Page 260 - of-human-bondage-

one in London and spent them by himself. Mr. Nixon, the
solicitor, asked him to spend a Sunday at Hampstead, and
Philip passed a happy day with a set of exuberant strangers;
he ate and drank a great deal, took a walk on the heath, and
came away with a general invitation to come again when-
ever he liked; but he was morbidly afraid of being in the
way, so waited for a formal invitation. Naturally enough it
never came, for with numbers of friends of their own the
Nixons did not think of the lonely, silent boy whose claim
upon their hospitality was so small. So on Sundays he got
up late and took a walk along the tow-path. At Barnes the
river is muddy, dingy, and tidal; it has neither the graceful
charm of the Thames above the locks nor the romance of
the crowded stream below London Bridge. In the afternoon
he walked about the common; and that is gray and dingy
too; it is neither country nor town; the gorse is stunted; and
all about is the litter of civilisation. He went to a play every
Saturday night and stood cheerfully for an hour or more at
the gallery-door. It was not worth while to go back to Barnes
for the interval between the closing of the Museum and his
meal in an A. B. C. shop, and the time hung heavily on his
hands. He strolled up Bond Street or through the Burling-
ton Arcade, and when he was tired went and sat down in the
Park or in wet weather in the public library in St. Martin’s
Lane. He looked at the people walking about and envied
them because they had friends; sometimes his envy turned
to hatred because they were happy and he was miserable.
He had never imagined that it was possible to be so lonely in
a great city. Sometimes when he was standing at the gallery-