belonging to Philip's world. He would have denied--we have a habit of
lying to ourselves quite as much as to others--that he ever dreamed of
possessing her, but nevertheless she entered into his thoughts and his
future in a very curious way. If he saw himself a successful lawyer, her
image appeared beside him. If his story should gain the public
attention, and his occasional essays come to be talked of, it was
Evelyn's interest and approval that he caught himself thinking about.
And he had a conviction that she was one to be much more interested in
him as a man of letters than as a lawyer. This might be true. In
Philip's story, which was very slowly maturing, the heroine fell in love
with a young man simply for himself, and regardless of the fact that he
was poor and had his career to make. But he knew that if his novel ever
got published the critics would call it a romance, and not a transcript
of real life. Had not women ceased to be romantic and ceased to indulge
in vagaries of affection?

Was it that Philip was too irresolute to cut either law or literature,
and go in, single-minded, for a fortune of some kind, and a place?
Or was it merely that he had confidence in the winning character of his
own qualities and was biding his time? If it was a question of making
himself acceptable to a woman--say a woman like Evelyn--was it not
belittling to his own nature to plan to win her by what he could make
rather than by what he was?

Probably the vision he had of Evelyn counted for very little in his
halting decision. "Why don't you put her into a novel?" asked Mr. Brad
one evening. The suggestion was a shock. Philip conveyed the idea
pretty plainly that he hadn't got so low as that yet. "Ah, you fellows
think you must make your own material. You are higher-toned than old
Dante." The fact was that Philip was not really halting. Every day he