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CXVI

uring his last year at St. Luke’s Philip had to work hard.
DHe was contented with life. He found it very comfort-
able to be heart-free and to have enough money for his
needs. He had heard people speak contemptuously of mon-
ey: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it. He
knew that the lack made a man petty, mean, grasping; it
distorted his character and caused him to view the world
from a vulgar angle; when you had to consider every penny,
money became of grotesque importance: you needed a com-
petency to rate it at its proper value. He lived a solitary life,
seeing no one except the Athelnys, but he was not lonely;
he busied himself with plans for the future, and sometimes
he thought of the past. His recollection dwelt now and then
on old friends, but he made no effort to see them. He would
have liked to know what was become of Norah Nesbit; she
was Norah something else now, but he could not remem-
ber the name of the man she was going to marry; he was
glad to have known her: she was a good and a brave soul.
One evening about half past eleven he saw Lawson, walk-
ing along Piccadilly; he was in evening clothes and might
be supposed to be coming back from a theatre. Philip gave
way to a sudden impulse and quickly turned down a side
street. He had not seen him for two years and felt that he
could not now take up again the interrupted friendship. He