Then he made plans for the future, the same plans over and over again, interrupted by recollections of kisses on her soft pale cheek and by the sound of her voice with its trailing accent; he had a great deal of work to do, since in the summer he was taking chemistry as well as the two examinations he had failed in.
He had separated himself from his friends at the hospital, but now he wanted companionship.
There was one happy occurrence: Hayward a fortnight before had written to say that he was passing through London and had asked him to dinner; but Philip, unwilling to be bothered, had refused.
He was coming back for the season, and Philip made up his mind to write to him.
He was thankful when eight o'clock struck and he could get up.
He was pale and weary.
But when he had bathed, dressed, and had breakfast, he felt himself joined up again with the world at large; and his pain was a little easier to bear.
He did not feel like going to lectures that morning, but went instead to the Army and Navy Stores to buy Mildred a wedding-present.
After much wavering he settled on a dressing-bag.
It cost twenty pounds, which was much more than he could afford, but it was showy and vulgar: he knew she would be aware exactly how much it cost; he got a melancholy satisfaction in choosing a gift which would give her pleasure and at the same time indicate for himself the contempt he had for her.
Philip had looked forward with apprehension to the day on which Mildred was to be married; he was expecting an intolerable anguish; and it was with relief that he got a letter from Hayward on Saturday morning to say that he was coming up early on that very day and would fetch Philip to help him to find rooms.
Philip, anxious to be distracted, looked up a time-table and discovered the only train Hayward was likely to come by; he went to meet him, and the reunion of the friends was enthusiastic.
They left the luggage at the station, and set off gaily.
Hayward characteristically proposed that first of all they should go for an hour to the National Gallery; he had not seen pictures for some time, and he stated that it needed a glimpse to set him in tune with life.
Philip for months had had no one with whom he could talk of art and books.
Since the Paris days Hayward had immersed himself in the modern French versifiers, and, such a plethora of poets is there in France, he had several new geniuses to tell Philip about.
They walked through the gallery pointing out to one another their favourite pictures; one subject led to another; they talked excitedly.
The sun was shining and the air was warm.
"Let's go and sit in the Park," said Hayward. "We'll look for rooms after luncheon."
The spring was pleasant there.
It was a day upon which one felt it good merely to live.
The young green of the trees was exquisite against the sky; and the sky, pale and blue, was dappled with little white clouds.
At the end of the ornamental water was the gray mass of the Horse Guards.
The ordered elegance of the scene had the charm of an eighteenth-century picture.
It reminded you not of Watteau, whose landscapes are so idyllic that they recall only the woodland glens seen in dreams, but of the more prosaic Jean-Baptiste Pater.
Philip's heart was filled with lightness.
He realised, what he had only read before, that art (for there was art in the manner in which he looked upon nature) might liberate the soul from pain.
They went to an Italian restaurant for luncheon and ordered themselves a fiaschetto of Chianti.
Lingering over the meal they talked on.
They reminded one another of the people they had known at Heidelberg, they spoke of Philip's friends in Paris, they talked of books, pictures, morals, life; and suddenly Philip heard a clock strike three. He remembered that by this time Mildred was married.
He felt a sort of stitch in his heart, and for a minute or two he could not hear what Hayward was saying.
But he filled his glass with Chianti.
He was unaccustomed to alcohol and it had gone to his head.
For the time at all events he was free from care.
His quick brain had lain idle for so many months that he was intoxicated now with conversation.
He was thankful to have someone to talk to who would interest himself in the things that interested him.
"I say don't let's waste this beautiful day in looking for rooms.
I'll put you up tonight.
You can look for rooms tomorrow or Monday."
"All right.
What shall we do?" answered Hayward.
"Let's get on a penny steamboat and go down to Greenwich."
The idea appealed to Hayward, and they jumped into a cab which took them to Westminster Bridge.
They got on the steamboat just as she was starting.
Presently Philip, a smile on his lips, spoke. "I remember when first I went to Paris, Clutton, I think it was, gave a long discourse on the subject that beauty is put into things by painters and poets.
They create beauty.
In themselves there is nothing to choose between the Campanile of Giotto and a factory chimney.
And then beautiful things grow rich with the emotion that they have aroused in succeeding generations.
That is why old things are more beautiful than modern.
The Ode on a Grecian Urn is more lovely now than when it was written, because for a hundred years lovers have read it and the sick at heart taken comfort in its lines."