n when you made up your mind to become an
art-student."

"I don'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 he had not made up
his mind. He had thought of a dozen callings.

"The most suitable thing you could do is to enter your father's profession
and become a doctor."

"Oddly enough that is precisely what I intend."

He had thought of doctoring among other things, 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 before. And instead
of just looking at houses and trees I learned to look at houses and trees
against the 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."

LIII

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 countryside.

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
sa