talk.  He found his three hundred a year more difficult to live on now that he was thirty-five than he had when he was a young man; and his clothes, though still made by a good tailor, were worn a good deal longer than at one time he would have thought possible.  He was too stout and no artful arrangement of his fair hair could conceal the fact that he was bald.  His blue eyes were dull and pale.  It was not hard to guess that he drank too much.

“What on earth made you think of going out to the Cape?” asked Philip.

“Oh, I don’t know, I thought I ought to.”

Philip was silent.  He felt rather silly.  He understood that Hayward was being driven by an uneasiness in his soul which he could not account for.  Some power within him made it seem necessary to go and fight for his country.  It was strange, since he considered patriotism no more than a prejudice, and, flattering himself on his cosmopolitanism, he had looked upon England as a place of exile.  His countrymen in the mass wounded his susceptibilities.  Philip wondered what it was that made people do things which were so contrary to all their theories of life.  It would have been reasonable for Hayward to stand aside and watch with a smile while the barbarians slaughtered one another.  It looked as though men were puppets in the hands of an unknown force, which drove them to do this and that; and sometimes they used their reason to justify their actions; and when this was impossible they did the actions in despite of reason.

“People are very extraordinary,” said Philip.  “I should never have expected you to go out as a trooper.”

Hayward smiled, slightly embarrassed, and said nothing.

“I was examined yesterday,” he remarked at last.  “It was worth while undergoing the gene of it to know that one was perfectly fit.”

Philip noticed that he still used a French word in an affected way when an English one would have served.  But just then Macalister came in.

“I wanted to see you, Carey,” he said.  “My people don’t feel inclined to hold those shares any more, the market’s in such an awful state, and they want you to take them up.”

Philip’s heart sank.  He knew that was impossible.  It meant that he must accept the loss.  His pride made him answer calmly.

“I don’t know that I think that’s worth while.  You’d better sell them.”

“It’s all very fine to say that, I’m not sure if I can.  The market’s stagnant, there are no buyers.”

“But they’re marked down at one and an eighth.”

“Oh yes, but that doesn’t mean anything.  You can’t get that for them.”

Philip did not say anything for a moment.  He was trying to collect himself.

“D’you mean to say they’re worth nothing at all?”

“Oh, I don’t say that.  Of course they’re worth something, but you see, nobody’s buying them now.”

“Then you must just sell them for what you can get.”