“Where on earth have you been all this time?” he cried.

“I?” said Philip.

“I wrote you and asked you to come to the studio for a beano and you never even answered.”

“I didn’t get your letter.”

“No, I know.  I went to the hospital to ask for you, and I saw my letter in the rack.  Have you chucked the Medical?”

Philip hesitated for a moment.  He was ashamed to tell the truth, but the shame he felt angered him, and he forced himself to speak.  He could not help reddening.

“Yes, I lost the little money I had.  I couldn’t afford to go on with it.”

“I say, I’m awfully sorry.  What are you doing?”

“I’m a shop-walker.”

The words choked Philip, but he was determined not to shirk the truth.  He kept his eyes on Lawson and saw his embarrassment.  Philip smiled savagely.

“If you went into Lynn and Sedley, and made your way into the `made robes’ department, you would see me in a frock coat, walking about with a degage air and directing ladies who want to buy petticoats or stockings.  First to the right, madam, and second on the left.”

Lawson, seeing that Philip was making a jest of it, laughed awkwardly.  He did not know what to say.  The picture that Philip called up horrified him, but he was afraid to show his sympathy.

“That’s a bit of a change for you,” he said.

His words seemed absurd to him, and immediately he wished he had not said them.  Philip flushed darkly.

“A bit,” he said.  “By the way, I owe you five bob.”

He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out some silver.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter.  I’d forgotten all about it.”

“Go on, take it.”

Lawson received the money silently.  They stood in the middle of the pavement, and people jostled them as they passed.  There was a sardonic twinkle in Philip’s eyes, which made the painter intensely uncomfortable, and he could not tell that Philip’s heart was heavy with despair.  Lawson wanted dreadfully to do something, but he did not know what to do.

“I say, won’t you come to the studio and have a talk?”

“No,” said Philip.

“Why not?”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

He saw the pain come into Lawson’s eyes, he could not help it, he was sorry, but he had to think of himself; he could not bear the thought of discussing his situation, he could endure it only by determining resolutely not to think about it.  He was afraid of his weakness if once he began to open his heart.  Moreover, he took irresistible dislikes to the places where he had been miserable:  he remembered the humiliation he had endured when he had waited in that studio, ravenous with hunger, for Lawson to offer him a meal, and the last occasion when he had taken the five shillings off him.  He hated the sight of Lawson, because he recalled those days of utter abasement.

“Then look here, come and dine with me one night.  Choose your own evening.”