Page 495 - of-human-bondage-

LXIII

hilip did not pass the examination in anatomy at the end
Pof March. He and Dunsford had worked at the subject
together on Philip’s skeleton, asking each other questions
till both knew by heart every attachment and the meaning
of every nodule and groove on the human bones; but in the
examination room Philip was seized with panic, and failed
to give right answers to questions from a sudden fear that
they might be wrong. He knew he was ploughed and did not
even trouble to go up to the building next day to see wheth-
er his number was up. The second failure put him definitely
among the incompetent and idle men of his year.
He did not care much. He had other things to think of.
He told himself that Mildred must have senses like any-
body else, it was only a question of awakening them; he
had theories about woman, the rip at heart, and thought
that there must come a time with everyone when she would
yield to persistence. It was a question of watching for the
opportunity, keeping his temper, wearing her down with
small attentions, taking advantage of the physical exhaus-
tion which opened the heart to tenderness, making himself
a refuge from the petty vexations of her work. He talked to
her of the relations between his friends in Paris and the fair
ladies they admired. The life he described had a charm, an
easy gaiety, in which was no grossness. Weaving into his

Of Human Bondage