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XL

few days later Mrs. Carey went to the station to see
P
A hilip off. She stood at the door of the carriage, try-
ing to keep back her tears. Philip was restless and eager. He
wanted to be gone.
‘Kiss me once more,’ she said.
He leaned out of the window and kissed her. The train
started, and she stood on the wooden platform of the little
station, waving her handkerchief till it was out of sight. Her
heart was dreadfully heavy, and the few hundred yards to
the vicarage seemed very, very long. It was natural enough
that he should be eager to go, she thought, he was a boy and
the future beckoned to him; but she—she clenched her teeth
so that she should not cry. She uttered a little inward prayer
that God would guard him, and keep him out of temptation,
and give him happiness and good fortune.
But Philip ceased to think of her a moment after he had
settled down in his carriage. He thought only of the future.
He had written to Mrs. Otter, the massiere to whom Hay-
ward had given him an introduction, and had in his pocket
an invitation to tea on the following day. When he arrived
in Paris he had his luggage put on a cab and trundled off
slowly through the gay streets, over the bridge, and along
the narrow ways of the Latin Quarter. He had taken a room
at the Hotel des Deux Ecoles, which was in a shabby street

Of Human Bondage