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 and 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. Etheridge Hayward.

"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 fireplace an arm-chair to match: there was a white antimacassar 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 uncomfortable, 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.