At last he left Heidelberg.  For three months he had been thinking of nothing but the future; and he went without regret.  He never knew that he had been happy there.  Fraulein Anna gave him a copy of Der Trompeter von Sackingen and in return he presented her with a volume of William Morris.  Very wisely neither of them ever read the other’s present.

XXXII

Philip was surprised when he saw his uncle and aunt.  He had never noticed before that they were quite old people.  The Vicar received him with his usual, not unamiable indifference.  He was a little stouter, a little balder, a little grayer.  Philip saw how insignificant he was.  His face was weak and self-indulgent.  Aunt Louisa took him in her arms and kissed him; and tears of happiness flowed down her cheeks.  Philip was touched and embarrassed; he had not known with what a hungry love she cared for him.

“Oh, the time has seemed long since you’ve been away, Philip,” she cried.

She stroked his hands and looked into his face with glad eyes.

“You’ve grown.  You’re quite a man now.”

There was a very small moustache on his upper lip.  He had bought a razor and now and then with infinite care shaved the down off his smooth chin.

“We’ve been so lonely without you.”  And then shyly, with a little break in her voice, she asked:  “You are glad to come back to your home, aren’t you?”

“Yes, rather.”

She was so thin that she seemed almost transparent, the arms she put round his neck were frail bones that reminded you of chicken bones, and her faded face was oh! so wrinkled.  The gray curls which she still wore in the fashion of her youth gave her a queer, pathetic look; and her little withered body was like an autumn leaf, you felt it might be blown away by the first sharp wind.  Philip realised that they had done with life, these two quiet little people:  they belonged to a past generation, and they were waiting there patiently, rather stupidly, for death; and he, in his vigour and his youth, thirsting for excitement and adventure, was appalled at the waste.  They had done nothing, and when they went it would be just as if they had never been.  He felt a great pity for Aunt Louisa, and he loved her suddenly because she loved him.

Then Miss Wilkinson, who had kept discreetly out of the way till the Careys had had a chance of welcoming their nephew, came into the room.

“This is Miss Wilkinson, Philip,” said Mrs. Carey.

“The prodigal has returned,” she said, holding out her hand.  “I have brought a rose for the prodigal’s buttonhole.”