med
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 Louisa 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.

"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