Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham [220]
Philip asked Lawson and Hayward to come and see his new rooms, and they came, one with a bottle of whisky, the other with a pâté de foie gras; and he was delighted when they praised his taste. He would have invited the Scotch stockbroker too, but he had only three chairs, and thus could entertain only a definite number of guests. Lawson was aware that through him Philip had become very friendly with Norah Nesbit and now remarked that he had run across her a few days before.
“She was asking how you were.”
Philip flushed at the mention of her name (he could not get himself out of the awkward habit of reddening when he was embarrassed), and Lawson looked at him quizzically. Lawson, who now spent most of the year in London, had so far surrendered to his environment as to wear his hair short and to dress himself in a neat serge suit and a bowler hat.
“I gather that all is over between you,” he said.
“I’ve not seen her for months.”
“She was looking rather nice. She had a very smart hat on with a lot of white ostrich feathers on it. She must be doing pretty well.”
Philip changed the conversation, but he kept thinking of her, and after an interval, when the three of them were talking of something else, he asked suddenly:
“Did you gather that Norah was angry with me?”
“Not a bit. She talked very nicely of you.”
“I’ve got half a mind to go and see her.”
“She won’t eat you.”
Philip had thought of Norah often. When Mildred left him his first thought was of her, and he told himself bitterly that she would never have treated him so. His impulse was to go to her; he could depend on her pity; but he was ashamed; she had been good to him always, and he had treated her abominably.
“If I’d only had the sense to stick to her!” he said to himself, afterwards, when Lawson and Hayward had gone and he was smoking a last pipe before going to bed.
He remembered the pleasant hours they had spent together in the cozy sitting-room in Vincent Square, their visits to galleries and to the play, and the charming evenings of intimate conversation. He recollected her solicitude for his welfare and her interest in all that concerned him. She had loved him with a love that was kind and lasting, there was more than sensuality in it, it was almost maternal; he had always known that it was a precious thing for which with all his soul he should thank the gods. He made up his mind to throw himself on her mercy. She must have suffered horribly, but he felt she had the greatness of heart to forgive him; she was incapable of malice. Should he write to her? No. He would break in on her suddenly and cast himself at her feet—he knew that when the time came he would feel too shy to perform such a dramatic gesture, but that was how he liked to think of it—and tell her that if she would take him back she might rely on him for ever. He was cured of the hateful disease from which he had suffered, he knew her worth, and now she might trust him. His imagination leaped forward to the future. He pictured himself rowing with her on the river on Sundays; he would take her to Greenwich, he had never forgotten that delightful excursion with Hayward, and the beauty of the Port of London remained a permanent treasure in his recollection; and on the warm summer afternoons they would sit in the Park together and talk: he laughed to himself as he remembered her gay chatter, which poured out like a brook bubbling over little stones, amusing, flippant, and full of character. The agony he had suffered would pass from his mind like a bad dream.
But when next day, about tea-time, an hour at which he was pretty certain to find Norah at home, he knocked at her door his courage suddenly failed him. Was it possible for her to forgive him? It would