, was gradu-
ally exhausting him. His mind remained clear. Philip and
Mrs. Foster nursed him between them. She was so tired
by the many months during which she had been attentive
to all his wants that Philip insisted on sitting up with the
patient so that she might have her night's rest. He passed
the long hours in an arm-chair so that he should not sleep
soundly, and read by the light of shaded candles The
Thousand and One Nights. He had not read them since he
was a little boy, and they brought back his childhood to
him. Sometimes he sat and listened to the silence of the
night. When the effects of the opiate wore off Mr. Carey
grew restless and kept him constantly busy.

At last, early one morning, when the birds were chatter-
ing noisily in the trees, he heard his name called. He went
up to the bed. Mr. Carey was lying on his back, with his
eyes looking at the ceiling ; he did not turn them on Philip.
Philip saw that sweat was on his forehead, and he took a
towel and wiped it.

"Is that you, Philip?" the old man asked.

Philip was startled because the voice was suddenly
changed. It was hoarse and low. So would a man speak if
he was cold with fear.

"Yes, d'you want anything?"

There was a pause, and still the unseeing eyes stared at
the ceiling. Then a twitch passed over the face.

"I think I'm going to die," he said.

"Oh, what nonsensa!" cried Philip. "You're not going
to die for years."

Two tears were wrung from the old man's eyes. They
moved Philip horribly. His uncle had never betrayed any
particular emotion in the affairs of life ; and it was dread-
ful to see them now, for they signified a terror that was
unspeakable.

"Send for Mr. Simmonds," he said. "I want to take the
Communion."

Mr. Simmonds was the curate.

•J94 O F H U M A N B O N D A G E

"Now?" asked Philip.

"Soon, or else it'll be too late."

Philip went to awake Mrs. Foster, but it was later than
he thought and she was up already. He told her to send
the gardener with a message, and he went back to his
uncle's room.

"Have you sent for Mr. Simmonds ?"

"Yes."

There was a silence. Philip sat by the bed-side, and
occasionally wiped the sweating forehead.

"Let me hold your hand, Philip," the old man said at
last.

Philip gave him his hand and he clung to it as to life,
for comfort in his extremity. Perhaps he had never really
loved anyone in all his days, but now he turned instinc-
tively to a human being. His hand was wet and cold. It
grasped Philip's with feeble, despairing energy. The old
man was fighting with the fear of death. And Philip
thought that all must go through that. Oh, how mon-
strous it was, and they could believe in a God that allowed
his creatures to suffer such a cruel torture ! He had never
cared for his uncle, and for two years he had longed every
day for his death ; but now he could not overcome the
compassion that filled his heart. What a price it was to pay
for being other than the beasts !

They remained in silence broken only once by a low
inquiry from Mr. Carey.

"Hasn't he come yet?"

At last the housekeeper came in softly to say that Mr.
Simmonds was there. He carried a bag in which were his
surplice and his hood. Mrs. Foster brought the com-
munion plate. Mr. Simmonds shook hands silently with
Philip, and then with professional gravity went to the sick
man's side. Philip and the maid went out of the room.

Philip walked round the garden all fresh and dewy in
the morning. The birds were singing gaily. The sky was
blue, but the air, salt-laden, was sweet and cool. The roses
were in full bloom. The green of the trees, the green of
the lawns, was eager and brilliant. Philip walked, and as
he walked he thought of the mystery which was proceeding

OF HUMAN BOND AGE 695

in that bed-room. It gave him a peculiar emotion. Pres-
ently Mrs. Foster came out to him and said that his uncle
wished to see him. The curate was putting his things back
into the black bag. The sick man turned his head a little
and greeted him with a smile. Philip was astonished, for
there was a change in him, an extraordinary change ; his
eyes had no longer the terror-stricken look, and the pinch-
ing of his face had gone : he looked happy and serene.

"I'm quite prepared now," he said, and his voice had a
different tone in it. "When the Lord sees fit to call me I am
ready to give my soul into his hands."

Philip did not speak. He could see that his uncle was
sincere. It was almost a miracle. He had taken the body
and blood of his Saviour, and they had given him strength
so that he no longer feared the inevitable passage into the
night. He knew he was going to die : he was resigned. He
only said one thing more :

"I shall rejoin my dear wife."

It startled Philip. He remembered with what a callous
selfishness his uncle had treated her, how obtuse he had
been to her humble, devoted love. The curate, deeply
moved, went away and Mrs. Foster, weeping, accompanied
him to the door. Mr. Carey, exhausted by his effort, fell
into a light doze, and Philip sat down by the bed and
waited for the end. The morning wore on, and the old
man's breathing grew stertorous. The doctor came and said
he was dying. He was unconscious and he pecked feebly at
the sheets ; he was restless and he cried out. Dr. Wigram
gave him a hypodermic injection.

"It can't do any good now, he may die at any moment."

The doctor looked at his watch and then at the patient.
Philip saw that it was one o'clock. Dr. Wigram was think-
ing of his dinner.

"It's no use your waiting," he said.

"There's nothing I can do," said the doctor.

When he was gone Mrs. Foster asked Philip if he would
go to the carpenter, who was also the undertaker, and tell
him to send up a woman to lay out the body.

"You want a little fresh air." she said, "it'll do yot?
good."

696 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

The undertaker lived half a mile away. When Philip
gave him his message, he said :

"When did the poor old gentleman die?"

Philip hesitated. It occurred to him that it would seem
brutal to fetch a woman to wash the body while his uncle
still lived, and he wondered why Mrs. Foster had asked
him to come. They would think he was in a great hurry
to kill the old man off. He thought the undertaker looked
at him oddly. He repeated the question. It irritated Philip.
It was no business of his.

"When did the Vicar pass away?"

Philip's first impulse was to say that it had just hap-
pened, but then it would seem inexplicable if the sick man
lingered for several hours. He reddened and answered
awkwardly.

"Oh, he isn't exactly dead yet."

The undertaker looked at him in perplexity, and he
hurried to explain.

"Mrs. Foster is all alone and she wants a woman there.
You understood, don't you ? He may be dead by now."

The undertaker nodded.

"Oh, yes, I see. I'll send someone up at once."

When Philip got back to the vicarage he went up to
the bed-room. Mrs. Foster rose from her chair by the bed-
side.

"He's just as he was when you left," she said.

She went down to get herself something to eat, and
Philip watched curiously the process of death. There was
nothing human now in the unconscious being that strug-
gled feebly. Sometimes a muttered ejaculation issued from
the loose mouth. The sun beat down hotly from a cloud-
less sky, but the trees in the garden were pleasant and
cool. It was a lovely day. A bluebottle buzzed against the
window-pane. Suddenly there was a loud rattle, it made
Philip start, it was horribly frightening; a movement
passed through the limbs and the old man was dead. The
machine had run down. The bluebottle buzzed, buzzed
»oisily against the window-pane.

CXII

JOSIAH GRAVES in his masterful way made arrange1
ments, becoming but economical, for the funeral; and
when it was over came back to the vicarage with Philip.
The will was in his charge, and with a due sense of the
fitness of things he read it to Philip over an early cup of
tea. It was written on half a sheet of paper and left every-
thing Mr. Carey had to his nephew. There was the fur-
niture, about eighty pounds at the bank, twenty shares in
the A. B. C. company, a few in Allsop's brewery, some in
the Oxford music-hall, and a few more in a London res-
taurant. They had been bought under Mr. Graves' direc-
tion, and he told Philip with satisfaction :

"You see, people must eat, they will drink, and they
want amusement. You're always safe if you put your
money in what the public thinks necessities."

His words showed a nice discrimination between the
grossness of the vulgar, which he deplored but accepted,
and the finer taste of the elect. Altogether in investments
there was about five hundred pounds ; and to that must be
added the balance at the bank and what the furniture
would fetch. It was riches to Philip. He was not happy
but infinitely relieved.

Mr. Graves left him, after they had discussed the
auction which must be held as soon as possible, and Philip
sat himself down to go through the papers of the deceased.
The Rev. William Carey had prided himself on never
destroying anything, and there were piles of correspon-
dence dating back for fifty years and bundles upon bundles
of neatly docketed bills. He had kept not only letters ad-
dressed to him, but letters which himself had written.
There was a yellow packet of letters which he had written
to his father in the forties, when as an Oxford under-
graduate he had gone to Germany for the long vacation.
Philip read them idly. It was a different William Carey

697

698 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

from the William Carey he had known, and yet there were
traces in the boy which might to an acute observer have
suggested the man. The letters were formal and a little
stilted. He showed himself strenuous to see all that was
noteworthy, and he described with a fine enthusiasm the
castles of the Rhine. The falls of Schaffhausen made him
'offer reverent thanks to the all-powerful Creator of the
universe, whose works were wondrous and beautiful,' and
he could not help thinking that they who lived in sight of
'this handiwork of their blessed Maker must be moved
by the contemplation to lead pure and holy lives.' Among
some bills Philip found a miniature which had been painted
of William Carey soon after he was ordained. It repre-
sented a thin young curate, with long hair that fell over
his head in natural curls, with dark eyes, large and dreamy,
and a pale ascetic face. Philip remembered the chuckle
with which his uncle used to tell of the dozens of slippers
which were worked for him by adoring ladies.

The rest of the afternoon and all the evening Philip
toiled through the innumerable correspondence. He
glanced at the address and at the signature, then tore the
letter in two and threw it into the washing-basket by his
side. Suddenly he came upon one signed Helen. He did not
know the writing. It was thin, angular, and old-fashioned.
It began : my dear William, and ended : your affectionate
sister. Then it struck him that it was from his own mother.
He had never seen a letter of hers before, and her hand-
writing was strange to him. It was about himself.

My dear William,

Stephen wrote to you to thank you for your congratu-
lations on the birth of our son and your kind wishes to my-
self. Thank God we are both well and I am deeply thank-
ful for the great mercy which has been shown me. Now
that I can hold a pen I want to tell you and dear Louisa
myself how truly grateful I am to you both for all your
kindness to me now and always since my marriage. I am
going to ask you to do me a great favour. Both Stephen
and I ti'ish you to be the boy's godfather, and we hope
that \ou wilt consent. I know I am not asking a small

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 699

thing, for I am sure you will take the responsibilities oj
the position very seriously, but I am especially anxious
that you should undertake this office because you are a
clergyman as well as the boy's uncle. I am very anxious
for the boy's welfare and I pray God night and day thai
he may grow into a good, honest, and Christian man. With
you to guide him I hope that he will become a soldier in
Christ's Faith and be all the days of his life God-fearing,
humble, and pious.

Your affectionate sister,

Helen.

Philip pushed the letter away and, leaning forward,
rested his face on his hands. It deeply touched and at the
same time surprised him. He was astonished at its religious
tone, which seemed to him neither mawkish nor senti-
mental. He knew nothing of his mother, dead now for
nearly twenty years, but that she was beautiful, and it was
strange to learn that she was simple and pious. He had
never thought of that side of her. He read again what she
said about him, what she expected and thought about him ;
he had turned out very differently; he looked at himself
for a moment; perhaps it was better that she was dead.
Then a sudden impulse caused him to tear up the letter;
its tenderness and simplicity made it seem peculiarly pri-
vate; he had a queer feeling that there was something
indecent in his reading what exposed his mother's gentle
soul. He went on with the Vicar's dreary correspondence.

A few days later he went up to London, and for the
first time for two years entered by day the hall of St.
Luke's Hospital. He went to see the secretary of the Medi-
cal School; he was surprised to see him and asked Philip
curiously what he had been doing. Philip's experiences had
given him a certain confidence in himself and a different
outlook upon many things : such a question would have
embarrassed him before; but now he answered coolly,
with a deliberate vagueness which prevented further in-
quiry, that private affairs had obliged him to make a break
in the curriculum ; he was now anxious to qualify as soon
as possible. The first examination he could take was in

700 OFHUMANBONDAGE

Midwifery and the Diseases of Women, and he put his
name down to be a clerk in the ward devoted to feminine
ailments; since it was holiday time there happened to be
no difficulty in getting a post as obstetric clerk; he ar-
ranged to undertake that duty during the last week of
August and the first two of September. After this inter-
view Philip walked through the Medical School, more or
less deserted, for the examinations at the end of the sum-
mer session were all over ; and he wandered along the ter-
race by the river-side. His heart was full. He thought that
now he could begin a new life, and he would put behind
him all the errors, follies, and miseries of the past. The
flowing river suggested that everything passed, was pass-
ing always, and nothing mattered; the future was before
him rich with possibilities.

He went back to Blackstable and busied himself with the
settling up of his uncle's estate. The auction was fixed for
the middle of August, when the presence of visitors for
the summer holidays would make it possible to get better
prices. Catalogues were made out and sent to the various
dealers in second-hand books at Tercanbury, Maidstone,
and Ashford.

One afternoon Philip took it into his head to go over to
Tercanbury and see his old school. He had not been
there since the day when, with relief in his heart, he had
left it with the feeling that thenceforward he was his own
master. It was strange to wander through the narrow
streets of Tercanbury which he had known so well for so
many years. He looked at the old shops, still there, still
selling the same things ; the booksellers with school-books,
pious works, and the latest novels in one window and
photographs of the Cathedral and of the city in the other ;
the games shop, with its cricket bats, fishing tackle, tennis
rackets, and footballs; the tailor from whom he had got
clothes all through his boyhood ; and the fishmonger where
his uncle whenever he came to Tercanbury bought fish. He
wandered along the sordid street in which, behind a high
wall, lay the red brick house which was the preparatory
school. Further on was the gateway that led into King's
School, and he stood in the quadrangle round which were

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 701

the various buildings. It was just four and the boys were
hurrying out of school. He saw the masters in their gowns
and mortar-boards, and they were strange to him. It was
more than ten years since he had left and many changes
had taken place. He saw the headmaster ; he walked slowly
down from the schoolhouse to his own, talking to a big
boy who Philip supposed was in the sixth ; he was little
changed, tail, cadaverous, romantic as Philip remembered
him, with the same wild eyes; but the black beard was
streaked with gray now and the dark, sallow face was
more deeply lined. Philip had an impulse to go up and
speak to him, but he was afraid he would have forgotten
him, and he hated the thought of explaining who he was.
Boys lingered talking to one another, and presently
some who had hurried to change came out to play fives;
others straggled out in twos and threes and went out of
the gateway, Philip knew they were going up to the
cricket ground ; others again went into the precincts to bat
at the nets. Philip stood among them a stranger; one or
two gave him an indifferent glance ; but visitors, attracted
by the Norman staircase, were not rare and excited littie
attention. Philip looked at them curiously. He thought with
melancholy of the distance that separated him from them,
and he thought bitterly how much he had wanted to do
and how little done. It seemed to him that all those years,
vanished beyond recall, had been utterly wasted. The boys,
fresh and buoyant, were doing the same things that he had
done, it seemed that not a day had passed since he left the
school, and yet in that place where at least by name he had
known everybody now he knew not a soul. In a few years
these too, others taking their place, would stand alien as
he stood; but the reflection brought him no solace; it
merely impressed upon him the futility of human exist-
ence. Each generation repeated the trivial round. He
wondered what had become of the boys who were his com-
panions: they were nearly thirty now; some would he
dead, but others were married and had children ; they were
soldiers and parsons, doctors, lawyers; they were staid
men wrho were beginning to put youth behind them. Had
any of t-hem made such a hash of life as he ? He thought of

702 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

the boy he had been devoted to; it was funny, he could
not recall his name ; he remembered exactly what he looked
like, he had been his greatest friend ; but his name would
not come back to him. He looked back with amusement
on the jealous emotions he had suffered on his account. It
was irritating not to recollect his name. He longed to be a
boy again, like those he saw sauntering through the quad-
rangle, so that, avoiding his mistakes, he might start fresh
and make something more out of life. He felt an intoler-
able loneliness. He almost regretted the penury which he
had suffered during the last two years, since the desperate
struggle merely to keep body and soul together had dead-
ened the pain of living. In the sweat of thy brow slialt
thou earn thy daily bread: it was not a curse upon man-
kind, but the balm which reconciled it to existence.

But Philip was impatient with himself ; he called to
mind his idea of the pattern of life: the unhappiness he
had suffered was no more than part of a decoration which
was elaborate and beautiful; he told himself strenuously
that he must accept with gaiety everything, dreariness and
excitement, pleasure and pain, because it added to the
richness of the design. He sought for beauty consciously,
and he remembered how even as a boy he had taken pleas-
ure in the Gothic cathedral as one saw it from the pre-
cincts ; he went there and looked at the massive pile, gray
under the cloudy sky, with the central tower that rose like
the praise of men to their God ; but the boys were batting
at the nets, and they were lissom and strong and active;
he could not help hearing their shouts and laughter. The
cry of youth was insistent, and he saw the beautiful thing
before him only with his eyes.

CXIII

AT the beginning of the last week in August Philip en-
tered upon his duties in the 'djstrict.' They were arduous,
for he had to attend on an average three confinements a
day. The patient had obtained a 'card' from the hospital
some time before; and when her time came it was taken
to the porter by a messenger, generally a little girl, who
was then sent across the road to the house in which Philip
lodged. At night the porter, who had a latch-key, himself
came over and awoke Philip. It was mysterious then to
get up in the darkness and walk through the deserted
streets of the South Side. At those hours it was generally
the husband who brought the card. If there had been a
number of babies before he took it for the most part with
surly indifference, but if newly married he was nervous
and then sometimes strove to allay his anxiety by getting
drunk. Often there was a mile or more to walk, during
which Philip and the messenger discussed the conditions
of labour and the cost of living; Philip learnt about the
various trades which were practised on that side of the
river. He inspired confidence in the people among whom
he was thrown, and during the long hours that he waited
in a stuffy room, the woman in labour lying on a large bed
that took up half of it, her mother and the midwife talked
to him as naturally as they talked to one another. The cir-
cumstances in which he had lived during the last two years
had taught him several things about the life of the very
poor, which it amused them to find he knew ; and they
were impressed because he was not deceived by their lit-
tle subterfuges. He was kind, and he had gentle hands, and
he did not lose his temper. They were pleased because
he was not above drinking a cup of tea with them, and
when the dawn came and they were still waiting they
offered him a slice of bread and dripping; he was not
squeamish and could eat most things now with a good

7°3

704 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

appetite. Some of the houses he went to, in filthy courts
off a dingy street, huddled against one another without
light or air, were merely squalid ; but others, unexpectedly,
though dilapidated, with worm-eaten floors and leaking
roofs, had the grand air : you found in them oak balusters
exquisitely carved, and the walls had still their panelling.
These were thickly inhabited. One family lived in each
room, and in the daytime there was the incessant noise of
children playing in the court. The old walls were the
breeding-place of vermin; the air was so foul that often,
feeling sick, Philip had to light his pipe. The people who
dwelt here lived from hand to mouth. Babies were unwel-
come, the man received them with surly anger, the mother
with despair; it was one more mouth to feed, and there
was little enough wherewith to feed those already there.
Philip often discerned the wish that the child might be
born dead or might die quickly. He delivered one woman
of twins (a source of humour to the facetious) and when
she was told she burst into a long, shrill wail of misery.
Her mother said outright :

"I don't know how they're going to feed 'em."

"Maybe the Lord'll see fit to take 'em to 'imself," said
the midwife.

Philip caught sight of the husband's face as he looked
at the tiny pair lying side by side, and there was a fero-
cious sullenness in it which startled him. He felt in the
family assembled there a hideous resentment against those
poor atoms who had come into the world unwished for;
and he had a suspicion that if he did not speak firmly an
'accident' would occur. Accidents occurred often ; mothers
'overlay' their babies, and perhaps errors of diet were not
always the result of carelessness.

"I shall come every day," he said. "I warn you that
if anything happens to them there'll have to be an inquest."

The father made no reply, but he gave Philip a scowl.
There was murder in his soul.

"Bless their little 'earts," said the grandmother, "what
should 'appen to them?"

The great difficulty was to keep the mothers in bed for
ten days, which was the minimum upon which the hospital

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 7°5

practice insisted. It was awkward to look after the family>
no one would see to the children without payment, and the
husband grumbled because his tea was not right when he
came home tired from his work and hungry. Philip had
heard that the poor helped one another, but woman after
woman complained to him that she could not get anyone
in to clean up and see to the children's dinner without
paying for the service, and she could not afford to pay.
By listening to the women as they talked and by chance
remarks from which he could deduce much that was left
unsaid, Philip learned how little there was in common be-
tween the poor and the classes above them. They did not
envy their betters, for the life was too different, and they
had an ideal of ease which made the existence of the
middle-classes seem formal and stiff; moreover, they had
a certain contempt for them because they were soft and
did not work with their hands. The proud merely wished
to be left alone, but the majority looked upon the well-to-
do as people to be exploited; they knew what to say in
order to get such advantages as the charitable put at their
disposal, and they accepted benefits as a right which came
to them from the folly of their superiors and their own
astuteness. They bore the curate with contemptuous in-
difference, but the district visitor excited their bitter
hatred. She came in and opened your windows without so
much as a by your leave or with your leave, 'and me with
my bronchitis, enough to give me my death of cold;' she
poked her nose into corners, and if she didn't say the place
was dirty you saw what she thought right enough, 'an'
it's all very well for them as 'as servants, but I'd like to
see what she'd make of 'er room if she 'ad four children,
and 'ad to do the cookin', and mend their clothes, and wash
them.'

Philip discovered that the greatest tragedy of life to
these people was not separation or death, that was natural
and the grief of it could be assuaged with tears, but loss
of work. He saw a man come home one afternoon, three
days after his wife's confinement, and tell her he had been
dismissed ; he was a builder and at that time work was
slack; he stated the fact, and sat down to his tea.

7o6 OP H DM AN BONDAGE

"Oh, Jim," she said.

The man ate stolidly some mess which had been stewing
in a sauce-pan against his coming; he stared at his plate;
his wife looked a* him two or three times, with little
startled glances, and then quite silently began to cry. The
builder was an uncouth little fellow with a rough, weather-
beaten face and a long white scar on his forehead ; he had
large, stubbly hands. Presently he pushed aside his plate
as if he must give up the effort to force himself to eat,
and turned a fixed gaze out of the window. The room was
at the top of the house, at the back, and one saw nothing
but sullen clouds. The silence seemed heavy with despair.
Philip felt that there was nothing to be said, he could only
go; and as he walked away wearily, for he had been up
most of the night, his heart was filled with rage against
the cruelty of the world. He knew the hopelessness of the
search for work and the desolation which is harder to bear
than hunger. He was thankful not to have to believe in
God, for then such a condition of things would be intoler-
able ; one could reconcile oneself to existence only because
it was meaningless.

It seemed to Philip that the people who spent their time
in helping the poorer classes erred because they sought
to remedy things which would harass them if themselves
had to endure them without thinking that they did not in
the least disturb those who were used to them. The poor
did not want large airy rooms : they suffered from cold,
for their food was not nourishing and their circulation
bad ; space gave them a feeling of chilliness, and they
wanted to burn as little coal as need be ; there was no hard-
ship for several to sleep in one room, they preferred it;
they were never alone for a moment, from the time they
were born to the time they died, and loneliness oppressed
them; they enjoyed the promiscuity in which they dwelt,
and the constant noise of their surroundings pressed upon
their ears unnoticed. They did not feel the need of taking
a bath constantly, and Philip often heard them speak with
indignation of the necessity to do so with which they were
faced on entering the hospital : it was both an affront and

\

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 7°7

a discomfort. They wanted chiefly to be left alone; then
if the man was in regular work life went easily and was
not without its pleasures : there was plenty of time for
gossip, after the day's work a glass of beer was very good
to drink, the streets were a constant source of entertain-
ment, if you wanted to read there was Reynolds' or The-
News of the World; 'but there, you couldn't make out 'ow
the time did fly, the truth was and that's a fact, you was a
rare one for reading when you was a girl, but what with one
thing and another you didn't get no time now not even to
read the papei.'

The usual practice was to pay three visits after a con-
finement, and one Sunday Philip went to see a patient at
the dinner hour. She was up for the first time.

"I couldn't stay in bed no longer, I really couldn't. I'm
not one for idling, and it gives me the fidgets to be there
and do nothing all day long, so I said to 'Erb, I'm just
going to get up and cook your dinner for you."

'Erb was sitting at table with his knife and fork already
in his hands. He was a young man, with an open face and
blue eyes. He was earning good money, and as things went
the couple were in easy circumstances. They had only been
married a few months, and were both delighted with the
rosy boy who lay in the cradle at the foot of the bed. There
was a savoury smell of beefsteak in the room and Philip's
eyes turned to the range.

"I was just going to dish up this minute," said the
woman.

"Fire away," said Philip. "I'll just have a look at the
son and heir and then I'll take myself off."

Husband and wife laughed at Philip's expression, and
'Erb getting up went over with Philip to the cradle. He
looked at his baby proudly.

"There doesn't seem much wrong with him, does there?"
said Philip.

He took up his hat, and by this time 'Erb's wife had
dished up the beefsteak and put on the table a plate of
green peas.

"You're going to have a nice dinner," smiled Philip.

7o8 O F H U M AX BOND A G E

"He's only in of a Sunday and I like to 'ave something
special for him, so as he shall miss his 'ome when he's out
at work."

"I suppose you'd be above sittin' down and 'avin' a bit
of dinner with us?" said 'Erb.

"Oh, 'Erb," said his wife, in a shocked tone.

"Not if you ask me," answered Philip, with his attrac-
tive smile.

"Well, that's what I call friendly, I knew 'e wouldn't
take offence, Polly. Just get another plate, my girl."

Polly was flustered, and she thought 'Erb a regular
caution, you never knew what ideas 'e'd get in 'is 'ead
next; but she got a plate and wiped it quickly with her
apron, then took a new knife and fork from the chest of
drawers, where her best cutlery rested among her best
clothes. There was a jug of stout on the table, and 'Erb
poured Philip out a glass. He wanted to give him the lion's
share of the beefsteak, but Philip insisted that they should
share alike. It was a sunny room with two windows that
reached to the floor; it had been the parlour of a house
which at one time was if not fashionable at least respect-
able : it might hare been inhabited fifty years before by a
well-to-do tradesman or an officer on half pay. 'Erb had
been a football player before he married, and there were
photographs on the wall of various teams in self-conscious
attitudes, with neatly plastered hair, the captain seated
proudly in the middle holding a cup. There were other
signs of prosperity: photographs of the relations of 'Erb
and his wife in Sunday clothes ; on the chimney-piece an
elaborate arrangement of shells stuck on a miniature rock ;
and on each side mugs, 'A present from Southend' in
Gothic letters, with pictures of a pier and a parade on
them. 'Erb was something of a character; he was a non-
union man and expressed himself with indignation at the
efforts of the union to force him to join. The union wasn't
no good to him, he never found no difficulty in getting
work, and there was good wages for anyone as 'ad a head
on his shoulders and wasn't above puttin' 'is 'and to any-
thing as come 'is way. Polly was timorous. If she was 'im
she'd join the union, the last time there was a strike she

O F H U M A N B O N D A G E 709

was expectin' 'im to be brought back in an ambulance,
every time he went out. She turned to Philip.

"He's that obstinate, there's no doing anything with
'im."

"Well, what I say is, it's a free country, and I won't be
dictated to."

"It's no good saying it's a free country," said Polly,
"that won't prevent 'em bashin' your 'ead in if they get
the chanst."

When they had finished Philip passed his pouch over to
'Erb and they lit their pipes; then he got up, for a 'call'
might be waiting for him at his rooms, and shook hands.
He saw that it had given them pleasure that he shared
their meal, and they saw that he had thoroughly enjoyed it.

"Well, good-bye, sir," said 'Erb, "and I 'ope we shall
'ave as nice a doctor next time the missus disgraces 'er-
self."

"Go on with you, 'Erb," she retorted. "C>w d'you know
there's going to be a next time?"

CXIV

THE three weeks which the appointment lasted drew to
an end. Philip had attended sixty-two cases, and he was
tired out. When he came home about ten o'clock on his
last night he hoped with all his heart that he would not be
called out again. He had not had a whole night's rest for
ten days. The case which he had just come from was hor-
rible. He had been fetched by a huge, burly man, the worse
for liquor, and taken to a room in an evil-smelling court,
which was filthier than any he had seen: it was a tiny
attic; most of the space was taken up by a wooden bed,
with a canopy of dirty red hangings, and the ceiling was so
low that Philipfcould touch it with the tips of his fingers ;
with the solitary candle that afforded what light there was
he went over it, frizzling up the bugs that crawled upon
it. The woman was a blowsy creature of middle age, who
had had a long succession of still-born children. It was a
story that Philip was not unaccustomed to: the husband
had been a soldier in India; the legislation forced upon
that country by the prudery of the English public had
given a free run to the most distressing of all diseases ; the
innocent suffered. Yawning, Philip undressed and took a
bath, then shook his clothes over the water and watched
the animals that fell out wriggling. He was just going tc
get into bed when there was a knock at the door, and the
hospital porter brought him a card.

"Curse you," said Philip. "You're the last person I
wanted to see tonight. Who's brought it ?"

"I think it's the 'usband, sir. Shall I tell him to wait?"

Philip looked at the address, saw that the street was
familiar to him, and told the porter that he would find his
own way. He dressed himself and in five minutes, with his
black bag in his hand, stepped into the street. A man,
whom he could not see in the darkness, came up to him,
and said he was the husband.

710

O F H U M A N B O N D A G E 7"

"I thought I'd better wait, sir," he said. "It's a pretty
rough neighbour'ood, and them not knowing who you was."

Philip laughed.

"Bless your heart, they all know the doctor, I've been in
some damned sight rougher places than Waver Street."

It was quite true. The black bag was a passport through
wretched alleys and down foul-smelling courts into which
a policeman was not ready to venture by himself. Once or
twice a little group of men had looked r.t Philip curiously
as he passed ; he heard a mutter of observations and then
one say :

"It's the 'orspital doctor."

As he went by one or two of them said : "Good-night,
sir."

"We shall 'ave to step out if you don't mind, sir/' said
the man who accompanied him now. "They told me there
was no time to lose."

"Why did you leave it so late?" asked Philip, as he
quickened his pace.

He glanced at the fellow as they passed a lamp-post.

"You look awfully young," he said.

"I'm turned eighteen, sir."

He was fair, and he had not a hair on his face, he looked
no more than a boy ; he was short, but thick set.

"You're young to be married," said Philip.

"We 'ad to."

"How much d'you earn?"

"Sixteen, sir."

Sixteen shillings a week was not much to keep a wife
and child on. The room the couple lived in showed that
their poverty was extreme. It was a fair size, but it looked
quite large, since there was hardly any furniture in it ;
there was no carpet on the floor; there were no pictures
on the walls ; and most rooms had something, photographs
or supplements in cheap frames from the Christmas num-
bers of the illustrated papers. The patient lay on a little
iron bed of the cheapest sort. It startled Philip to see how
young she was.

"By Jove, she can't be more than sixteen," he said to the
woman who had come in to 'see her through.'

712 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

She had given her age as eighteen on the card, but when
they were very young they often put on a year or two.
Also she was pretty, which was rare in those classes in
which the constitution has been undermined by bad food,
bad air, and unhealthy occupations; she had delicate fea-
tures and large blue eyes, and a mass of dark hair done in
the elaborate fashion of the coster girl. She and her hus-
band were very nervous.

"You'd better wait outside, so as to be at hand if I want
you," Philip said to him.

Now that he saw him better Philip was surprised again
at his boyish air : you felt that he should be larking in the
street with the other lads instead of waiting anxiously for
the birth of a child. The hours passed, and it was not till
nearly two that the baby was born. Everything seemed to
be going satisfactorily; the husband was called in, and it
touched Philip to see the awkward, shy way in which he
kissed his wife; Philip packed up his things. Before going
he felt once more his patient's pulse.

"Hulloa!" he said.

He looked at her quickly : something had happened. In
cases of emergency the S. O. C. — senior obstetric clerk —
had to be sent for; he was a qualified man, and the 'dis-
trict' was in his charge. Philip scribbled a note, and giving
it to the husband, told him to run with it to the hospital ;
he bade him hurry, for his wife was in a dangerous state.
The man set off. Philip waited anxiously; he knew the
woman was bleeding to death: he was afraid she would
d;e before his chief arrived ; he took what steps he could.
He hoped fervently that the S. O. C. would not have been
called elsewhere. The minutes were interminable. He came
at last, and, while he examined the patient, in a low voice
asked Philip questions. Philip saw by his face that he
thought the case very grave. His name was Chandler. He
was a tail man of few words, with a long nose and a thin
face much lined for his age. He shook his head.

"It was hopeless from the beginning. Where's the hus-
oand?"

"I told him to wait on the stairs," said Philip.

"You'd better bring him in."

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 713

Philip opened the door and called him. He was sitting in
the dark on the first step of the flight that led to the next
floor. He came up to the bed.

"What's the matter ?" he asked.

"Why, there's internal bleeding. It's impossible to stop
it." The S. O. C. hesitated a moment, and because it was
a painful thing to say he forced his voice to become
brusque. "She's dying."

The man did not say a word; he stopped quite still,
looking at his wife, who lay, pale and unconscious, on the
bed. It was the midwife who s.poke.

"The gentlemen 'ave done ;,all they could, 'Arry," she
said. "I saw what was comin' :from the first."

"Shut up," said Chandler. f.

There were no curtains o^n' the windows, and gradually
the night seemed to lighter^ ; it was not yet the dawn, but
the dawn was at hand, (uhandler was keeping the woman
alive by all the means. /m his power, but life was slipping
away from her, and suddenly she died. The boy who was
her husband stoo^f at the end of the cheap iron bed with his
hands resting r£n the rail ; he did not speak ; but he looked
very pale an&'once or twice Chandler gave him an uneasy
glance, thirling he was going to faint: his lips were
gray. The d mid wife sobbed noisily, but he took no notice
of her. Rfis eyes were fixed upon his wife, and in them was
an utter - bewilderment. He reminded you of a dog whipped
for so-ihiething he did not know was wrong. When Chan-
dler '&nd Philip had gathered together their things Chan-
dler <" turned to the husband.

"You'd better lie down for a bit. I expect you're about
do-he up."

e"There's nowhere for me to lie down, sir," he answered,
a ^hd there was in his voice a humbleness which was very
^ Distressing.

"Don't you know anyone in the house who'll give you a
•' Shakedown?"
"No, sir."

"They only moved in last week," said the midwife.
"They don't know nobody yet."

7i4 OF HUMAN BOND AGE

Chandler hesitated a moment awkwardly, then he went
up to the man and said :

"I'm very sorry this has happened."

He held out his hand and the man, with an instinctive
glance at his own to S«KJ if it was clean, shook it.

"Thank you, sir." \

Philip shook hands with him too. Chandler told the mid-
wife to come and fetch tse certificate in the morning. They
left the house and walkeJl along together in silence.

"It upsets one a bit at fifst, doesn't it?" said Chandler at
last.

"A bit," answered Phili

"If you like I'll tell the porter not to bring you any more
calls tonight."

"I'm off duty at eight in t>^ morning in any case.

"How manv cases have you\had?"

"Sixty-three." \

"Good. You'll get your certificate then."

They arrived at the hospital, and tr2e S. O. C. went in to
see if anyone wanted him. Philip walked on. It had been
very hot all the day before, and even n<9w in the early
morning there was a balminess in the air. ffhe street was
very still. Philip did not feel inclined to go to? bed. It was
the end of his work and he need not hurry. He strolled
along, glad of the fresh air and the silence; He thought
that he would go on to the bridge and look at d'^y break
gn the river. A policeman at the corner bade hiirfl good-
morning. He knew who Philip was from his bag.

"Out late tonight, sir," he said. c

Philip nodded and passed. He leaned against the ]
pet and looked towards the morning. At that hour"-*
great city was like a city of the dead. The sky was clo!
less, but the stars were dim at the approach of day ; tht "
was a light mist on the river, and the great buildings on tB
north side were like palaces in an enchanted island. .'\
group of barges were moored in midstream. It was all c (1
an unearthly violet, troubling somehow and awe-inspiringjs '<
but quickly everything grew pale, and cold, and gray. The-jj a
the sun rose_, a ray of yellow gold stole across the sky, an« *
the sky was iridescent. Philip could not get out of his eyef s

OF HUMAN BOND AGE 7*5

the dead girl lying on the bed, wan and white, and the
boy who stood at the end of it like a stricken beast. The
bareness of the squalid room made the pain of it more
poignant. It was cruel that a stupid chance should have
cut off her life when she was just entering upon it; but in
the very moment of saying this to himself, Philip thought
of the life which had been in store for her, the bearing of
children, the dreary fight with poverty, the youth broken
by toil and deprivation into a slatternly middle age — he
saw the pretty face grow thin and white, the hair grow
scanty, the pretty hands, worn down brutally by work,
become like the claws of an old animal — then, when the
man was past his prime, the difficulty of getting jobs, the
small wages he had to take; and the inevitable, abject
penury of the end : she might be energetic, thrifty, indus-
trious, it would not have saved her; in the end was tie
workhouse or subsistence on the charity of her children.
Who could pity her because she had died when life offered
so little?

But pity was inane. Philip felt it was not that which
these people needed. They did not pity themselves. They
accepted their fate. It was the natural order of things.
Otherwise, good heavens! otherwise they would swarm
over the river in their multitude to the side where those
great buildings were, secure and stately; and they would
pillage, burn, and sack. But the day, tender and pale, had
broken now, and the mist was tenuous; it bathed every-
thing in a soft radiance; and the Thames was gray, rosy,
and green; gray like mother-of-pearl and green like the
heart of a yellow rose. The wharves and store-houses of
the Surrey Side were massed in disorderly loveliness. The
scene was so exquisite that Philip's heart beat passionately.
He was overwhelmed by the beauty of the world. Beside
that nothing seemed to matter.

cxv

PHILIP spent the few weeks that remained before the
beginning of the winter session in the out-patients' de-
partment, and in October settled down to regular work.
He had been away from the hospital for so long that he
found himself very largely among new people; the men
of different years had little to do with one another, and his
contemporaries were now mostly qualified : some had left
to take up assistantships or posts in country hospitals and
infirmaries, and some held appointments at St. Luke's.
The two years during which his mind had lain fallow had
refreshed him, he fancied, and he was able now to work
with energy.

The Athelnys were delighted with his change of for-
tune. He had kept aside a few things from the sale of his
uncle's effects and gave them all presents. He gave Sally
a gold chain that had belonged to his aunt. She was now
grown up. She was apprenticed to a dressmaker and set
out every morning at eight to work all day in a shop in
Regent Street. Sally had frank blue eyes, a broad brow,
and plentiful shining hair; she was buxom, with broad
hips and full breasts; and her father, who was fond of
discussing her appearance, warned her constantly that she
must not grow fat. She attracted because she was healthy,
animal, and feminine. She had many admirers, but they
left her unmoved ; she gave one the impression that she
looked upon love-making as nonsense ; and it was easy to
imagine that young men found her unapproachable. Sally
was old for her years: she had been used to help her
mother in the household work and in the care of the chil-
dren, so that she had acquired a managing a'r, which made
her mother say that Sally was a bit too rond of having
things her own way. She did not speak very much, but as
she grew older she seemed to be acquiring a quiet sense of

716

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 717

humour, and sometimes uttered a remark which suggested
that beneath her impassive exterior she wafe quietly bub-
bling with amusement at her f ellow-creatures.\ Philip found
that with her he never got on the terms or , affectionate
intimacy upon which he was with the rest of Athelny's
huge family. Now and then her indifference sligutlv irri-
tated him. There was something enigmatic in her.

When Philip gave her the necklace Athelny in his bois-
terous way insisted that she must kiss him; but Sally
reddened and drew back.

"No, I'm not going to," she said.

"Ungrateful hussy!" cried Athelny. ''Why not?"

"I don't like being kissed by men," she said.

Philip saw her embarrassment, and, amused, turned
Athelny's attention to something else. That was never a
very difficult thing to do. But evidently her mother spoke
of the matter later, for next time Philip came she took
the opportunity when they were alone for a couple of
minutes to refer to it.

"You didn't think it disagreeable of me last week when
I wouldn't kiss you ?"

"Not a bit," he laughed.

"It's not because I wasn't grateful." She blushed a lit-
tle as she uttered the formal phrase which she had pre-
pared. "I shall always value the necklace, and it was very
kind of you to give it me."

Philip found it always a little difficult to talk to her.
She did all that she had to do very competently, but seemed
to feel no need of conversation; yet there was nothing
unsociable in her. One Sunday afternoon when Athelny
and his wife had gone out together, and Philip, treated as
one of the family, sat reading in the parlour, Sally came
in and sat by the window to sew. The girls' clothes were
made at home and Sally could not afford to spend Sun-
days in idleness. Philip thought she wished to talk and put
down his book.

"Go on reading," she said. "I only thought as you were
alone I'd come and sit with you."

"You're the most silent person I've ever struck," said
Philip.

/l8 (>F HUMAN BONDAGE

"We don't want another one who's talkative in this
house," she sa-id.

There was no irony in her tone : she was merely stating
a fact. But K suggested to Philip that she measured her
father, alo1*' no longer the hero he was to her childhood,
and in ner rnind joined together his entertaining conver-
c«*iion and the thriftlessness which often brought diffi-
culties into their life; she compared his rhetoric with her
mother's practical common sense; and though the liveli-
ness of her father amused her she was perhaps sometimes
a little impatient with it. Philip looked at her as she bent
over her work; she was healthy, strong, and normal; it
must be odd to see her among the other girls in the shop
with their flat chests and anaemic faces. Mildred suffered
from anaemia.

After a time it appeared that Sally had a suitor. She
went out occasionally with friends she had made in the
work-room, and had met a young man, an electrical engi-
neer in a very good way of business, who was a most
eligible person. One day she told her mother that he had
asked her to marry him.

"What did you say?" said her mother.

"Oh, I told him I wasn't over-anxious to marry anyone
just yet awhile." She paused a little as was her habit be-
tween observations. "He took on so that I said he might
come to tea on Sunday."

It was an occasion that thoroughly appealed to Athelny.
He rehearsed all the afternoon how he should play the
heavy father for the young man's edification till he reduced
his children to helpless giggling. Just before he was due
Athelny routed out an Egyptian tarboosh and insisted on
putting it on.

"Go on with you, Athelny," said his wife, who was in
her best, which was of black velvet, and, since she was
growing stouter every year, very tight for her. "You'll r
spoil the girl's chances."

She tried to pull it off, but the little man skipped nimbly '
out of her way.

"Unhand me, woman. Nothing will induce me to take

O F H U M A N B 0 N D A G E 71$

it off. This young man must be shown at once that it is no
ordinary family he is preparing to enter."

"Let him keep it on, mother," said Sally, in her even,
indifferent fashion. "If Mr. Donaldson doesn't take it the
way it's meant he can take himself off, and good riddance."

Philip thought it was a severe ordeal that the young
man was being exposed to, since Athelny, in his brown
velvet jacket, flowing black tie, and red tarboosh, was a
startling spectacle for an innocent electrical engineer.
When he came he was greeted by his host with the proud
courtesy of a Spanish grandee and by Mrs. Athelny in an
altogether homely and natural fashion. They sat down at
the old ironing-table in the high-backed monkish chairs,
and Mrs. Athelny poured tea out of a lustre teapot which
gave a note of England and the country-side to the fes-
tivity. She had made little cakes with her own hand, and
on the table was home-made jam. It was a farm-house tea,
and to Philip very quaint and charming in that Jacobean
house. Athelny for some fantastic reason took it into his
head to discourse upon Byzantine history; he had been
reading the later volumes of the Decline and Fall; and, his
forefinger dramatically extended, he poured into the
astonished ears of the suitor scandalous stories about
Theodora and Irene. He addressed himself directly to his
guest with a torrent of rhodomontade ; and the young
man, reduced to helpless silence and shy, nodded his head
at intervals to show that he took an intelligent interest.
Mrs. Athelny paid no attention to Thorpe's conversation,
but interrupted now and then to offer the young man more
tea or to press upon him cake and jam. Philip watched
Sally ; she sat with downcast eyes, calm, silent, and observ-
ant; and her long eye-lashes cast a pretty shadow on her
cheek. You could not tell whether she was amused at the
scene or if she cared for the young man. She was inscrut-
able. But one thing was certain : the electrical engineer was
good-looking, fair and clean-shaven, with pleasant, regu-
, lar features, and an honest face ; he was tall and well-
made. Philip could not help thinking he would make an
excellent mate for her, and he felt a pang of envy for fhe
happiness which he fancied was in store for them.

7?o O F H U M A X B O X D A G E

Presently the suitor said he thought it was about time
he was getting along. Sally rose to her feet without a word
and accompanied him to the door. When she came back
her father burst out :

"Well, Sally, we think your young man very nice. We
are prepared to welcome him into our family. Let the
banns be called and I will compose a nuptial song."

Sally set about clearing away the tea-things. She did not
answer. Suddenly she shot a swift glance at Philip.

"What did you think of him, Mr. Philip?"

She had always refused to call him Uncle Phil as the
other children did, and would not call him Philip.

"I think you'd make an awfully handsome pair."

She looked at him quickly once more, and then with a
slight blush went on with her business.

"I thought him a very nice civil-spoken young fellow,"
said Mrs. Athelny, "and I think he's just the sort to make
any girl happy."

Sally did not reply for a minute or two, and Philip
looked at her curiously : it might be thought that she was
meditating upon what her mother had said, and on the
other hand she might be thinking of the man in the moon.

"Why don't you answer when you're spoken to, Sally?"
remarked her mother, a little irritably.

"I thought he was a silly."

"Aren't you going to have him then ?"

"No, I'm not."

"I don't know how much more you want," said Mrs.
Athelny, and it was quite clear now that she was put out.
"He's a very decent young fellow and he can afford to give
you a thorough good home. We've got quite enough to feed
here without you. If you get a chance like that it's wicked
not to take it. And I daresay you'd be able to have a girl
to do the rough work."

Philip had never before heard Mrs. Athelny refer so-
directly to the difficulties of her life. He saw how impor-
tant it was that each child should be provided for.

"It's no good your carrying on. mother." said Sally in
her quiet way. "I'm not going to marry him."

"I think you're a very hard-hearted, cruel, selfish girl."

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 7^

"If you want me to earn my own living, mother, I can
always go into service."

"Don't be so silly, you know your father would never
let you do that."

Philip caught Sally's eye, and he thought there was in
it a glimmer of amusement. He wondered what there had
been in the conversation to touch her sense of humour*
She was an odd girl.

CXVI

DtTBiNG his last year at St. Luke's Philip had to work-
hard. He was contented with life. He found it very com-
fortable to be heart-free and to have enough money for his
needs. He had heard people speak contemptuously of
money : he wondered if they had ever tried to do without
it. He knew that the lack made a man petty, mean, grasp-
ing ; it distorted his character and caused him to view the
world from a vulgar angle; when you had to consider
every penny, money became of grotesque importance : you
needed a competency to rate it at its proper value. He lived
a solitary life, seeing no one except the Athelnys, but he
was not lonely ; he busied himself with plans for the fu-
ture, and sometimes he thought of the past. His recollec-
tion dwelt now and then on old friends, but he made no
effort to see them. He would have liked to know what was
become of Norah Nesbit; she was Norah something else
now, but he could not remember the name of the man she
was going to marry ; he was glad to have known her : she
was a good and a brave soul. One evening about half past
eleven he saw Lawson, walking along Piccadilly ; he was
in evening clothes and might be supposed to be coming
back from a theatre. Philip gave way to a sudden impulse
and quickly turned down a side street. He had not seen
him for two years and felt that he could not now take up
again the interrupted friendship. He and Lawson had noth-
ing more to say to one another. Philip was no longer in-
terested in art ; it seemed to him that he was able to enjoy
beauty with greater force than when he was a boy ; but
art appeared to him unimportant. He was occupied with
the forming of a pattern out of the manifold chaos of life,
and the materials with which he worked seemed to make
preoccupation with pigments and words very trivial. Law-
son had served his turn. Philip's friendship with him had

722

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 723

been a motive in the design he was elaborating: it was
merely sentimental to ignore the fact that the painter was
of. no further interest to him.

Sometimes Philip thought of Mildred. He avoided de-
liberately the streets in which there was a chance of seeing
her ; but occasionally some feeling, perhaps curiosity, per-
haps something deeper which he would not acknowledge,
made him wander about Piccadilly and Regent Street dur-
ing the hours when she might be expected to be there. He
did not know then whether he wished to see her or dreaded
it. Once he saw a back which reminded him of hers, and
for a moment he thought it was she ; it gave him a curious
sensation : it was a strange sharp pain in his heart, there
was fear in it and a sickening dismay; and when he hur-
ried on and found that he was mistaken he did not know
whether it was relief that he experienced or disappoint-
ment.

At the beginning of August Philip passed his Surgery,
his last examination, and received his diploma. It was
seven years since he had entered St. Luke's Hospital. He
was nearly thirty. He walked down the stairs of the Royal
College of Surgeons with the roll in his hand which quali-
fied him to practice, and his heart beat with satisfaction.

"Now I'm really going to begin life," he thought.

Next day he went to the secretary's office to put his
name down for one of the hospital appointments. The
secretary was a pleasant little man with a black beard,
whom Philip had always found very affable. He congratu-
lated him on his success, and then said :

"I suppose you wouldn't like to do a locum for a month
on the South coast ? Three guineas a week with board and
lodging."

"I wouldn't mind," said Philip.

"It's at Farnley, in Dorsetshire. Doctor South. You'd
have to go down at once; his assistant has developed
mumps. I believe it's a very pleasant place."

There was something in the secretary's manner that puz
zled Philip. It was a little doubtful.

"What's the crab in it?" he asked.

• 24 O F H U M A X BONDAGE

The secretary hesitated a moment and laughed in a
conciliating fashion.

"Well, the fact it, I understand he's rather a crusty,
funny old fellow. The agencies won't send him anyone any
more. He speaks his mind vcrv openly, and men don't
like it."

"But d'you think he'll be satisfied with a man who's
only just qualified? After all I have no experience."

"He ought to be glad to get you." said the secretary
diplomatically.

Philip thought for a moment. He had nothing to do for
the next few weeks, and he was glad of the chance to
earn a bit of money. He could put it aside for the holiday
in Spain which he had promised himself when he had fin-
ished his appointment at St. Luke's or, if they would not
give him anything there, at some other hospital.

"All right. I'll go."

"The only thing is. you must go this afternoon. Will
that suit you? If so, I'll send a wire at once."

Philip 'would have liked a few days to himself ; but he
had seen the Athelnys the night before (he had gone at
once to take them his good news) and there was really no
reason why he should not start immediately. He had little
luggage to pack. Soon after seven that evening he got
out of the station at Farnley and took a cab to Doctor
South's. It was a broad low stucco house, with a Vir-
ginia creeper growing over it. He was shown into the
consulting-room. An old man was writing at a desk. He
looked up as the maid ushered Philip in. He did not get
up. and he did not speak; he merelv stared at Philip.
Philip was taken aback.

"I think you're expecting me," he said. "The secretary
of St. Luke's wired to you this morning."

"I kept dinner back for half an hour. D'you want to
wash ?"

"I do," said Philip.

Doctor South amused him by his odd manner. He got up
now, and Philip saw that he was a man of middle height,
thin, with white hair cut very short and a long mouth
closed so tightly that he seemed to have no lios at all : he

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 725

was clean-shaven but for small white whiskers, and they
increased the squareness of face which his firm jaw gave
him. He wore a brown tweed suit and a white stock. His
clothes hung loosely about him as though they had been
made for a much larger man. He looked like a respectable
farmer of the middle of the nineteenth century. He opened
the door.

"There is the dining-room," he said, pointing to the door
opposite. "Your bed-room is the first door you come to
when you get on the landing. Come downstairs when
you're ready."

During dinner Philip knew that Doctor South was ex-
amining him, but he spoke little, and Philip felt that he
did not want to hear his assistant talk.

"When were you qualified?" he asked suddenly.

"Yesterday."

"Were you at a university?"

'No"

"Last year when my assistant took a holiday they sent
me a 'Varsity man. I told 'em not to do it again. Too
damned gentlemanly for me."

There was another pause. The dinner was very simple
and very good. Philip preserved a sedate exterior, but in
his heart he was bubbling over with excitement. He was
immensely elated at being engaged as a locum ; it made him
feel extremely grown up ; he had an insane desire to laugh
at nothing in particular; and the more he thought of his
professional dignity the more he was inclined to chuckle.

But Doctor South broke suddenly into his thoughts.

"How old are you ?"

"Getting on for thirty."

"How is it you're only just qualified ?"

"I didn't go in for the medical till I was nearly twenty-
three, and I had to give it* up for two years in the mid-
dle."

"Why?"

"Poverty."

Doctor South gave him an odd look and relapsed into
silence. At the end of dinner he got up from the table.

"D'you know what sort of a practice this is?"

726 O F H U M A N B O N D A G E

"No," answered Philip.

"Mostly fishermen and their families. I have the Union
and the Seamen's Hospital. I usc-d to be alone here, but
since they tried to make this into a fashionable sea-side
resort a man has set up on the cliff, and the well-to-do
people go to him. I only have those who can't afford to
pay for a doctor at all."

Philip saw that the rivalry was a sore point with the
old man.

"You know that I have no experience," said Philip.

"You none of you know anything."

He walked out of the room without another word and
left Philip by himself. When the maid came in to clear
away she told Philip that Doctor South saw patients from
six till seven. Work for that night was over. Philip fetched
a book from his room, lit his pipe, and settled himself
down to read. It was a great comfort, since he had read
nothing but medical books for the last few months. At
ten o'clock Doctor South came in and looked at him.
Philip hated not to have his feet up, and he had dragged
up a chair for them.

"You seem able to make yourself pretty comfortable,"
said Doctor South, with a grimness which would have
disturbed Philip if he had not been in such high spirits.

Philip's eyes twinkled as he answered.

"Have you any objection ?'*

Doctor South gave him a look, but did not reply directly.

"What's that you're reading?"

"Peregrine Pickle Smollett."

"I happen to know that Smollett wrote Peregrine
Pickle."

"I beg your pardon. Medical men aren't much inter-
ested in literature, are they ?"

Philip had put the book down on the table, and Doctor
South took it up. It was a volume of an edition which had
belonged to the Vicar of Blackstable. It was a thin book
bound in faded morocco, with a copper-plate engraving
as a frontispiece; the pages were musty with age and
stained with mould. Philip, without meaning to, started
forward a little as Doctor South took the volume in his

OF HUMAN BOND AGE 727

hands, and a slight smile came into his eyes. Very little
escaped the old doctor.

"Do I amuse you?" he asked icily.

"I see you're fond of books. You can always tell by the
way people handle them."

Doctor South put down the novel immediately.

"Breakfast at eight-thirty," he said, and left the room.

"What a funny old fellow !" thought Philip.

He soon discovered why Doctor South's assistants found
it difficult to get on with him. In the first place, he set his
face firmly against all the discoveries of the last thirty
years : he had no patience with the drugs which became
modish, were thought to work marvellous cures, and in a
few years were discarded ; he had stock mixtures which he
had brought from St. Luke's, where he had been a stu-
dent, and had used all his life; he found them just as
efficacious as anything that had come into fashion since.
Philip was startled at Dr. South's suspicion of asepsis ; he
had accepted it in deference to universal opinion; but he
used the precautions which Philip had known insisted upon
so scrupulously at the hospital with the disdainful toler-
ance of a man playing at soldiers with children.

"I've seen antiseptics come along and sweep everything
before them, and then I've seen asepsis take their place.
Bunkum!"

The young men who were sent down to him knew only
hospital practice; and they came with the unconcealed
scorn for the General Practitioner which they had absorbed
in the air at the hospital ; but they had seen only the com-
plicated cases which appeared in the wards ; they knew
how to treat an obscure disease of the suprarenal bodies,
but were helpless when consulted for a cold in the head.
Their knowledge was theoretical and their self-assurance
unbounded. Doctor South watched them with tightened
lips ; he took a savage pleasure in showing them how great
was their ignorance and how unjustified their conceit. It
was a poor practice, of fishing folk, and the doctor made
up his own prescriptions. Doctor South asked his assistant
how he expected to make both ends meet if he gave a fish-
erman with a stomach-ache a mixture consisting of half a

7a8 OF HUM AN BOND AGE

dozen expensive drugs. He complained too that the young
medical men were uneducated : their reading consisted of
The Sporting Times and The British Medical Journal;
they could neither write a legible hand nor spell cor-
rectly. For two or three days Doctor South watched Philip
closely, ready to fall on him with acid sarcasm if he gave
him the opportunity ; and Philip, aware of this, went about
his work with a quiet sense of amusement. He was pleased
with the change of occupation. He liked the feeling of
independence and of responsibility. All sorts of people
came to the consulting-room. He was gratified because he
seemed able to inspire his patients with confidence ; and it
was entertaining to watch the process of cure which at a
hospital necessarily could be watched only at distant inter-
vals. His rounds took him into low-roofed cottages in
which were fishing tackle and sails and here and there
mementoes of deep-sea travelling, a lacquer box from
Japan, spears and oars from Melanesia, or daggers from
the bazaars of Stamboul ; there was an air of romance m
the stuffy little rooms, and the salt of the sea gave them
a bitter freshness. Philip liked to talk to the sailor-men,
and when they found that he was not supercilious they told
him long yarns of the distant journeys of their youth.

Once or twice he made a mistake in diagnosis : (he had
never seen a case of measles before, and when he was
confronted with the rash took it for an obscure disease of
the skin;) and once or twice his ideas of treatment dif-
fered from Doctor South's. The first time this happened
Doctor South attacked him with savage irony; but Philip
took it with good humour ; he had some gift for repartee,
and he made one or two answers which caused Doctor
South to stop and look at him curiously. Philip's face was
grave, but his eyes were twinkling. The old gentleman
could not avoid the impression that Philip was chaffing
him. He was used to being disliked and feared by his
assistants, and this was a new experience. He had half a
mind to fly into a passion and pack Philip off by the next
train, he had done that before with his assistants ; but he
had an uneasy feeling that Philip then would simply laugh
at him outright ; and suddenly he felt amused. His mouth

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 729

formed itself into a smile against his will, and he turned
away. In a little while he grew conscious that Philip was
amusing himself systematically at his expense. He was
taken aback at first and then diverted.

"Damn his impudence," he chuckled to himself. "Damn
his impucence."

ex vii

PHILIP had written to Athelny to tell him that ne was
doing a locum in Dorsetshire and in due course received
an answer from him. It was v/ritten in the formal manner
he affected, studded with pompous epithets as a Persian
diadem was studded with precious stones ; and in the beau-
tiful hand, like black letter and as difficult to read, upon
which he prided himself. He suggested that Philip should
join him and his family in the Kentish hop-field to which
he went every year; and to persuade him said various
beautiful and complicated things about Philip's soul and
the winding tendrils of the hops. Philip replied at once
that he would come on the first day he was free. Though
not born there, he had a peculiar affection for the Isle of
Thanet, and he was fired with enthusiasm at the thought
of spending a fortnight so close to the earth and amid
conditions which needed only a blue sky to be as idyllic
as the olive groves of Arcady.

The four weeks of his engagement at Farnley passed
quickly. On the cliff a new town was springing up, with
red brick villas round golf links, and a large hotel had
recently been opened to cater for the summer visitors ; but
Philip went there seldom. Down below, by the harbour,
the little stone houses of a past century were clustered
in a delightful confusion, and the narrow streets, climb-
ing down steeply, had an air of antiquity which appealed
to the imagination. By the water's edge were neat cot-
tages with trim, tiny gardens in front of them; they
were inhabited by retired captains in the merchant service,
and by mothers or widows of men who had gained their
living by the sea ; and they had an appearance which was
quaint and peaceful. In the little harbour came tramps
from Spain and the Levant, ships of small tonnage ; and
now and then a windjammer was borne in by the winds
of romance. It reminded Philip of the dirty little harbour

730

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 73*

with its colliers at Blackstable, and he thought that there
he had first acquired the desire, which was now an obses-
sion, for Eastern lands and sunlit islands in a tropic sea.
But here you felt yourself closer to the wide, deep ocean
than on the shore of that North Sea which seemed always
circumscribed ; here you could draw a long breath as you
looked out upon the even vastness ; and the west wind, the
dear soft salt wind of England, uplifted the heart and at
the same time melted it to tenderness.

One evening, when Philip had reached his last week
with Doctor South, a child came to the surgery door while
the old doctor and Philip were making up prescriptions.
It was a little ragged girl with a dirty face and bare feet.
Philip opened the door.

"Please, sir, will you come to Mrs. Fletcher's in Ivy
Lane at once?"

"What's the matter with Mrs. Fletcher?" called out
Doctor South in his rasping voice.

The child took no notice of him, but addressed herself
again to Philip.

"Please, sir, her little boy's had an accident and will
you come at once ?"

"Tell Mrs. Fletcher I'm coming," called out Doctor
South.

The little girl hesitated for a moment, and putting a
dirty finger in a dirty mouth stood still and looked at
Philip.

"What's the matter, Kid?" said Philip, smiling.

"Please, sir, Mrs. Fletcher says, will the new doctoi
come ?"

There was a sound in the dispensary and Doctor South
came out into the passage.

"Isn't Mrs. Fletcher satisfied with me?" he barked. "I've
attended Mrs. Fletcher since she was born. Why aren't I
good enough to attend her filthy brat ?"

The little girl looked for a moment as though she were
going to cry, then she thought better of it ; she put out her
tongue deliberately at Doctor South, and, before he could
recover from his astonishment, bolted off as fast as she
•could run. Philip saw that the old gentleman was annoyed.

732 O F H U M A X B O X D A G E

"You look rather fagged, and it's a goodish way to Ivy
Lane," he said, by way of giving him an excuse not to go
himself.

Doctor South gave a low snarl.

"It's a damned sight nearer for a man who's got the use
of both legs than for a man who's only got one and a
half."

Philip reddened and stood silent for a while.

"Do you wish me to go or will you go yourself?" he
said at last frigidly.

"What's the good of my going? They want you."

Philip took up his hat and went to see the patient. It was
hard upon eight o'clock when he came back. Doctor South
was standing in the dining-room with his back to the fire-
place.

"You've been a long time," he said.

"I'm sorry. Why didn't you start dinner?"

"Because I chose to wait. Have you been all this while
at Mrs. Fletcher's?"

"No, I'm afraid I haven't. I stopped to look at the
sunset on my way back, and I didn't think of the time."

Doctor South did not reply, and the servant brought in
some grilled sprats. Philip ate them with an excellent
appetite. Suddenly Doctor South shot a question at him.

"Why did you look at the sunset ?"

Philip answered with his mouth full.

"Because I was happy."

Doctor South gave him an odd look, and the shadow of
a smile flickered across his old, tired face. They ate the
rest of the dinner in silence ; but when the maid had given
them the port and left the room, the old man leaned back
and fixed his sharp eyes on Philip.

"It stung you up a bit when I spoke of your game leg,
young fellow?" he said.

"People always do, directly or indirectly, when they get
angry with me."

"I suppose they know it's your weak point."

Philip faced him and looked at him steadily.

"Are you very glad to have discovered it ?"

The doctor did not answer, but he gave a chuckle of bit-

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 733

ter mirth. They sat for a while staring at one another.
Then Doctor South surprised Philip extremely.

"Why don't you stay here and I'll get rid of that damned
fool with his mumps ?"

"It's very kind of you, but I hope to get an appoint-
ment at the hospital in the autumn. It'll help me so much
in getting other work later."

"I'm offering you a partnership," said Doctor South
grumpily.

"Why?" asked Philip, with surprise.

"They seem to like you down here."

"I didn't think that was a fact which altogether met
with your approval," Philip said drily.

"D'you suppose that after forty years' practice I care
a twopenny damn whether people prefer my assistant to
me? No, my friend. There's no sentiment between my
patients and me. I don't expect gratitude from them, 1
expect them to pay my fees. Well, what d'you say to it ?"

Philip made no reply, not because he was thinking over
the proposal, but because he was astonished. It was evi-
dently very unusual for someone to offer a partnership to
a newly qualified man ; and he realised with wonder that,
although nothing would induce him to say so, Doctor
South had taken a fancy to him. He thought how amused
the secretary at St. Luke's would be when he told him.

"The practice brings in about seven hundred a year. We
can reckon out how much your share would be worth, and
you can pay me off by degrees. And when I die you can
succeed me. I think that's better than knocking about hos-
pitals for two or three years, and then taking assistantships
until you can afford to set up for yourself."

Philip knew it was a chance that most people in his
profession would jump at; the profession was over-
crowded, and half the men he knew would be thankful to
accept the certainty of even so modest a competence as
that.

"I'm awfully sorry, but I can't," he said. "It means giv-
ing up everything I've aimed at for years. In one way and
another I've had a roughish time, but I always had that one
hope before me, to get qualified so that I might travel ; and

734 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

now, when I wake in the morning, my bones simply ache
to get off, I don't mind where particularly, but just away,
to places I've never been to."

Now the goal seemed very near. He would have finished
his appointment at St. Luke's by the middle of the follow-
ing year, and then he would go to Spain ; he could afford
to spend several months there, rambling up and down the
land which stood to him for romance ; after that he would
get a ship and go to the East. Life was before him and
time of no account. He could wander, for years if he
chose, in unfrequented places, amid strange peoples, where
life was led in strange ways. He did not know what he
sought or what his journeys would bring him ; but he had
a feeling that he would learn something new about life and
gain some clue to the mystery that he had solved only to
find more mysterious. And even if he found nothing he
would allay the unrest which gnawed at his heart. But Doc-
tor South was showing him a great kindness, and it seemed
ungrateful to refuse his offer for no adequate reason;
so in his shy way, trying to appear as matter of fact as
possible, he made some attempt to explain why it was so
important to him to carry out the plans he had cherished
so passionately.

Doctor South listened quietly, and a gentle look came
into his shrewd old eyes. It seemed to Philip an added
kindness that he did not press him to accept his offer.
Benevolence is often very peremptory. He appeared to
look upon Philip's reasons as sound. Dropping the subject,
he began to talk of his own youth; he had been in the
Royal Navy, and it was his long connection with the sea
that, when he retired, had made him settle at Farnley. He
told Philip of old days in the Pacific and of wild adven-
tures in Qiina. He had taken part in an expedition against
the head-hunters of Borneo and had known Samoa when it
was still an independent state. He had touched at coral
islands. Philip listened to him entranced. Little by little he
told Philip about himself. Doctor South was a widower,
his wife had died thirty years before, and his daughter had
married a farmer in Rhodesia ; he had quarrelled with him,
and she had not come to England for ten years. It was

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 735

just as if he had never had wife or child. He was very
lonely. His gruffness was little more than a protection
which he wore to hide a complete disillusionment; and to
Philip it seemed tragic to see him just waiting for death,
not impatiently, but rather with loathing for it, hating old
age and unable to resign himself to its limitations, and yet
with the feeling that death was the only solution of the
bitterness of his life. Philip crossed his path, and the
natural affection which long separation from his daughter
had killed — she had taken her husband's part in the quar-
rel and her children he had never seen — settled itself upon
Philip. At first it made him angry, he told himself it was a
sign of dotage; but there was something in Philip that
attracted him, and he found himself smiling at him he
knew not why. Philip did not bore him. Once or twice he
put his hand on his shpulder : it was as near a caress as
he had got since his daughter left England so many years
before. When the time came for Philip to go Doctor South
accompanied him to the station: he found himself unac-
countably depressed.

"I've had a ripping time here," said Philip. "You've
been awfully kind to me."

"I suppose you're very glad to go ?"

"I've enjoyed myself here."

"But you want to get out into the world? Ah, you have
youth." He hesitated a moment. "I want you to remem-
ber that if you change your mind my offer still stands."

"That's awfully kind of you."

Philip shook hands with him out of the carriage window,
and the train steamed out of the station. Philip thought of
the fortnight he was going to spend in the hop-field : he
was happy at the idea of seeing his friends again, and he
rejoiced because the day was fine. But Doctor South
walked slowly back to his empty house. He felt very old
and very lonely.

CXVIII

IT was late in the evening when Philip arrived at Feme.
It was Mrs. Athelny's native village, and she had been
accustomed from her childhood to pick in the hop-field to
which with her husband and her children she still went
every year. Like many Kentish folk her family had gone
out regularly, glad to earn a little money, but especially
regarding the annual outing, looked forward to for
months, as the best of holidays. The work was not hard,
it was done in common, in the open air, and for the chil-
dren it was a long, delightful picnic ; here the young men
met the maidens ; in the long evenings when work was over
they wandered about the lanes, making love ; and the hop-
ping season was generally followed by weddings. They
went out in carts with bedding, pots and pans, chairs and
tables; and Feme while the hopping lasted was deserted.
They were very exclusive and would have resented the
intrusion of foreigners, as they called the people who came
from London; they looked down upon them and feared
them too ; they were a rough lot, and the respectable coun-
try folk did not want to mix with them. In the old days the
hoppers slept in barns, but ten years ago a row of huts
had been erected at the side of a meadow ; and the Athelnys,
like many others, had the same hut every year.

Athelny met Philip at the station in a cart he had bor-
rowed from the public-house at which he had got a room
for Philip. It was a quarter of a mile from the hop-field.
They left his bag there and walked over to the meadow
in which were the huts. They were nothing more than a
long, low shed, divided into little rooms about twelve feet
square. In front of each was a fire of sticks, round which
a family was grouped, eagerly watching the cooking of
supper. The sea-air and the sun had browned already the
faces of Athelny's children. Mrs. Athelny seemed a differ-

736

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 737

ent woman in her sun-bonnet : you felt that the long years
in the city had made no real difference to her ; she was the
country woman born and bred, and you could see how
much at home she found herself in the country. She was
frying bacon and at the same time keeping an eye on the
younger children, but she had a hearty handshake and a
jolly smile for Philip. Athelny was enthusiastic over the
delights of a rural existence.

"We're starved for sun and light in the cities we live in.
It isn't life, it's a long imprisonment. Let us sell all we
have, Betty, and take a farm in the country."

"I can see you in the country," she answered with good-
humoured scorn. "Why, the first rainy day we had in the
winter you'd be crying for London." She turned to Philip.
"Athelny's always like this when we come down here.
Country, I like that ! Why, he don't know a swede from a
mangel wurzel."

"Daddy was lazy today," remarked Jane, with the frank-
ness which characterized her, "he didn't fill one bin."

"I'm getting into practice, child, and tomorrow I shall
fill more bins than all of you put together."

"Come and eat your supper, children," said Mrs.
Athelny. "Where's Sally?"

"Here I am, mother."

She stepped out of their little hut, and the flames of the
wood fire leaped up and cast sharp colour upon her face.
Of late Philip had only seen her in the trim frocks she had
taken to since she was at the dressmaker's, and there was
something very charming in the print dress she wore now,
loose and easy to work in ; the sleeves were tucked up and
showed her strong, round arms. She too had a sun-bonnet.

"You look like a milkmaid in a fairy story," said Philip,
as he shook hands with her.

"She's the belle of the hop-fields," said Athelny. "My
word, if the Squire's son sees you he'll make you an offer
of marriage before you can say Jack Robinson."

"The Squire hasn't got a son, father," said Sally.

She looked about for a place to sit down in, and Philip
made room for her beside him. She looked wonderful in
the night lit by wood fires. She was like some rural god-

738 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

dess, and you thought of those fresh, strong girls whom
old Herrick had praised in exquisite numbers. The supper
was simple, bread and butter, crisp bacon, tea for the chil-
dren, and beer for Mr. and Mrs. Athelny and Philip.
Athelny, eating hungrily, praised loudly all he ate. He
flung words of scorn at Lucullus and piled invectives upon
Brillat-Savarin.

"There's one thing one can say for you, Athelny," said
his wife, "you do enjoy your food and no mistake!"

"Cooked by your hand, my Betty," he said, stretching
out an eloquent forefinger.

Philip felt himself very comfortable. He looked hap-
pily at the line of fires, with people grouped about them,
and the colour of the flames against the night ; at the end
of the meadow was a line of great elms, and above the
starry sky. The children talked and laughed, and Athelny,
a child among them, made them roar by his tricks and
fancies.

"They think a rare lot of Athelny down here," said
his wife. "Why, Mrs. Bridges said to me, I don't know
what we should do without Mr. Athelny now, she said.
He's always up to something, he's more like a schoolboy
ihan the father of a family."

Sally sat in silence, but she attended to Philip's wants
in a thoughtful fashion that charmed him. It was pleasant
to have her beside him, and now and then he glanced at
her sunburned, healthy face. Once he caught her eyes, and
she smiled quietly. When supper was over Jane and a
small brother were sent down to a brook that ran at the
bottom of the meadow to fetch a pail of water for wash-
ing up.

"You children, show your Uncle Philip where we sleep,
and then you must be thinking of going to bed."

Small hands seized Philip, and he was dragged towards
the hut. He went in and struck a match. There was no
furniture in it ; and beside a tin box, in which clothes were
kept, there was nothing but the beds ; there were three of
them, one against each wall. Athelny followed Philip in
and showed them proudly.

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 73'P

"That's the stuff to sleep on," he cried. "None of your
spring-mattresses and swansdown. I never sleep so soundly
anywhere as here. You will sleep between sheets. My dear
fellow, I pity you from the bottom of my soul."

The beds consisted of a thick layer of hopbine, on the
top of which was a coating of straw, and this was covered
with a blanket. After a day in the open air, with the aro-
matic scent of the hops all round them, the happy pickers
slept like tops. By nine o'clock all was quiet in the meadow
and everyone in bed but one or two men who still lingered
in the public-house and would not come back till it was
closed at ten. Athelny walked there with Philip. But before
he went Mrs. Athelny said to him:

"We breakfast about a quarter to six, but I daresay you
won't want to get up as early as that. You see, we have to
set to work at six."

"Of course he must get up early," cried Athelny, "and
he must work like the rest of us. He's got to earn his
board. No work, no dinner, my lad."

"The children go down to bathe before breakfast, and
they can give you a call on their way back. They pass
The Jolly Sailor."

"If they'll wake me I'll come and bathe with them,"
said Philip.

Jane and Harold and Edwa'd shouted with delight at
the prospect, and next morning Philip was awakened out
of a sound sleep by their bursting into his room. The boys
jumped on his bed, and he had to chase them out with his
slippers. He put on a coat and a pair of trousers and
went down. The day had only just broken, and there was
a nip in the air ; but the sky was cloudless, and the sun was
shining yellow. Sally, holding Connie's hand, was standing
in the middle of the road, with a towel and a bathing-
dress over her arm. He saw now that her sun-bonnet was
of the colour of lavender, and against it her face, red and
brown, was like an apple. She greeted him with her slow,
sweet smile, and he noticed suddenly that her teeth were
small and regular and very white. He wondered why they
had never caught his attention before.

740 OFHUMANBONDAGE

"I was for letting you sleep on." she said, "but they
would go up and wake you. I said \ou didn't really want
to come."

"Oh, yes, I did."

They walked down the road and then cut across the
marshes. That way it was under a mile to the sea. The
water looked cold and gray, and Philip shivered at the
sight of it ; but the others tore off their clothes and ran in
shouting. Sally did everything a little slowly, and she did
not come into the water till all the rest were splashing
round Philip. Swimming was his only accomplishment ;
he felt at home in the water; and soon he had them all
imitating him as he played at being a porpoise, and a
drowning man, and a fat lady afraid of wetting her hair.
The bathe was uproarious, and it was necessary for Sally
to be very severe to induce them all to come out.

"You're as bad as any of them," she said to Philip, in
her grave, maternal way, which was at once comic and
touching. "They're not anything like so naughty when
you're not here."

They walked back, Sally with her bright hair stream-
ing over one shoulder and her sun-bonnet in her hand, but
when they got to the huts Mrs. Athelny had already started
for the hop-garden. Athelny, in a pair of the oldest
trousers anyone had ever worn, his jacket buttoned up to
show he had no shirt on, and in a wide-brimmed soft hat,
was frying kippers over a fire of sticks. He was delighted
with himself : he looked every inch a brigand. As soon as
he saw the party he began to shout the witches' chorus
from Macbeth over the odorous kippers.

"You mustn't dawdle over your breakfast or mother
will be angry," he said, when they came up.

And in a few minutes, Harold and Jane with pieces of
bread and butter in their hands, they sauntered through
the meadow into the hop-field. They were the last to leave.
A hop-garden was one of the sights connected with
Philip's boyhood and the oast-houses to him the most typi-
cal feature of the Kentish scene. It was with no sense of
strangeness, but as though he were at home, that Philip

OF HUM AN BONDAGE 741

followed Sally through the long lines of the hops. The
sun was bright now and cast a sharp shadow. Philip
feasted his eyes on the richness of the green leaves. The
hops were yellowing, and to him they had the beauty and
the passion which poets in Sicily have found in the pur-
ple grape. As they walked along Philip felt himself over-
whelmed by the rich luxuriance. A sweet scent arose from
the fat Kentish soil, and the fitful September breeze was
heavy with the goodly perfume of the hops. Athelstan felt
the exhilaration instinctively, for he lifted up his voice and
sang; it was the cracked voice of the boy of fifteen, and
Sally turned round.

"You be quiet, Athelstan, or we shall have a thunder-
storm."

In a moment they heard the hum of voices, and in a
moment more came upon the pickers. They were all hard
at work, talking and laughing as they picked. They sat
on chairs, on stools, on boxes, with their baskets by their
sides, and some stood by the bin throwing the hops they
picked straight into it. There were a lot of children about
and a good many babies, some in makeshift cradles, some
tucked up in a rug on the soft brown dry earth. The chil-
dren picked a little and played a great deal. The women
worked busily, they had been pickers from childhood, and
they could pick twice as fast as foreigners from London.
They boasted about the number of bushels they had picked
in a day, but they complained you could not make money
now as in former times : then they paid you a shilling for
five bushels, but now the rate was eight and even nine
bushels to the shilling. In the old days a good picker could
earn enough in the season to keep her for the rest of the
year, but now there was nothing in it; you got a holiday
for nothing, and that was about all. Mrs. Hill had bought
herself a pianner out of what she made picking, so she
said, but she was very near, one wouldn't like to be near
like that, and most people thought it was only what she
said, if the truth was known perhaps it would be found
that she had put a bit of money from the savings bank
towards it.

74* O F H U M A N B O X D A G E

The hoppers were divided into bin companies of ten
pickers, not counting children, and Athelny loudly boasted
of the day when he would have a company consisting
entirely of his own family. Each company had a bin-man,
whose duty it was to supply it with strings of hops at their
bins; (the bin was a large sack on a wooden frame, about
seven feet high, and long rows of them were placed be-
tween the rows of hops;) and it was to this position that
Athelny aspired when his family was old enough to form
a company. Meanwhile he worked rather by encouraging
others than by exertions of his own. He sauntered up to
Mrs. Athelny, who had been busy for half an hour and had
already emptied a basket into the bin, and with his ciga-
rette between his lips began to pick. He asserted that he
was going to pick more than anyone that day, but mother ;
of course no one could pick so much as mother; that re-
minded him of the trials which Aphrodite put upon the
curious Psyche, and he began to tell his children the story
of her love for the unseen bridegroom. He told it very
well. It seemed to Philip, listening with a smile on his
lips, that the old tale fitted in with the scene. The sky was
very blue now, and he thought it could not be more lovely
even in Greece. The children with their fair hair and rosy
cheeks, strong, healthy, and vivacious; the delicate form
of the hops ; the challenging emerald of the leaves, like a
blare of trumpets ; the magic of the green alley, narrowing
to a point as you looked down the row, with the pickers
in their sun-bonnets : perhaps there was more of the Greek
spirit there than you could find in the books of professors
or in museums. He was thankful for the beauty of Eng-
land. He thought of the winding white roads and the
hedgerows, the green meadows with their elm-trees, the
delicate line of the hills and the copses that crowned them,
the flatness of the marshes, and the melancholy of the
North Sea. He was very glad that he felt its loveliness.
But presently Athelny grew restless and announced that
he would go and ask how Robert Kemp's mother was. He
knew everyone in the garden and called them all by their
Christian names ; he knew their family histories and all
that had happened to them from birth. With harmless

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 745

vanity he played the fine gentleman among them, and there
was a touch of condescension in his familiarity. Philip
would not go with him.

"I'm going to earn my dinner," he said.

"Quite right, my boy," answered Athelny, with a wave
of the hand, as he strolled away. "No work, no dinner."

CXIX

PHILIP had not a basket of his own, but sat with Sally.
Jane thought it monstrous that he should help her elder
sister rather than herself, and he had to promise to pick
for her when Sally's basket was full. Sally was almost as
-niick as her mother.

"Won't it hurt your hands for sewing?" asked Philip.

"Oh, no, it wants soft hands. That's why women pick
better than men. If your hands are hard and your fingers
all stiff with a lot of rough work you can't pick near so
well."

He liked to see her deft movements, and she watched
him too now and then with that maternal spirit of hers
which was so amusing and yet so charming. He was clumsy
at first, and she laughed at him. When she bent over and
showed him how best to deal with a whole line their hands
met. He was surprised to see her blush. He could not per-
suade himself that she was a woman; because he had
known her as a flapper, he could not help looking upon her
as a child still; yet the number of her admirers showed
that she was a child no longer ; and though they had only
been down a few days one of Sally's cousins was already
so attentive that she had to endure a lot of chaffing. His
name was Peter Gann, and he was the son of Mrs.
Athelny's sister, who had married a farmer near Feme.
Everyone knew why he found it necessary to walk through
the hop-field every day.

A call-off by the sounding of a horn was made for
breakfast at eight, and though Mrs. Athelny told them they
had not deserved it, they ate it very heartily. They set to
work again and worked till twelve, when the horn sounded
once more for dinner. At intervals the measurer went his
round from bin to bin, accompanied by the booker, who
entered first in his own book and then in the hopper's the
number of bushels picked. As each bin was filled it was

744

OFHUMANBONDAGE 745

measured out in bushel baskets into a huge bag called a
poke; and this the measurer and the pole-puller carried
off between them and put on the waggon. Athelny came
back now and then with stories of how much Mrs. Heath
or Mrs. Jones had picked, and he conjured his family to
beat her: he was always wanting to make records, and
sometimes in his enthusiasm picked steadily for an hour.
His chief amusement in it, however, was that it showed
the beauty of his graceful hands, of which he was exces-
sively proud. He spent much time manicuring them. He
told Philip, as he stretched out his tapering fingers, that
the Spanish grandees had always slept in oiled gloves to
preserve their whiteness. The hand that wrung the throat
of Europe, he remarked dramatically, was as shapely and
exquisite as a woman's; and he looked at his own, as he
delicately picked the hops, and sighed with self-satisfac-
tion. When he grew tired of this he rolled himself a ciga-
rette and discoursed to Philip of art and literature. In the
afternoon it grew very hot. Work did not proceed so
actively and conversation halted. The incessant chatter of
the morning dwindled now to desultory remarks. Tiny
beads of sweat stood on Sally's upper lip, and as she
worked her lips were flightly parted. She was like a rose-
bud bursting into flower.

Calling-off time depended on the state of the oast-house.
Sometimes it was filled early, and as many hops had been
picked by three or four as could be dried during the night.
Then work was stopped. But generally the last measuring
of the day began at five. As each company had its bin
measured it gathered up its things and, chatting again new
that work was over, sauntered out of the garden. The
women went back to the huts to clean up and prepare the
, supper, while a good many of the men strolled down the
road to the public-house. A glass of beer was very pleas-
ant after the day's work.

The Athelnys' bin was the last to be dealt with. When
the measurer came Mrs. Athelny, with a sigh of relief,
stood up and stretched her arms: she had been sitting in
the same position for many hours and was stiff.

"Now, let's go to The Jolly Sailor," said Athelny. "The

746 < > I H U M A X BOND A G E

rites of the day must be duly performed, and there is none
more sacred than that."

"Take a jug with you, Athelny," said his wife, "and
bring back a pint and a half for sup]>er."

She gave him the money, copper by copper. The bar-
parlour was already well filled. It had a sanded floor,
benches round it, and yellow pictures of Victorian prize-
fighters on the walls. The licencee knew all his customers
by name, and he leaned over his bar smiling benignly at
two young men who were throwing rings on a stick
that stood -up from the floor : their failure was greeted
with a good deal of hearty chaff from the rest of the com-
pany. Room was made for the new arrivals. Philip found
himself sitting between an old labourer in corduroys, with
string tied under his knees, and a shiny-faced lad of seven-
teen with a love-lock neatly plastered on his red forehead.
Athelny insisted on trying his hand at the throwing of
rings. He backed himself for half a pint and won it. As
he drank the loser's health he said :

"I would sooner have won this than won the Derby, my
boy."

He was an outlandish figure, with his wide-brimmed h^t
and pointed beard, among those country folk, and il ivas
easy to see that they thought him very queer; "but his
spirits were so high, his enthusiasm so contagious, that it
was impossible not to like him. Conversation went easily.
A certain number of pleasantries were exchanged in the
broad, slow accent of the Isle of Thanet, and there was
uproarious laughter at the sallies of the local wag. A pleas-
ant gathering! It would have been a hard-hearted person
who did not feel a glow of satisfaction in his fellows.
Philip's eyes wandered out of the window where it was
bright and sunny still ; there were little white curtains in it
tied up with red ribbon like those of a cottage window,
and on the sill were pots of geraniums. In due course one
by one the idlers got up and sauntered back to the meadow
where supper was cooking.

"I expect you'll be ready for your bed," said Mrs.
Athelny to Philip. "You're not used to getting up at five
and staying in the open air all day."

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 747

"You're coming to bathe with us, Uncle Phil, aren't
you?" the boys cried.

"Rather."

He was tired and happy. After supper, balancing him-
self against the wall of the hut on a chair without a back,
he smoked his pipe and looked at the night. Sally was busy.
She passed in and out of the hut, and he lazily watched her
methodical actions. Her walk attracted his notice; it was
not particularly graceful, but it was easy and assured ; she
swung her legs from the hips, and her feet seemed to
tread the earth with decision. Athelny had gone off to
gossip with one of the neighbours, and presently Philip
heard his wife address the world in general.

"There now, I'm out of tea and I wanted Athelny to
go down to Mrs. Black's and get some." A pause, and then
her voice was raised: "Sally, just run down to Mrs.
Black's and get me half a pound of tea, will you ? I've run
quite out of it."

"All right, mother."

Mrs. Black had a cottage about half a mile along the
road, and she combined the office of postmistress with that
of universal provider. Sally came out of the hut, turning
c'^wn her sleeves.

"Shall I come with you, Sally?" asked Philip.

"Don't you trouble. I'm not afraid to go alone."

"I didn't think you were ; but it's getting near my bed-
time, and I was just thinking I'd like to stretch my legs."

Sally did not answer, and they set out together. The road
was white and silent. There was not a sound in the sum-
mer night. They did not speak much.

"It's quite hot even now, isn't it ?" said Philip.

"I think it's wonderful for the time of year."

But their silence did not seem awkward. They found
,it was pleasant to walk side by side and felt no need of
words. Suddenly at a stile in the hedgerow they heard a
low murmur of voices, and in the darkness they saw the
outline of two people. They were sitting very close to one
another and did not move as Philip and Sally passed.

"I wonder who that was," said Sally.

"They looked happy enough, didn't they?"

748 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

"I expect they took us for lovers too."

They saw the light of the cottage in front of them, and
in a minute went into the little shop. The glare dazzled
them for a moment.

"You are late," said Mrs. Black. "I was just going to
shut up." She looked at the' clock. "Getting on for nine."

Sally asked for her half pound of tea, (Mrs. Athelny
could never bring herself to buy more than half a pound
at a time,) and they set off up the road again. Now and
then some beast of the night made a short, sharp sound,
but it seemed only to make the silence more marked.

"I believe if you stood still you could hear the sea,"
said Sally.

They strained their ears, and their fancy presented them
with a faint sound of little waves lapping up against the
shingle. When they passed the stile again the lovers were
still there, but now they were not speaking; they were in
one another's arms, and the man's lips were pressed
against the girl's.

"They seem busy," said Sally.

They turned a corner, and a breath of warm wind beat
for a moment against their faces. The earth gave forth its
freshness. There was something strange in the tremulous
night, and something, you knew not what, seemed to be
waiting ; the silence was on a sudden pregnant with mean-
ing. Philip had a queer feeling in his heart, it seemed very
full, it seemed to melt, (the hackneyed phrases expressed
precisely the curious sensation, ) he felt happy and anxious
and expectant. To his memory came back those lines in
which Jessica and Lorenzo murmur melodious words to
one another, capping each other's utterance; but passion
shines bright and clear through the conceits that amuse
them. He did not know what there was in the air that made
his senses so strangely alert ; it seemed to him that he was
pure soul to enjoy the scents and the sounds and the
savours of the earth. He had never felt such an exquisite
capacity for beauty. He was afraid that Sally by speaking
would break the spell, but she said never a word, and he
wanted to hear the sound of her voice. Its low richness
was the voice of the country night itself.

OF t HUMAN BONDAGE 749

They arrived at the field through which she had to walk
to get back to the huts. Philip went in to hold the gate
open for her.

"Well, here I think I'll say good-night."
"Thank you for coming all that way with me."
She gave him her hand, and as he took it, he said :
"If you were very nice you'd kiss me good-night like
the rest of the family."
"I don't mind," she said.

Philip had spoken in jest. He merely wanted to kiss her,
because he was happy and he liked her and the night was
so lovely.

"Good-night then," he said, with a little laugh, drawing
her towards him.

She gave him her lips; they were warm and full and
soft; he lingered a little, they were like a flower; then, he
knew not how, without meaning it, he flung his arms
round her. She yielded quite silently. Her body was firm
and strong. He felt her heart beat against his. Then he
lost his head. His senses overwhelmed him like a flood of
rushing waters. He drew her into the darker shadow of
the hedge.

cxx

PHILIP slept like a log and awoke with a start to find
Harold tickling his face with a feather. There was a shout
of delight when he opened his eyes. He was drunken with
sleep.

"Come on, lazy bones," said Jane. "Sally says she won't
wait for you unless you hurry up."

Then he remembered what had happened. His heart
sank, and, half out of bed already, he stopped; he did
not know how he was going to face her; he was over-
whelmed with a sudden rush of self-reproach, and bitterly,
bitterly, he regretted what he had done. What would she
say to him that morning ? He dreaded meeting her, and he
asked himself how he could have been such a fool. But
the children gave him no time; Edward took his bathing-
drawers and his rowel, Athelstan tore the bed-clothes
away ; and in three minutes they all clattered down into the
road. Sally gave him a smile. It was as sweet and innocent
as it had ever been.

"You do take a time to dress yourself," she said. "I
thought you was never coming."

There was not a particle of difference in her manner.
He had expected some change, subtle or abrupt ; he fancied
that there would be shame in the way she treated him, or
anger, or perhaps some increase of familiarity; but there
was nothing. She was exactly the same as before. They
walked towards the sea all together, talking and laughing;
and Sally was quiet, but she was always that, reserved, but
he had never seen her otherwise, and gentle. She neither
sought conversation with him nor avoided it. Philip was
astounded. He had expected the incident of the night be-
fore to have caused some revolution in her, but it was just
as though nothing had happened; it might have been a
dream ; and as he walked along, a little girl holding on to
one hand and a little boy to the other, while he chatted as

750

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 75»

unconcernedly as he could, he sought for an explanation
He wondered whether Sally meant the affair to be for-
gotten. Perhaps her senses had run away with her just ai
his had, and, treating what had occurred as an accident due
to unusual circumstances, it might be that she had decided
to put the matter out of her mind. It was ascribing to her
a power of thought and a mature wisdom which fitted
neither with her age nor with her character. But he realised
that he knew nothing of her. There had been in her always
something enigmatic.

They played leap-frog in the water, and the bathe was
as uproarious as on the previous day. Sally mothered
them all, keeping a watchful eye on them, and calling to
them when they went out too far. She swam staidly back-
wards and forwards while the others got up to their larks,
and now andjthen turned on her back to float. Presently
she went out and began drying herself ; she called to the
others more or less peremptorily, and at last only Philip
was left in the water. He took the opportunity to have a
good hard swim. He was more used to the cold water this
second morning, and he revelled in its salt freshness; it
rejoiced him to use his limbs freely, and he covered the
water with long, firm strokes. But Sally, with a towel
round her, went down to the water's edge.

"You're to come out this minute, Philip," she called, as
though he were a small boy under her charge.

And when, smiling with amusement at her authoritative
way, he came towards her, she upbraided him.

"It is naughty of you to stay in so long. Your lips are
quite blue, and just look at your teeth, they're chatter-
ing."

"All right. I'll come out."

She had never talked to him in that manner before. It
was as though what had happened gave her a sort of right
over him, and she looked upon him as a child to be cared
for. In a few minutes they were dressed, and they started
to walk back. Sally noticed his hands.

"Just look, they're quite blue."

"Oh, that's all right. It's only the circulation. I shall
get the blood back in a minute."

f52 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

"Give them to me."

She took his hands in hers and rubbed them, first one
and then the other, till the colour returned. Philip, touched
and puzzled, watched her. He could not say anything to
her on account of the children, and he did not meet her
eyes; but he was sure they did not avoid his purposely,
it just happened that they did not meet. And during the
day there was nothing in her behaviour to suggest a con-
sciousness in her that anything had passed between them.
Perhaps she was a little more talkative than usual. When
they were all sitting again in the hop-field she told her
mother how naughty Philip had been in not coming out
of the water till he was blue with cold. It was incredible,
and yet it seemed that the only effect of the incident of the
night before was to arouse in her a feeling of protection
towards him : she had the same instinctive desire to mother
him as she had with regard to her brothers and sisters.

It was not till the evening that he found himself alone
with her. She was cooking the supper, and Philip was sit-
ting on the grass by the side of the fire. Mrs. Athelny had
gone down to the village to do some shopping, and the
children were scattered in various pursuits of their own.
Philip hesitated to speak. He was very nervous. Sally
attended to her business with serene competence and she
accepted placidly the silence which to him was so embar-
rassing. He did not know how to begin. Sally seldom spoke
unless she was spoken to or had something particular to
say. At last he could not bear it any longer.

"You're not angry with me, Sally?" he blurted out
suddenly.

She raised her eyes quietly and looked at him without
emotion.

"Me? No. Why should I be?"

He was taken aback and did not reply. She took the
lid off the pot, stirred the contents, and put it on again.
A savoury smell spread over the air. She looked at him
once more, with a quiet smile which barely separated her
lips; it was more a smile of the eyes.

"I always liked you," she said.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 753

His heart gave a great thump against his ribs, and he
felt the blood rushing to his cheeks. He forced a faint
laugh.

"I didn't know that."

"That's because you're a silly."

"I don't know why you liked me."

"I don't either." She put a little more wood on the fire,
"I knew I liked you that day you came when you'd been
sleeping out and hadn't had anything to eat, d'you remem-
ber? And me and mother, we got Thorpy's bed ready for
you."

He flushed again, for he did not know that she was
aware of that incident. He remembered it himself with
horror and shame.

"That's why I wouldn't have anything to do with the
others. You remember that young fellow mother wanted
me to have ? I let him come to tea because he bothered so,
but I knew I'd say no."

Philip was so surprised that he found nothing to say.
There was a queer feeling in his heart; he did not know
what it was, unless it was happiness. Sally stirred the pot
once more.

"I wish those children would make haste and come. I
don't know where they've got to. Supper's ready now."

"Shall I go and see if I can find them?" said Philip.

It was a relief to talk about practical things.

"Well, it wouldn't be a bad idea, I must say. . . . There's
mother coming."

Then, as he got up, she looked at him without embar-
rassment.

"Shall I come for a walk with you tonight when I've
put the children to bed ?"

"Yes."

"Well, you wait for me down by the stile, and I'll come
when I'm ready."

He waited under the stars, sitting on the stile, and the
hedges with their ripening blackberries were high on each
side of him. From the earth rose rich scents of the night,
and the air was soft and still. His heart was beating madly.

754 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

He could not understand anything of what happened to
him. He associated passion with cries and tears and vehe-
mence, and there was nothing of this in Sally ; but he did
not know what else but passion could have caused her to
give herself. But passion for him? He would not have
been surprised if she had fallen to her cousin, Peter Gann,
tall, spare, and straight, with his sunburned face and long,
easy stride. Philip wondered what she saw in him. He
did not know if she loved him as he reckoned love. And
yet? He was convinced of her purity. He had a vague in-
kling that many things had combined, things that she .felt
though was unconscious of, the intoxication of the air and
the hops and the night, the healthy instincts of the natural
woman, a tenderness that overflowed, and an affection that
had in it something maternal and something sisterly ; and
she gave all she had to give because her heart was full of
charity.

He heard a step on the road, and a figure came out of
the darkness.

"Sally," he murmured.

She stopped and came to the stile, and with her came
sweet, clean odours of the country-side. She seemed to
carry with her scents of the new-mown hay, and the
savour of ripe hops, and the freshness of young grass.
Her lips were soft and full against his, and her lovely,
strong body was firm within his arms.

"Milk and honey," he said. "You're like milk and
honey."

He made her close her eyes and kissed her eyelids, first
one and then the other. Her arm, strong and muscular,
was bare to the elbow; he passed his hand over it and
wondered at its beauty; it gleamed in the darkness; she
had the skin that Rubens painted, astonishingly fair and
transparent, and on one side were little golden hairs. It
was the arm of a Saxon goddess; but no immortal had
that exquisite, homely naturalness; and Philip thought of
a cottage garden with the dear flowers which bloom in all
men's hearts, of the hollyhock and the red and white rose
which is called York and Lancaster, and of love-in-a-mist

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 755

and Sweet William, and honeysuckle, larkspur, and Lon-
don Pride.

"How can you care for me?" he said. "I'm insignificant
and crippled and ordinary and ugly."

She took his face in both her hands and kissed his lips
"You're an old silly, that's what you are," she said.

CXXI

WHEN the hops were picked, Philip with the news in his
pocket that he had got the appointment as assistant house-
physician at St. Luke's, accompanied the Athelnys back-
to London. He took modest rooms in Westminster and at
the beginning of October entered upon his duties. The
work was interesting and varied ; every day he learned
something new; he felt himself of some consequence; and
he saw a good deal of Sally. He found life uncommonly
pleasant. He was free about six, except on the days on
which he had out-patients, and then he went to the shop
at which Sally worked to meet her when she came out.
There were several young men, who hung about opposite
the 'trade entrance' or a little further along, at the first
corner ; and the girls, coming out two and two or in little
groups, nudged one another and giggled as they recog-
nised them. Sally in her plain black dress looked very
different from the country lass who had picked hops side
by side with him. She walked away from the shop quickly,
but she slackened her pace when they met, and greeted him
with her quiet smile. They walked together through the
busy street. He talked to her of his work at the hospital,
and she told him what she had been doing in the shop that
day. He came to know the names of the girls she worked
with. He found that Sally had a restrained, but keen, sense
of the ridiculous, and she made remarks about the girls or
the men who were set over them which amused him by
their unexpected drollery. She had a way of saying a
thing which was very characteristic, quite gravely, as
though there were nothing funny in it at all, and yet it
was so sharp-sighted that Philip broke into delighted
laughter. Then she would give him a little glance in which
the smiling eyes showed she was not unaware of her own
humour. They met with a handshake and parted as for-

756

O F H U M A N B O N D A G E 757

mally. Once Philip asked her to come and have tea with
him in his rooms, but she refused.

"No, I won't do that. It would look funny."

Never a word of love passed between them. She seemed
not to desire anything more than the companionship of
those walks. Yet Philip was positive that she was glad to
be with him. She puzzled him as much as she had done at
the beginning. He did not begin to understand her con-
duct ; but the more he knew her the fonder he grew of her ;
she was competent and self-controlled, and there was a
charming honesty in her : you felt that you could rely
upon her in every circumstance.

"You are an awfully good sort," he said to her once
a propos of nothing at all.

"I expect I'm just the same as everyone else," she an-
swered.

He knew that he did not love her. It was a great affec-
tion that he felt for her, and he liked her company ; it was
curiously soothing; and he had a feeling for her which
seemed to him ridiculous to entertain towards a shop-girl
of nineteen: he respected her. And he admired her mag-
nificent healthiness. She was a splendid animal, without
defect; and physical perfection filled him always with
admiring awe. She made him feel unworthy.

Then, one day, about three weeks after they had come
back to London as they walked together, he noticed that
she was unusually silent. The serenity of her expression
was altered by a slight line between the eyebrows : it was
the beginning of a frown.

"What's the matter, Sally ?" he asked.

She did not look at him, but straight in front of her,
and her colour darkened.

"I don't know."

He understood at once what she meant. His heart gave a
sudden, quick beat, and he felt the colour leave his cheeks.

"What d'you mean? Are you afraid that ... ?"

He stopped. He could not go on. The possibility that
anything of the sort could happen had never crossed his
mind. Then he saw that her lips were trembling, and she
was trying not to cry.

758 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

"I'm not certain yet. Perhaps it'll be all right."
They walked on in silence till they came to the corner of
Chancery Lane, where he always left her. She held out
her hand and smiled.

"Don't worry about it yet. Let's hope for the best."
He walked away with a tumult of thoughts in his head.
What a fool he had been! That was the first thing that
struck him, an abject, miserable fool, and he repeated it to
himself a dozen times in a rush of angry feeling. He de-
spised himself. How could he have got into such a mess?
But at tire same time, for his thoughts chased one an-
other through his brain and yet seemed to stand together,
in a hopeless confusion, like the pieces of a jig-saw puz-
zle seen in a nightmare, he asked himself what he was
going to do. Everything was so clear before him, all he
had aimed at so long within reach at last, and now his
inconceivable stupidity had erected this new obstacle.
Philip had never been able to surmount what he acknowl-
edged was a defect in his resolute desire for a well-ordered
life, and that was his passion for living in the future ; and
no sooner was he settled in his work at the hospital than
he had busied himself with arrangements for his travels.
In the past he had often tried not to think too circum-
stantially of his plans for the future, it was only discourag-
ing ; but now that his goal was so near he saw no harm in
giving away to a longing that was so difficult to resist.
First of all he meant to go to Spain. That was the land of
his heart; and by now he was imbued with its spirit, its
romance and colour and history and grandeur ; he felt that
it had a message for him in particular which no other
country could give. He knew the fine old cities already as
though he had trodden their tortuous streets from child-
hood, Cordova, Seville, Toledo, Leon, Tarragona, Burgos.
The great painters of Spain were the painters of his soul,
and his pulse beat quickly as he pictured his ecstasy on
standing face to face with those works which were more
significant than any others to his own tortured, restless
heart. He had read the great poets, more characteristic of
their race than the poets of other lands ; for they seemed
to have drawn their inspiration not at all from the general

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 759

currents of the world's literature but directly from the
torrid, scented plains and the bleak mountains of their
country. A few short months now, and he would hear with
his own ears all around him the language which seemed
most apt for grandeur of soul and passion. His fine taste
had given him an inkling that Andalusia was too soft and
sensuous, a little vulgar even, to satisfy his ardour; and
his imagination dwelt more willingly among the wind-
swept distances of Castile and the rugged magnificence
of Aragon and Leon. He did not know quite what those
unknown contacts would give him, but he felt that he
would gather from them a strength and a purpose which
would make him more capable of affronting and compre-
hending the manifold wonders of places more distant and
more strange.

For this was only a beginning. He had got into com
munication with the various companies which took sur-
geons out on their ships, and knew exactly what were their
routes, and from men who had been on them what were
the advantages and disadvantages of each line. He put
aside the Orient and the P. & O. It was difficult to get a
berth with them; and besides their passenger traffic al-
lowed the medical officer little freedom; but there were
other services which sent large tramps on leisurely expe-
ditions to the East, stopping at all sorts of ports for vari-
ous periods, from a day or two to a fortnight, so that you
had plenty of time, and it was often possible to make a
trip inland. The pay was poor and the food no more than
adequate, so that there was not much demand for the
posts, and a man with a London degree was pretty sure
to get one if he applied. Since there were no passengers
other than a casual man or so, shipping on business from
some out-of-the-way port to another, the life on board
was friendly and pleasant. Philip knew by heart the list of
places at which they touched; and each one called up in
him visions of tropical sunshine, and magic colour, and of
a teeming, mysterious, intense life. Life! That was what
he wanted. At last he would come to close quarters with
life. And perhaps, from Tokio or Shanghai it would be
possible to tranship into some other line and drop down to

760 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

the islands of the South Pacific. A doctor was useful any-
where. There might be an opportunity to go up country in
Burmah, and what rich jungles in Sumatra or Borneo
might he not visit? He was young still and time was no
object to him. He had no ties in England, no friends; he
could go up and down the world for years, learning the
beauty and the wonder and the variedness of life.

Now this thing had come. He put aside the possibility
that Sally was mistaken ; he felt strangely certain that she
was right ; after all, it was so likely ; anyone could see that
Nature had built her to be the mother of children. He
knew what he ought to do. He ought not to let the inci-
dent divert him a hair's breadth from his path. He thought
of Griffiths; he could easily imagine with what indiffer-
ence that young man would have received such a piece
of news ; he would have thought it an awful nuisance and
would at once have taken to his heels, like a wise fellow ;
he would have left the girl to deal with her troubles as best
she could. Philip told himself that if this had happened
it was because it was inevitable. He was no more to blame
than Sally; she was a girl who knew the world and the
facts of life, and she had taken the risk with her eyes
open. It would be madness to allow such an accident to
disturb the whole pattern of his life. He was one of the
few people who was acutely conscious of the transitori-
ness of life, and how necessary it was to make the most of
it. He would do what he could for Sally ; he could afford
to give her a sufficient sum of money. A strong man would
never allow himself to be turned from his purpose.

Philip said all this to himself, but he knew he could
not do it. He simply could not. He knew himself.

"I'm so damned weak," he muttered despairingly.

She had trusted him and been kind to him. He simply
could not do a thing which, notwithstanding all his reason,
he felt was horrible. He knew he would have no peace on
his travels if he had the thought constantly with him that
she was wretched. Besides, there were her father and
mother: they had always treated him well; it was not
possible to repay them with ingratitude. The only thing
was to marry Sally as quickly as possible. He would write

OF HUMAN BONDAGE 761

to Doctor South, tell him he was going to be married at
once, and say that if his offer still held he was willing to
accept it. That sort of practice, among poor people, was the
only one possible for him; there his deformity did not
matter, and they would not sneer at the simple manners
of his wife. It was curious to think of her as his wife, it
gave him a queer, soft feeling; and a wave of emotion
spread over him as he thought of the child which was his.
He had little doubt that Doctor South would be glad to
have him, and he pictured to himself the life he would
lead with Sally in the fishing village. They would have
a little house within sight of the sea, and he would watch
the mighty ships passing to the lands he would never
know. Perhaps that was the wisest thing. Cronshaw had
told him that the facts of life mattered nothing to him
who by the power of fancy held in fee the twin realms of
space and time. It was true. Forever wilt thou love and she
be fair!

His wedding present to his wife would be all his high
hopes. Self-sacrifice! Philip was uplifted by its beauty,
and all through the evening he thought of it. He was so
excited that he could not read. He seemed to be driven
out of his rooms into the streets, and he walked up and
down Birdcage Walk, his heart throbbing with joy. He
could hardly bear his impatience. He wanted to see Sally's
happiness when he made her his offer, and if it had not
been so late he would have gone to her there and then.
He pictured to himself the long evenings he would spend
with Sally in the cosy sitting-room, the blinds undrawn so
that they could watch the sea; he with his books, while
she bent over her work, and the shaded lamp made her
sweet face more fair. They would talk over the growing
child, and when she turned her eyes to his there was in
them the light of love. And the fishermen and their wives
who were his patients would come to feel a great affection
for them, and they in their turn would enter into the
pleasures and pains of those simple lives. But his thoughts
returned to the son who would be his and hers. Already he
felt in himself a passionate devotion to it. He thought of
passing his hands over his little perfect limbs, he knew he

762 OF HUM AN BONDAGE

would be beautiful ; and he would make over to him all his
dreams of a rich and varied life. And thinking over the
long pilgrimage of his past he accepted it joyfully. He
accepted the deformity which had made life so hard for
him ; he knew that it had warped his character, but now he
saw also that by reason of it he had acquired that power
of introspection which had given him so much delight.
Without it he would never have had his keen appreciation
of beauty, his passion for art and literature, and his inter-
est in the varied spectacle of life. The ridicule and the
contempt which had so often been heaped upon him had
turned his mind inward and called forth those flowers
which he felt would never lose their fragrance. Then he
saw that the normal was the rarest thing in the world.
Everyone had some defect, of body or of mind : he thought
of all the people he had known, (the whole world was
like a sick-house, and there was no rhyme or reason in it,)
he saw a long procession, deformed in body and warped in
mind, some with illness of the flesh, weak hearts or weak
lungs, and some with illness of the spirit, languor of will,
or a craving for liquor. At this moment he could feel a
holy compassion for them all. They were the helpless in-
struments of blind chance. He could pardon Griffiths for
his treachery and Mildred for the pain she had caused
him. They could not help themselves. The only reasonable
thing was to accept the good of men and be patient with
their faults. The words of the dying God crossed his
memory :

Fvrgive them, for they know not what they do.

CXXII

HE had arranged to meet Sally on Saturday in the
National Gallery. She was to come there as soon as she was
released from the shop and had agreed to lunch with him.
Two days had passed since he had seen her, and his exul-
tation had not left him for a moment. It was because he
rejoiced in the feeling that he had not attempted to see
her. He had repeated to himself exactly what he would
say to her and how he should say it. Now his impatience
was unbearable. He had written to Doctor South and had
in his pocket a telegram from him received that morning :
''Sacking the mumpish fool. When will you come?"
Philip walked along Parliament Street. It was a fine day,
and there was a bright, frosty sun which made the light
dance in the street. It was crowded. There was a tenuous
mist in the distance, and it softened exquisitely the noble
lines of the buildings. He crossed Trafalgar Square. Sud-
denly his heart gave a sort of twist in his body ; he saw a
woman in front of him who he thought was Mildred.
She had the same figure, and she walked with that slight
dragging of the feet which was so characteristic of her.
Without thinking, but with a beating heart, he hurried
till he came alongside, and then, when the woman turned,
he saw it was someone unknown to him. It was the face
of a much older person, with a lined, yellow skin. He
slackened his pace. He was infinitely relieved, but it was
not only relief that he felt; it was disappointment too;
he was seized with horror of himself. Would he never be
free from that passion? At the bottom of his heart, not-
withstanding everything, he felt that a strange, desperate
thirst for that vile woman would always linger. That love
had caused him so much suffering that he knew he would
never, never quite be free of it. Only death could finally
assuage his desire.

But he wrenched the pang from his heart. He thought

763

764 O F H U M A N B O N D A G E

of Sally, with her kind blue eyes; and his lips uncon-
sciously formed themselves into a smile. He walked up the
steps of the National Gallery and sat down in the first
room, so that he should see her the moment she came in.
It always comforted him to get among pictures. He looked
at none in particular, but allowed the magnificence of their
colour, the beauty of their lines, to work upon his soul.
His imagination was busy with Sally. It would be pleasant
to take her away from that London in which she seemed
an unusual figure, like a cornflower in a shop among
orchids and azaleas; he had learned in the Kentish hop-
field that she did not belong to the town ; and he was sure
that she would blossom under the soft skies of Dorset to
a rarer beauty. She came in, and he got up to meet her.
She was in black, with white cuffs at her wrists and a
lawn collar round her neck. They shook hands.

"Have you been waiting long?"

"No. Ten minutes. Are you hungry?"

"Not very."

"Let's sit here for a bit, shall we ?"

"If yoy like."

They sat quietly, side by side, without speaking. Philip
enjoyed having her near him. He was warmed by her
radiant health. A glow of life seemed like an aureole to
shine about her.

"Well, how have you been ?" he said at last, with a little
smile.

"Oh, it's all right. It was a false alarm."

"Was it?"

"Aren't you glad?"

An extraordinary sensation filled him. He had felt cerr
tain that Sally's suspicion was well-founded ; it had never
occurred to him for an instant that there was a possibility
of error. All his plans were suddenly overthrown, and the
existence, so elaborately pictured, was no more than a
dream which would never be realised. He was free once
more. Free! He need give up none of his projects, and
life still was in his hands for him to do what he liked with.
He felt no exhilaration, but only dismay. His heart sank.
The future stretched out before him in desolate emptiness.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE ?b5

It was as though he had sailed for many years over a
great waste of waters, with peril and privation, and at last
had come upon a fair haven, but as he was about to enter,
some contrary wind had arisen and drove him out again
into the open sea; and because he had let his mind dwell
on these soft meads and pleasant woods of the land, the
vast deserts of the ocean filled him with anguish. He could
not confront again the loneliness and the tempest. Sally
looked at him with her clear eyes.

"Aren't you glad?" she asked again. "I thought you'd
be as pleased as Punch."

He met her gaze haggardly.

"I'm not sure," he muttered.

"You are funny. Most men would."

He realised that he had deceived himself ; it was no self-
sacrifice that had driven him to think of marrying, but
the desire for a wife and a home and love ; and now that
it all seemed to slip through his fingers he was seized with
despair. He wanted all that more than anything in the
world. What did he care for Spain and its cities, Cordova,
Toledo, Leon; what to him were the pagodas of Burmah
and the lagoons of South Sea Islands ? America was here
and now. It seemed to him that all his life he had followed
the ideals that other people, by their words or their writ-
ings, had instilled into him, and never the desires of his '
own heart. Always his course had been swayed by what
he thought he should do and never by what he wanted
with his whole soul to do. He put all that aside now with '
a gesture of impatience. He had lived always in the future,
and the present always, always had slipped through his t/
fingers. His ideals? He thought of his desire to make a
design, intricate and beautiful, out of the myriad, mean-
ingless facts of life: had he not seen also that the sim-
plest pattern, that in which a man was born, worked,
married, had children, and died, was likewise the most
perfect ? It might be that to surrender to happiness was to J
accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many vie- '
tories.

He glanced quickly at Sally, he wondered what she was
thinking, and then looked away again.

: 766 OF HUMAN BONDAGE

j; ; "I was going to ask you to marry me," he said.
^;-.'"I thought p'raps you might, but I shouldn't have liked
, to stand in your way."
,< »;••:" You wouldn't have done that."
','; -"How about your travels, Spain and all that?"
•;::.: "How d'you know I want to travel?"

• "I ought to know something about it. I've heard you
and Dad talk about it till you were blue in the face."

"I don't care a damn about all that." He paused for an
instant and then spoke in a low, hoarse whisper. "I don't
want to leave you ! I can't leave you."

She did not answer. He could not tell what she thought.

"I wonder if you'll marry me, Sally."

She did not move and there was no flicker of emotion
on her face, but she did not look at him when she an-
swered.

"If you like."

"Don't you want to?"

"Oh, of course I'd like to have a house of my own, and
. it's about time I was settling down."

He smiled a little. He knew her pretty well by now, and
her manner did not surprise him.

"But don't you want to marry me?"

"There's no one else I would marry."

"Then that settles it."

"Mother and Dad will be surprised, won't they?"

"I'm so happy."

"I want my lunch," she said.

"Dear!"

He smiled and took her hand and pressed it. They got

up and walked out of the gallery. They stood for a moment

at the balustrade and looked at Trafalgar Square. Cabs

-and omnibuses hurried to and fro, and crowds passed,

hastening in every direction, and the sun was shining.

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