her heart away. And as she agreed with Philip that
it would not be a seemly or tolerable marriage for Elizabeth, she would,
in the natural course of things, both for Elizabeth's sake and the
family's, have tried to keep the unseemly suitor at a distance. But here
he was, planted somehow in the very midst of their life, and she, making
feeble efforts day after day to induce him to root himself there still
more firmly. Sometimes indeed she would try to press alternatives on
Philip. But Philip would not have them. What with the physical and moral
force that seemed to radiate from Anderson, and bring stimulus with them
to the weaker life--and what with the lad's sick alienation for the
moment from his ordinary friends and occupations, Anderson reigned
supreme, often clearly to his own trouble and embarrassment. Had it not
been for Philip, Portman Square would have seen him but seldom. That
Elizabeth knew with a sharp certainty, dim though it might be to her
mother. But as it was, the boy's tragic clinging to his new friend
governed all else, simply because at the bottom of each heart,
unrecognised and unexpressed, lurked the same foreboding, the same
fear of fears.

The tragic clinging was also, alack, a tragic selfishness. Philip had a
substantial share of that quick perception which in Elizabeth became
something exquisite and impersonal, the source of all high emotions.
When Delaine had first suggested to him "an attachment" between Anderson
and his sister, a hundred impressions of his own had emerged to verify
the statement and aggravate his wrath; and when Anderson had said "a man
of my history is not going to ask your sister to marry him," Philip
perfectly understood that but for the history the attempt would have
been made. Anderson was therefore--most unreasonably and
presumptuously--in love with Elizabeth; and as to Elizabeth, the
indications here also were not lost upon Philip. It was all very
amazing, and he wished, to use his phrase to his mother, that it would
"work off." But whether or no, he could not do without Anderson--if
Anderson was to be had. He threw him and Elizabeth together, recklessly;
trusting to Anderson's word, and unable to resist his own craving for
comfort and distraction.

The days passed on, days so charged with feeling for Elizabeth that they
could only be met at all by a kind of resolute stillness and
self-control. Philip was very dependent on the gossip his mother and
sister brought hi