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"Not too much philosophising, please, Philip," Rosina begged, passing her arm through his.

"I don't want to philosophise at all," Philip rejoined. "I want to understand."

Matthew was a little contemptuous, wholly unsympathetic.

"What's the good of bothering about other people?" he asked bluntly. "I don't care a hang where all these crowds are going to, or what they are thinking about. I want to get at my own job, and get on with it as quickly as ever I can."

"You may get on with your own job better for understanding theirs," Philip replied. "It isn't apparent, I know, but they are all making their way down different avenues to one common end. Directly one understands that, one has sympathy, and directly one has sympathy, one begins to feel, one is conscious of the power which is only born with feeling."

Matthew was frankly bored. Philip was almost eagerly apologetic as they descended once more into the crowded thoroughfare.

"I know this sort of thing isn't much in your line, old fellow," he said, passing his arm through Matthew's, "and, of course, the silly way I express myself must make it all sound like bunkum. But there's something underneath which I can't quite get at. It's stirring there, though, and it's going to help me. I shall write stories, Matthew, and believe me, my dear commercial soul, the man in the street will buy them. Sometimes, even the people who understand cannot write. The people who crave to understand, however, nearly always can. The desire is the great thing."