CHAPTER X
Philip did not carry out his intention of leaving London as soon as escape could be accomplished without hurt to his parents' feelings. He felt as though helpless in the grip of some mysterious conspiracy that from day to day left him with hardly an hour that he could call his own.
"London is an awful place," he complained to his mother; "the smallest errand runs away with the best part of a day, buying socks and shirts for example, not to speak of boots and the tailor! Trades-people seem to take a delight in obstructing one at every turn. If you wish to buy a pair of gloves in comfort you have to be prepared to spend hours over it, what with going and coming and hunting about for what you really want!"
"Dearest boy, how you do exaggerate!" argued Lady Flint, fondly. "But I know what you mean. I always felt the same for the first month after I got home from India. Life is so different out there; plenty of space and no trouble over trifles, though one hardly calls setting oneself up in necessaries exactly a trifle anywhere. You ought to go to the dentist, too, and see a doctor, and have your eyes tested. Don't leave all that to the end of your leave, or the last month will be worse than the first. And your father thinks you ought to attend a levee."
"My teeth are all right, I'm not ill, and I can see perfectly well; also I am not going to attend a levee," he assured her firmly; he could not have explained his condition of mind to his mother even had he desired to do so; he could hardly account for it to himself. He felt restless and listless at the same time; he hated the crowds in the streets and the shops, the appointments to see relations that his mother cajoled him into making, the little luncheons and teas with aunts and cousins who were all so much more delighted to see him than he was to see them; and Grace was a nuisance; she dragged him hither and thither, tied him down to engagements without his permission, told him, when he protested, that he wanted "waking up." Miss Baker, to his surprise, was ever ready to aid and abet Grace in making up theatre and supper parties—always something—Sandown, Ranelagh, the Park, endless "tamashas"; Miss Baker appeared to have forgotten all her unworldly theories, and to be as keen on gaiety as the rest of them; and wherever they went he found himself at her side. Philip began to suspect his sister of match-making; the suspicion became a certainty one evening when he had accompanied her unwillingly to a great "crush" in Carlton House Terrace, which, to him, was just a kaleidoscope of colour and jewels, and a pushing, chattering throng.
The blaze of light, the crowd, and the scents, and the closeness of the atmosphere, despite blocks of ice and electric fans, confused and depressed him; he stood moody and resentful as Grace greeted her friends, kept introducing him: "My brother from India," and he had to listen and reply to vapid remarks about heat and snakes, and how interesting it must be to live in India, and so on; till at length, in desperation, he interrupted a conversation his sister was holding with a being whose coat-front was bespattered with orders, to tell her he meant to go home.
"This is more than I can stand," he said with suppressed impatience; "I'm off!"
"Oh, Philip, do wait; Dorothy is sure to be here presently, and then you'll be all right." Her eyes roved round the brilliant scene. "She was to meet us here, you know. You can't disappoint her."
"She won't be disappointed."