• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction
• Famous-Fiction
• Historical-Fiction

By Root 20147 0

’s enthusiastic admiration for the man who could tell him of art and literature had long since vanished; but habit had taken its place; and when Hayward was in London they saw one another once or twice a week. He still talked about books with a delicate appreciation. Philip was not yet tolerant, and sometimes Hayward’s conversation irritated him. He no longer believed implicitly that nothing in the world was of consequence but art. He resented Hayward’s contempt for action and success. Philip, stirring his punch, thought of his early friendship and his ardent expectation that Hayward would do great things; it was long since he had lost all such illusions, and he knew now that Hayward would never do anything but talk. He found his three hundred a year more difficult to live on now that he was thirty-five than he had when he was a young man; and his clothes, though still made by a good tailor, were worn a good deal longer than at one time he would have thought possible. He was too stout, and no artful arrangement of his fair hair could conceal the fact that he was bald. His blue eyes were dull and pale. It was not hard to guess that he drank too much.

“What on earth made you think of going out to the Cape?” asked Philip.

“Oh, I don’t know, I thought I ought to.”

Philip was silent. He felt rather silly. He understood that Hayward was being driven by an uneasiness in his soul which he could not account for. Some power within him made it seem necessary to go and fight for his country. It was strange, since he considered patriotism no more than a prejudice, and, flattering himself on his cosmopolitanism, he had looked upon England as a place of exile. His countrymen in the mass wounded his susceptibilities. Philip wondered what it was that made people do things which were so contrary to all their theories of life. It would have been reasonable for Hayward to stand aside and watch with a smile while the barbarians slaughtered one another. It looked as though men were puppets in the hands of an unknown force, which drove them to do this and that; and sometimes they used their reason to justify their actions; and when this was impossible they did the actions in despite of reason.

“People are very extraordinary,” said Philip. “I should never have expected you to go out as a trooper.”

Hayward smiled, slightly embarrassed, and said nothing.

“I was examined yesterday,” he remarked at last. “It was worth while undergoing the gêne of it to know that one was perfectly fit.”

Philip noticed that he still used a French word in an affected way when an English one would have served. But just then Macalister came in.

“I wanted to see you, Carey,” he said. “My people don’t feel inclined to hold those shares anymore, the market’s in such an awful state, and they want you to take them up.”

Philip’s heart sank. He knew that was impossible. It meant that he must accept the loss. His pride made him answer calmly:

“I don’t know that I think that’s worthwhile. You’d better sell them.”

“It’s all very fine to say that, I’m not sure if I can. The market’s stagnant, there are no buyers.”

“But they’re marked down at one and an eighth.”

“Oh, yes, but that doesn’t mean anything. You can’t get that for them.”

Philip did not say anything for a moment. He was trying to collect himself.

“D’you mean to say they’re worth nothing at all?”

“Oh, I don’t say that. Of course they’re worth something, but you see, nobody’s buying them now.”

“Then you must just sell them for what you can get.”

Macalister looked at Philip narrowly. He wondered whether he was very hard hit.

“I’m awfully sorry, old man, but we’re all in the same boat. No one thought the war was going to hang on this way. I put you into them, but I was in myself, too.”

“It doesn’t matter at all,” said Philip. “One has to take one’s chance.”

He moved back to the table from which he had got up to talk to Macalister. He was dumbfounded; his head suddenly began to ache furiously; but he did not want them to think him unmanly. He sat on for an hour. He laughed feverishly at everything they said. At last he got up to go.