Of Human Bondage (1915) - W. Somerset Maugham [178]
His examinations were approaching, and Norah was as interested in them as he. He was flattered and touched by her eagerness. She made him promise to come at once and tell her the results. He passed the three parts this time without mishap, and when he went to tell her she burst into tears.
"Oh, I'm so glad, I was so anxious."
"You silly little thing," he laughed, but he was choking.
No one could help being pleased with the way she took it.
"And what are you going to do now?" she asked.
"I can take a holiday with a clear conscience. I have no work to do till the winter session begins in October."
"I suppose you'll go down to your uncle's at Blackstable?"
"You suppose quite wrong. I'm going to stay in London and play with you."
"I'd rather you went away."
"Why? Are you tired of me?"
She laughed and put her hands on his shoulders.
"Because you've been working hard, and you look utterly washed out. You want some fresh air and a rest. Please go."
He did not answer for a moment. He looked at her with loving eyes.
"You know, I'd never believe it of anyone but you. You're only thinking of my good. I wonder what you see in me."
"Will you give me a good character with my month's notice?" she laughed gaily.
"I'll say that you're thoughtful and kind, and you're not exacting; you never worry, you're not troublesome, and you're easy to please."
"All that's nonsense," she said, "but I'll tell you one thing: I'm one of the few persons I ever met who are able to learn from experience."
LXVII
Philip looked forward to his return to London with impatience. During the two months he spent at Blackstable Norah wrote to him frequently, long letters in a bold, large hand, in which with cheerful humour she described the little events of the daily round, the domestic troubles of her landlady, rich food for laughter, the comic vexations of her rehearsals – she was walking on in an important spectacle at one of the London theatres – and her odd adventures with the publishers of novelettes. Philip read a great deal, bathed, played tennis, and sailed. At the beginning of October he settled down in London to work for the Second Conjoint examination. He was eager to pass it, since that ended the drudgery of the curriculum; after it was done with the student became an out-patients' clerk, and was brought in contact with men and women as well as with text-books. Philip saw Norah every day.
Lawson had been spending the summer at Poole, and had a number of sketches to show of the harbour and of the beach. He had a couple of commissions for portraits and proposed to stay in London till the bad light drove him away. Hayward, in London too, intended to spend the winter abroad, but remained week after week from sheer inability to make up his mind to go. Hayward had run to fat during the last two or three years – it was five years since Philip first met him in Heidelberg – and he was prematurely bald. He was very sensitive about it and wore his hair long to conceal the unsightly patch on the crown of his head. His only consolation was that his brow was now very noble. His blue eyes had lost their colour; they had a listless droop; and his mouth, losing the fulness of youth, was weak and pale. He still talked vaguely of the things he was going to do in the future, but with less conviction; and he was conscious that his friends no longer believed in him: when he had drank two or three glasses of whiskey he was inclined to be elegiac.
"I'm a failure," he murmured, "I'm unfit for the brutality of the struggle of life. All I can do is to stand aside and let the vulgar throng hustle by in their pursuit of the good things."
He gave you the impression that to fail was a more delicate, a more exquisite thing, than to succeed. He insinuated that his aloofness was due to distaste for all that was common and low. He talked