mused. 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 instance, 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 catchwords 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 passion 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
longing. Love was like a parasite in his heart, nourishing a hateful
existence on his life's blood; it absorbed his existence 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 restless
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 loved. 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
innumerable 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