for a minute or two he could not hear what Hayward was
saying. But he filled his glass with Chianti. He was unaccustomed to
alcohol and it had gone to his head. For the time at all events he was
free from care. His quick brain had lain idle for so many months that he
was intoxicated now with conversation. He was thankful to have someone to
talk to who would interest himself in the things that interested him.

"I say don't let's waste this beautiful day in looking for rooms. I'll put
you up tonight. You can look for rooms tomorrow or Monday."

"All right. What shall we do?" answered Hayward.

"Let's get on a penny steamboat and go down to Greenwich."

The idea appealed to Hayward, and they jumped into a cab which took them
to Westminster Bridge. They got on the steamboat just as she was starting.
Presently Philip, a smile on his lips, spoke.

"I remember when first I went to Paris, Clutton, I think it was, gave a
long discourse on the subject that beauty is put into things by painters
and poets. They create beauty. In themselves there is nothing to choose
between the Campanile of Giotto and a factory chimney. And then beautiful
things grow rich with the emotion that they have aroused in succeeding
generations. That is why old things are more beautiful than modern. The
Ode on a Grecian Urn is more lovely now than when it was written,
because for a hundred years lovers have read it and the sick at heart
taken comfort in its lines."

Philip left Hayward to infer what in the passing scene had suggested these
words to him, and it was a delight to know that he could safely leave the
inference. It was in sudden reaction from the life he had been leading for
so long that he was now deeply affected. The delicate iridescence of the
London air gave the softness of a pastel to the gray stone of the
buildings; and in the wharfs and storehouses there was the severity of
grace of a Japanese print. They went further down; and the splendid
channel, a symbol of the great empire, broadened, and it was crowded with
traffic; Philip thought of the painters and the poets who had made all
these things so beautiful, and his heart was filled with gratitude. They
came to the Pool of London, and who can describe its majesty? The
imagination thrills, and Heaven knows what figures people still its broad
stream, Doctor Johnson with Boswell by his side, an old Pepys going on
board a man-o'-war: the pageant of English history, and romance, and high