One man, hearing that he had studied art in Paris, and fancying himself on his taste, tried to discuss art with him; but Philip was impatient of views which did not agree with his own; and, finding quickly that the other's ideas were conventional, grew monosyllabic.
Philip desired popularity but could bring himself to make no advances to others.
A fear of rebuff prevented him from affability, and he concealed his shyness, which was still intense, under a frigid taciturnity.
He was going through the same experience as he had done at school, but here the freedom of the medical students' life made it possible for him to live a good deal by himself.
It was through no effort of his that he became friendly with Dunsford, the fresh-complexioned, heavy lad whose acquaintance he had made at the beginning of the session.
Dunsford attached himself to Philip merely because he was the first person he had known at St. Luke's.
He had no friends in London, and on Saturday nights he and Philip got into the habit of going together to the pit of a music-hall or the gallery of a theatre.
He was stupid, but he was good-humoured and never took offence; he always said the obvious thing, but when Philip laughed at him merely smiled.
He had a very sweet smile.
Though Philip made him his butt, he liked him; he was amused by his candour and delighted with his agreeable nature: Dunsford had the charm which himself was acutely conscious of not possessing.
They often went to have tea at a shop in Parliament Street, because Dunsford admired one of the young women who waited.
Philip did not find anything attractive in her.
She was tall and thin, with narrow hips and the chest of a boy.
"No one would look at her in Paris," said Philip scornfully.
"She's got a ripping face," said Dunsford.
"What DOES the face matter?"
She had the small regular features, the blue eyes, and the broad low brow, which the Victorian painters, Lord Leighton, Alma Tadema, and a hundred others, induced the world they lived in to accept as a type of Greek beauty.
She seemed to have a great deal of hair: it was arranged with peculiar elaboration and done over the forehead in what she called an Alexandra fringe.
She was very anaemic. Her thin lips were pale, and her skin was delicate, of a faint green colour, without a touch of red even in the cheeks.
She had very good teeth.
She took great pains to prevent her work from spoiling her hands, and they were small, thin, and white.
She went about her duties with a bored look.
Dunsford, very shy with women, had never succeeded in getting into conversation with her; and he urged Philip to help him.
"All I want is a lead," he said, "and then I can manage for myself."
Philip, to please him, made one or two remarks, but she answered with monosyllables.
She had taken their measure. They were boys, and she surmised they were students. She had no use for them.
Dunsford noticed that a man with sandy hair and a bristly moustache, who looked like a German, was favoured with her attention whenever he came into the shop; and then it was only by calling her two or three times that they could induce her to take their order.
She used the clients whom she did not know with frigid insolence, and when she was talking to a friend was perfectly indifferent to the calls of the hurried.
She had the art of treating women who desired refreshment with just that degree of impertinence which irritated them without affording them an opportunity of complaining to the management.
One day Dunsford told him her name was Mildred. He had heard one of the other girls in the shop address her.
"What an odious name," said Philip.
"Why?" asked Dunsford. "I like it."
"It's so pretentious."
It chanced that on this day the German was not there, and, when she brought the tea, Philip, smiling, remarked:
"Your friend's not here today."
"I don't know what you mean," she said coldly.
"I was referring to the nobleman with the sandy moustache.
Has he left you for another?"
"Some people would do better to mind their own business," she retorted.
She left them, and, since for a minute or two there was no one to attend to, sat down and looked at the evening paper which a customer had left behind him.
"You are a fool to put her back up," said Dunsford.
"I'm really quite indifferent to the attitude of her vertebrae," replied Philip.
But he was piqued.
It irritated him that when he tried to be agreeable with a woman she should take offence.
When he asked for the bill, he hazarded a remark which he meant to lead further.
"Are we no longer on speaking terms?" he smiled.
"I'm here to take orders and to wait on customers.
I've got nothing to say to them, and I don't want them to say anything to me."
She put down the slip of paper on which she had marked the sum they had to pay, and walked back to the table at which she had been sitting.
Philip flushed with anger.