f it, and in the constant rumination over it he
found his only escape from the wretchedness of his present state. They all
thought he had talent; at Heidelberg they had admired his water colours,
Miss Wilkinson had told him over and over again that they were chasing;
even strangers like the Watsons had been struck by his sketches. La Vie
de Boheme had made a deep impression on him. He had brought it to London
and when he was most depressed he had only to read a few pages to be
transported into those chasing attics where Rodolphe and the rest of them
danced and loved and sang. He began to think of Paris as before he had
thought of London, but he had no fear of a second disillusion; he yearned
for romance and beauty and love, and Paris seemed to offer them all. He
had a passion for pictures, and why should he not be able to paint as well
as anybody else? He wrote to Miss Wilkinson and asked her how much she
thought he could live on in Paris. She told him that he could manage
easily on eighty pounds a year, and she enthusiastically approved of his
project. She told him he was too good to be wasted in an office. Who would
be a clerk when he might be a great artist, she asked dramatically, and
she besought Philip to believe in himself: that was the great thing. But
Philip had a cautious nature. It was all very well for Hayward to talk of
taking risks, he had three hundred a year in gilt-edged securities;
Philip's entire fortune amounted to no more than eighteen-hundred pounds.
He hesitated.

Then it chanced that one day Mr. Goodworthy asked him suddenly if he would
like to go to Paris. The firm did the accounts for a hotel in the Faubourg
St. Honore, which was owned by an English company, and twice a year Mr.
Goodworthy and a clerk went over. The clerk who generally went happened to
be ill, and a press of work prevented any of the others from getting away.
Mr. Goodworthy thought of Philip because he could best be spared, and his
articles gave him some claim upon a job which was one of the pleasures of
the business. Philip was delighted.

"You'll 'ave to work all day," said Mr. Goodworthy, "but we get our
evenings to ourselves, and Paris is Paris." He smiled in a knowing way.
"They do us very well at the hotel, and they give us all our meals, so it
don't cost one anything. That's the way I like going to Paris, at other
people's expense."

When they arrived at Calais and Philip saw the crowd of gesticulating
porters his hear