Page 796 - of-human-bondage-

It made her furious because Philip told her it contained
the answer to a great riddle. She thought he was making fun
of her. She had drawn the knife right through it three times,
it must have required some strength, and it hung now in
tatters. Philip had two or three blue and white plates, of no
value, but he had bought them one by one for very small
sums and liked them for their associations. They littered
the floor in fragments. There were long gashes on the backs
of his books, and she had taken the trouble to tear pages out
of the unbound French ones. The little ornaments on the
chimney-piece lay on the hearth in bits. Everything that it
had been possible to destroy with a knife or a hammer was
destroyed.
The whole of Philip’s belongings would not have sold for
thirty pounds, but most of them were old friends, and he
was a domestic creature, attached to all those odds and ends
because they were his; he had been proud of his little home,
and on so little money had made it pretty and characteris-
tic. He sank down now in despair. He asked himself how
she could have been so cruel. A sudden fear got him on his
feet again and into the passage, where stood a cupboard in
which he kept his clothes. He opened it and gave a sigh of
relief. She had apparently forgotten it and none of his things
was touched.
He went back into the sitting-room and, surveying the
scene, wondered what to do; he had not the heart to begin
trying to set things straight; besides there was no food in
the house, and he was hungry. He went out and got himself
something to eat. When he came in he was cooler. A little