day his thoughts
dwelt less on Mildred. He looked back upon the past with disgust. He could
not understand how he had submitted to the dishonour of such a love; and
when he thought of Mildred it was with angry hatred, because she had
submitted him to so much humiliation. His imagination presented her to him
now with her defects of person and manner exaggerated, so that he
shuddered at the thought of having been connected with her.

"It just shows how damned weak I am," he said to himself. The adventure
was like a blunder that one had committed at a party so horrible that one
felt nothing could be done to excuse it: the only remedy was to forget.
His horror at the degradation he had suffered helped him. He was like a
snake casting its skin and he looked upon the old covering with nausea. He
exulted in the possession of himself once more; he realised how much of
the delight of the world he had lost when he was absorbed in that madness
which they called love; he had had enough of it; he did not want to be in
love any more if love was that. Philip told Hayward something of what he
had gone through.

"Wasn't it Sophocles," he asked, "who prayed for the time when he would be
delivered from the wild beast of passion that devoured his heart-strings?"

Philip seemed really to be born again. He breathed the circumambient air
as though he had never breathed it before, and he took a child's pleasure
in all the facts of the world. He called his period of insanity six
months' hard labour.

Hayward had only been settled in London a few days when Philip received
from Blackstable, where it had been sent, a card for a private view at
some picture gallery. He took Hayward, and, on looking at the catalogue,
saw that Lawson had a picture in it.

"I suppose he sent the card," said Philip. "Let's go and find him, he's
sure to be in front of his picture."

This, a profile of Ruth Chalice, was tucked away in a corner, and Lawson
was not far from it. He looked a little lost, in his large soft hat and
loose, pale clothes, amongst the fashionable throng that had gathered for
the private view. He greeted Philip with enthusiasm, and with his usual
volubility told him that he had come to live in London, Ruth Chalice was
a hussy, he had taken a studio, Paris was played out, he had a commission
for a portrait, and they'd better dine together and have a good old talk.
Philip reminded him of his acquaintance with Hayward, and was entertained
to see