After lunching to music beneath a vast parasol in the hotel garden, which looked like a tented field, they were bowed away by servitors in black and white, and bowed into the hotel by servitors in blue and gold, and bowed along the central artery of the hotel by apprentice-servitors in scarlet, and bowed out of the hotel again on to the promenade by servitors in blue and gold. It was half-past two; the glorious sun was already slipping down; they had done absolutely nothing, and yet they had not wasted a moment; and on the faces of all the many-coloured servitors there was the smiling assurance that they had been admirably exerting themselves in full correctness, and had not a moment to waste if they honestly desired to pursue idleness as idleness ought to be pursued. Indeed, the winter day was too short for the truly conscientious.
"Your little fur?" exclaimed Felix, who was wearing his overcoat; he stopped.
"But, darling, I'm far too hot as it is!"
"In an hour the day will be gone," said he, and insisted on the treachery of the climate.
He frequently insisted on the treachery of the climate. If he happened to cough ever so slightly, he would say that the entire Riviera was bad for the throat and that a sore throat was the most dangerous complaint known to man. Lilian indulgently thought him fussy about her health and his own and the awful menaces of the exquisite climate; but she did not attribute his fussiness to his age; she regarded him as merely happening to be a bit fussy on certain matters. Nor did she regret the fussiness, for it gave her new occasions to please him and (in her heart) to condescend femininely towards him.
"I shan't need it----"
"Please! I'll fetch it, and I'll carry it. No! You stay there."
"But do you know where it is, Felix?"
"I know where it is." His voice had become very firm and somewhat tyrannic.
She stood on the pavement, put up her orange sunshade, and mused contentedly upon his prodigious care for her--proof of his passionate attachment. People were passing in both directions all the time on the broad digue beyond the roadway. Some strolled in complete possession of idleness; others hurried after it, with tools such as tennis rackets to help them. Nearly all, men and women, stared at her as they passed, until at length she turned round and faced the revolving door of the hotel.