“Oh, he’s done for,” answered Lawson,
with the cheerful callousness of his youth. “He’ll
be dead in six months. He got pneumonia last winter.
He was in the English hospital for seven weeks, and
when he came out they told him his only chance was
to give up liquor.”
“Poor devil,” smiled the abstemious Philip.
“He kept off for a bit. He used to go to
the Lilas all the same, he couldn’t keep away
from that, but he used to drink hot milk, avec de la
fleur d’oranger, and he was damned dull.”
“I take it you did not conceal the fact from
him.”
“Oh, he knew it himself. A little while
ago he started on whiskey again. He said he was
too old to turn over any new leaves. He would
rather be happy for six months and die at the end
of it than linger on for five years. And then
I think he’s been awfully hard up lately.
You see, he didn’t earn anything while he was
ill, and the slut he lives with has been giving him
a rotten time.”
“I remember, the first time I saw him I admired
him awfully,” said Philip. “I thought
he was wonderful. It is sickening that vulgar,
middle-class virtue should pay.”
“Of course he was a rotter. He was bound
to end in the gutter sooner or later,” said
Lawson.
Philip was hurt because Lawson would not see the pity
of it. Of course it was cause and effect, but
in the necessity with which one follows the other
lay all tragedy of life.
“Oh, I’d forgotten,” said Lawson.
“Just after you left he sent round a present
for you. I thought you’d be coming back
and I didn’t bother about it, and then I didn’t
think it worth sending on; but it’ll come over
to London with the rest of my things, and you can
come to my studio one day and fetch it away if you
want it.”
“You haven’t told me what it is yet.”
“Oh, it’s only a ragged little bit of
carpet. I shouldn’t think it’s worth
anything. I asked him one day what the devil he’d
sent the filthy thing for. He told me he’d
seen it in a shop in the Rue de Rennes and bought it
for fifteen francs. It appears to be a Persian
rug. He said you’d asked him the meaning
of life and that was the answer. But he was very
drunk.”
Philip laughed.
“Oh yes, I know. I’ll take it.
It was a favourite wheeze of his. He said I must
find out for myself, or else the answer meant nothing.”
Philip worked well and easily; he had a good deal
to do, since he was taking in July the three parts
of the First Conjoint examination, two of which he
had failed in before; but he found life pleasant.
He made a new friend. Lawson, on the lookout
for models, had discovered a girl who was understudying
at one of the theatres, and in order to induce her
to sit to him arranged a little luncheon-party one
Sunday. She brought a chaperon with her; and
to her Philip, asked to make a fourth, was instructed
to confine his attentions. He found this easy,
