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T wo months passed.
It seemed to Philip, brooding over these matters, that
in the true painters, writers, musicians, there was a pow-
er which drove them to such complete absorption in their
work as to make it inevitable for them to subordinate life to
art. Succumbing to an influence they never realised, they
were merely dupes of the instinct that possessed them, and
life slipped through their fingers unlived. But he had a feel-
ing that life was to be lived rather than portrayed, and he
wanted to search out the various experiences of it and wring
from each moment all the emotion that it offered. He made
up his mind at length to take a certain step and abide by
the result, and, having made up his mind, he determined to
take the step at once. Luckily enough the next morning was
one of Foinet’s days, and he resolved to ask him point-blank
whether it was worth his while to go on with the study of art.
He had never forgotten the master’s brutal advice to Fan-
ny Price. It had been sound. Philip could never get Fanny
entirely out of his head. The studio seemed strange with-
out her, and now and then the gesture of one of the women
working there or the tone of a voice would give him a sud-
den start, reminding him of her: her presence was more
noticuble?? now she was dead than it had ever been during
her life; and he often dreamed of her at night, waking with a