Page 947 - of-human-bondage-

and Lawson had nothing more to say to one another. Philip
was no longer interested in art; it seemed to him that he was
able to enjoy beauty with greater force than when he was a
boy; but art appeared to him unimportant. He was occu-
pied with the forming of a pattern out of the manifold chaos
of life, and the materials with which he worked seemed to
make preoccupation with pigments and words very trivial.
Lawson had served his turn. Philip’s friendship with him
had been a motive in the design he was elaborating: it was
merely sentimental to ignore the fact that the painter was of
no further interest to him.
Sometimes Philip thought of Mildred. He avoided delib-
erately the streets in which there was a chance of seeing her;
but occasionally some feeling, perhaps curiosity, perhaps
something deeper which he would not acknowledge, made
him wander about Piccadilly and Regent Street during the
hours when she might be expected to be there. He did not
know then whether he wished to see her or dreaded it. Once
he saw a back which reminded him of hers, and for a mo-
ment he thought it was she; it gave him a curious sensation:
it was a strange sharp pain in his heart, there was fear in it
and a sickening dismay; and when he hurried on and found
that he was mistaken he did not know whether it was relief
that he experienced or disappointment.
At the beginning of August Philip passed his surgery, his
last examination, and received his diploma. It was seven
years since he had entered St. Luke’s Hospital. He was near-
ly thirty. He walked down the stairs of the Royal College of
Surgeons with the roll in his hand which qualified him to

Of Human Bondage