It was not Lord Roberts. He really looked much too important for "Bobs," although he was a military man in a sense, being colonel of a Volunteer regiment.
And how nasally obviously numerous in the procession was the proportion of Jews, and the Jewesses whose plumpness seemed the retribution inflicted by prosperity.
As the smart carriages passed and the high-stepping horses, which were indeed the exception, for the majority ambled along half somnolent from careless coachmanship, one sought in vain for some idea of what they were doing it all for. They did not seem to enjoy it. If they did not enjoy it, why did they do it? The expression that was common and universal to almost all was their seriousness. The Volunteer colonel took himself seriously, as did the fair frailty behind the high-steppers, no less than the best ladies of the land who seemed to be doing it as a traditional duty; but each and every one looked so serious.
How was it that no one seemed to be laughing and enjoying himself out of all the crowd? The Avenue du Bois de Boulogne seemed to belong to another planet. The listless languor of these girls did not at least obviously claim Transatlantic cousinship; the gaiety of a Japanese street seemed so remote as to belong to a planet of another system; and the seriousness seemed reflected in the faces of the great mediocracy sauntering along inside the railings or solemnly seated in the chairs with their faces turned carriagewards.
Here it did not seem the Dingy City; there was colour enough—bright splashes of colour, both colour in movement and colour from the rhododendron bushes, backgrounded with the fresh grass, that an artist was making a picture of over the way; it was not the Dingy City here. At least this was an oasis in it. But here, in this oasis, playground or pleasure-ground, the People of the Serious City was what was writ on their faces.
Five hours later the park was almost deserted, and the gleam of white shirt-front or tulle-foam was caught as a closed carriage passed.
The old bachelor was asleep in his chair at an open window looking across the narrow street at the familiar sooty face of the house opposite.
"Good-night, Tom; I do hope it will be fine for to-morrow," the black-haired girl was saying at her door, holding in her hand the new hat she had been trimming.
The Volunteer colonel was discussing Buller and port across the glittering dinner-field.
The little fair-haired boy had climbed softly out of his cot, and, going over to his mother's bed, whispered coaxingly, "Will 'oo let me sleep with 'oo, mummy?" and when he had nestled his head on her arm, "Now tell me the story how daddy died," and was asleep before the familiar story was finished.