A building that admitted none who had
not sworn, as it were, to believe it the world, the whole world, and
nothing but the world, outside which were only the nibbled remains of
what had built it. This, world of Society, in which he felt like one
travelling through a desert, longing to meet a fellow-creature.
The voice of Harbinger behind them said:
"Lady-Babs!"
Long did the punkahs waft their breeze over that brave-hued wheel of
pleasure, and the sound of the violins quaver and wail out into the
morning. Then quickly, as the spangles of dew vanish off grass when
the sun rises, all melted away; and in the great rooms were none but
flunkeys presiding over the polished surfaces like flamingoes by some
lakeside at dawn.
CHAPTER III
A brick dower-house of the Fitz-Harolds, just outside the little seaside
town of Nettlefold, sheltered the tranquil days of Lord Dennis. In that
south-coast air, sanest and most healing in all England, he raged very
slowly, taking little thought of death, and much quiet pleasure in his
life. Like the tall old house with its high windows and squat chimneys,
he was marvellously self-contained. His books, for he somewhat
passionately examined old civilizations, and described their habits
from time to time with a dry and not too poignant pen in a certain
old-fashioned magazine; his microscope, for he studied infusoria; and
the fishing boat of his friend John Bogle, who had long perceived that
Lord Dennis was the biggest fish he ever caught; all these, with
occasional visitors, and little runs to London, to Monkland, and other
country houses, made up the sum of a life which, if not desperately
beneficial, was uniformly kind and harmless, and, by its notorious
simplicity, had a certain negative influence not only on his own class
but on the relations of that class with the country at large.
Pages:
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209