Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham [42]
When the last day of term came he and Rose arranged by which train they should come back, so that they might meet at the station and have tea in the town before returning to school. Philip went home with a heavy heart. He thought of Rose all through the holidays, and his fancy was active with the things they would do together next term. He was bored at the vicarage, and when on the last day his uncle put him the usual question in the usual facetious tone:
“Well, are you glad to be going back to school?”
Philip answered joyfully:
“Rather.”
In order to be sure of meeting Rose at the station he took an earlier train than he usually did, and he waited about the platform for an hour. When the train came in from Faversham where he knew Rose had to change, he ran along it excitedly. But Rose was not there. He got a porter to tell him when another train was due, and he waited; but again he was disappointed; and he was cold and hungry, so he walked, through side-streets and slums, by a short cut to the school. He found Rose in the study, with his feet on the chimneypiece, talking eighteen to the dozen with half a dozen boys who were sitting on whatever there was to sit on. He shook hands with Philip enthusiastically, but Philip’s face fell, for he realized that Rose had forgotten all about their appointment.
“I say, why are you so late?” said Rose. “I thought you were never coming.”
“You were at the station at half-past four,” said another boy. “I saw you when I came.”
Philip blushed a little. He did not want Rose to know that he had been such a fool as to wait for him.
“I had to see about a friend of my people’s,” he invented readily. “I was asked to see her off.”
But his disappointment made him a little sulky. He sat in silence, and when spoken to answered in monosyllables. He was making up his mind to have it out with Rose when they were alone. But when the others had gone Rose at once came over and sat on the arm of the chair in which Philip was lounging.
“I say, I’m jolly glad we’re in the same study this term. Ripping, isn’t it?”
He seemed so genuinely pleased to see Philip that Philip’s annoyance vanished. They began as if they had not been separated for five minutes to talk eagerly of the thousand things that interested them.
XIX
At first Philip had been too grateful for Rose’s friendship to make any demands on him. He took things as they came and enjoyed life. But presently he began to resent Rose’s universal amiability; he wanted a more exclusive attachment, and he claimed as a right what before he had accepted as a favor. He watched jealously Rose’s companionship with others; and though he knew it was unreasonable could not help sometimes-saying bitter things to him. If Rose spent an hour playing the fool in another study, Philip would receive him when he returned to his own with a sullen frown. He would sulk for a day, and he suffered more because Rose either did not notice his ill-humor or deliberately ignored it. Not seldom Philip, knowing all the time how stupid be was, would force a quarrel, and they would not speak to one another for a couple of days. But Philip could not bear to be angry with him long, and even when convinced that he was in the right, would apologize humbly. Then for a week they would be as great friends as ever. But the best was over, and Philip could see that Rose often walked with him merely from old habit or from fear of his anger; they had not so much to say to one another as at first, and Rose was often bored. Philip felt that his