Here he felt better. He was relieved of the constant fear of encountering Peggy, and of the exasperating effervescence of Tim. He also felt absolved from any further obligation to cultivate social graces. So he reverted whole-heartedly to the realm of Things, determined to eliminate People from his scheme of life for good and all. Machinery, as Mr. Mablethorpe had said, might break your arms and legs, but it left your heart alone.
Still, it was a black winter. Extreme tragedy is the privilege of the very young—those of riper years do not hug tragedy to their bosoms; they know too much about it; and in this respect Philip, for all his twenty-eight years, was youthful, indeed. But no human experience is without ultimate profit. Most of us have to live some portion of our lives under circumstances which make it necessary to keep our eyes resolutely averted from the future; and once we have acquired the courage which this performance demands,—and it demands a great deal,—we have acquired the most valuable asset that experience can give us. Any one can be happy who has no doubts about the future; that is why children laugh and sing all day; but the man who can keep a stiff upper lip when there is no confidence in his heart can fairly count himself one of those who have graduated with honours in the school of adversity. During those months Philip acquired the priceless art of taking life as it came, and, abandoning the pernicious habit of drawing upon the bank of the Future,—his account was sadly overdrawn there already,—of living within the income that the Present supplied to him. True, it was a mere pittance, but he learned to live on it. Upon such foundations is character built up.
Mr. Mablethorpe summed up the whole situation in his own fashion, when Philip, in the course of a week-end visit, had unburdened his soul over the last whiskey-and-soda on Saturday night.
"Philip, my son, you are learning: your education is proceeding apace. But it hurts, and you are puzzled and indignant. But never mind! Hold on, and things will right themselves. Your sense of proportion will come to the rescue and pull you through. I know, old man, I know! I have been through it all. I wasn't always a dull British householder with an expanding waistcoat. I have been young and now I am old—or perhaps middle-aged—and I know! Middle age has its compensations. When we are young, we alternate between periods when we feel that there is nothing on earth that we cannot do and periods when we feel that there is nothing on earth that we can. Advancing years bring us a comfortable knowledge of our own limitations. Though we may not have so many moments of sheer sublimity—moments when we touch the stars—as the young man, we have fewer hours of blackness. So carry on, Philip. Steer by dead reckoning, if necessary: you will get your bearings in time. This experience will do you no harm, provided you face it between the eyes. I know nothing of your little lady friend, but she does not sound to me like a member of the third sex. On the contrary, she appears to be gratifyingly feminine. Her present attitude is probably a pose of the moment. They can't help being made as they are, you know. I fully expect to find my beloved Dumps suffering from the effects of some germ or other when she comes home from abroad next month. That reminds me. In the spring Dumps is to come out—not of gaol, but of the schoolroom, which at eighteen is very much the same thing—for ever. The festivities will include what she calls a Joy-Week in Town. You had better come and stay with us during that period, and join me in contracting dyspepsia. In fact, I have a ukase from my daughter to that effect. Will you come?"
Philip assented, listlessly. Joy-Weeks were not for him.
II
Miss Jean Leslie lived in a roomy flat high up in a tall block of buildings that overlooked the Thames at Chelsea. The larger of the two rooms was her studio. Hither fat, sweet-scented, and rebellious little boys and girls in expensive laces and ribbons were brought by mothers or nurses; and after they had been coaxed into smiles by the arts and blandishments of their hostess,—and for all her spinsterhood she excelled in that accomplishment,—Jean Leslie painted miniatures of them, for which their doting and opulent parents paid fancy prices.
"My dear, you must be very rich," observed Peggy one afternoon, inspecting three portraits of cherubic innocents, recently completed and awaiting despatch.
Jean Leslie poured out the tea complacently.
"Thank you," she said; "I scrape a living. Sit down and eat something. I have some of your favourite Valencia buns."