ything of the
kind. At the hospital men were going out now in numbers; the Government
was glad to get anyone who was qualified; and others, going out as
troopers, wrote home that they had been put on hospital work as soon as it
was learned that they were medical students. A wave of patriotic feeling
had swept over the country, and volunteers were coming from all ranks of
society.

"What are you going as?" asked Philip.

"Oh, in the Dorset Yeomanry. I'm going as a trooper."

Philip had known Hayward for eight years. The youthful intimacy which had
come from Philip's enthusiastic admiration for the man who could tell him
of art and literature had long since vanished; but habit had taken its
place; and when Hayward was in London they saw one another once or twice
a week. He still talked about books with a delicate appreciation. Philip
was not yet tolerant, and sometimes Hayward's conversation irritated him.
He no longer believed implicitly that nothing in the world was of
consequence but art. He resented Hayward's contempt for action and
success. Philip, stirring his punch, thought of his early friendship and
his ardent expectation that Hayward would do great things; it was long
since he had lost all such illusions, and he knew now that Hayward would
never do anything but talk. He found his three hundred a year more
difficult to live on now that he was thirty-five than he had when he was
a young man; and his clothes, though still made by a good tailor, were
worn a good deal longer than at one time he would have thought possible.
He was too stout and no artful arrangement of his fair hair could conceal
the fact that he was bald. His blue eyes were dull and pale. It was not
hard to guess that he drank too much.

"What on earth made you think of going out to the Cape?" asked Philip.

"Oh, I don't know, I thought I ought to."

Philip was silent. He felt rather silly. He understood that Hayward was
being driven by an uneasiness in his soul which he could not account for.
Some power within him made it seem necessary to go and fight for his
country. It was strange, since he considered patriotism no more than a
prejudice, and, flattering himself on his cosmopolitanism, he had looked
upon England as a place of exile. His countrymen in the mass wounded his
susceptibilities. Philip wondered what it was that made people do things
which were so contrary to all their theories of life. It would have been
reasonable for Hayward to s