Always, through all the Russian time, it had been his dream that he would one day be an English land-owner with a house and a wood, fields and children, white gates and a curving drive. He had come home now to realise this ambition. The central motive of Philip’s existence was that he always desired, very seriously, sometimes desperately, to be all these things that the elements in his character would always prevent him from being. For instance, awaking, at his mother’s death, from her relentless domination, he resolved that he would never be influenced by anyone again; five minutes after this determination he was influenced by the doctor who had attended his mother, the lawyer who read her will, and the clergyman who buried her. It had seemed to him, as he grew up in England, that the finest thing in the world was to be (when he was sixteen) like St. Francis of Assisi, (when he was nineteen) like Shelley, (when he was twenty-one) like Tolstoi, and the worst thing in the world was to be a commonplace English Squire. He went to Russia and, at once, concluded that there was nothing like the solid, sensible beef-eating English Squire for helping on the World, and that, as I have said, as soon as he was rich enough, he would settle down in England, with, his estate, his hunters and his weekly ‘Spectator’. Meanwhile he was influenced more and more by Russia and the Russians. He did not really desire to be strong, sober, moral, industrious, strong-minded, but only kindly, affectionate, tolerant, with every one man for his friend.... He found in Russia that the only thing demanded of him was that he should love his brother. He made an immense number of friends, lived with a Russian girl, Anna Petrovna Semyonov, (she danced in the Moscow Imperial Ballet) for three years, and had, by her, a son who died. At the end of that time his father’s death gave him the opportunity of doing what he had always declared to every Russian was the ambition of his life—to settle in England as an English land-owner. Anna was fond of him now, but not at all in love with him—they were the best friends in the world. She believed, very seriously, that the greatest thing for him would be to find a nice English girl whom he could love, marry, and make the mother of his children. Philip had, during these Russian years, grown stronger in character, and still was determined that the worst thing in the world was to be under anyone’s domination. He was however under the power of anyone who showed him affection; his outlook was now vehemently idealistic, romantic and sentimental, although, in the cloth business, he was hard-headed, cynical, and methodical. Did a human being care for him, and he would do anything for him; under the influence of anyone’s affection the world became so rosy to him that he lost all count of time, common-sense and digestion.