"Well, it's a strange business and a difficult."—[page 261.]
Céline Leroque found life rather more dreary than she had expected during these days of inaction. After all, it is easier to be brave than to be patient. So, in spite of her courage and her self-sacrifice, she was restless and unhappy.
And she was not alone in her restlessness. It is curious to note what diverse causes produce the same effects. Cora Arthur was restless, very restless. The fruit of her labor was in her hands, but it was vapid, tasteless, unsatisfying. What her soul clamored for, was the opera, the contact of kindred spirits, the rush and whirl, the smoke and champagne, and giddiness of the city; the card-won gold, and painted folly that made the be-all and end-all of life to such as she.
She did not lose sight of the usefulness she trusted to find in Céline Leroque, however. During these days of ennui and quietude, the two came to a very good understanding; not all at once, and not at all definite. Only, by degrees, Cora became convinced that Céline Leroque cherished a very laudable contempt for her would-be-girlish mistress, and that she was becoming rather weary in her service. Once, indeed, the girl had said, as if unable to restrain herself, and while dressing Mrs. Cora's yellow hair—a task which she professed to delight in:
"Ah! madame, if only it was you who were my mistress! It is a pleasure to dress a beautiful mistress, but to be constantly at war against nature, to make an old one young—faugh! it is labor."
And Cora had been much amused and had held out a suggestion that, in case of any rupture between mistress and maid, the latter should apply to her.
But if existence was a pain to Céline, and a weariness to Cora, it was anguish unutterable to Edward Percy. He would have been glad to put a long span of miles between his inamorata and himself had he not felt that, with Cora in the same house as his fair one, it were more discreet to be on the ground, and watch over his prey pretty closely. But to this man, who made love to every pretty woman as a child eats bon bons, the task of wooing where his eye was not pleased, his ear was not soothed, and his vanity not in the least flattered, was intensely wearisome.