The chilly salon, where the ladies played forfeits after dinner, or where the vivacious daughter thumped the piano, was not attractive during Cynthia's absence. Neither was it lively to smoke alone in his room, or to go to a theatre or a music-hall by himself; and when, in calling on Mrs. Deane-Pitt, he mentioned his loneliness and she proposed that he should take her to the Variétés, he accepted the suggestion with alacrity.
As he obtained the tickets for nothing, his only expense was cabs, and the liqueurs between the facts; and it was so enjoyable, laughing with her on the lounge of the café, that the recollection of their being paid for out of the balance of his loan from the mont-de-piété was banished. Mrs. Deane-Pitt made some more of her happy remarks while they sipped the chartreuse, and her teeth and eyes flashed superbly. The piece was a great success, but Kent thought the entr'actes were even gayer. And when the curtain had fallen and they reached the avenue Wagram, she would not hear of his leaving her before going in and having some supper.
His liqueurs looked very paltry to him contrasted with the table that exhibited mayonnaise and champagne, and his exhilaration was momentarily damped by envy. Fiction meant a good deal when one was lucky; how jolly to be able to live as this woman did! Her maid took away her cloak and hat, and he opened the bottle. She drew off her long gloves, and patted her hair before the mirror with fingers on which some rings shone.
"Let's sit down! Am I all right?"
He thought he had never seen her look so charming or so young.
"You have a colour," he said.
"A proof it's natural; when we went out I was as pale as a ghost! I work too hard, I do—what are you smiling at?—I work horribly hard. Life's so dear—yes, 'expensive'—don't say it, it would be unworthy of you. And I can't do a fifth part of what's offered me, with all my fag."
"Am I supposed to sympathise with you for that?"
"Certainly you should sympathise; what de you suppose I tell you for—to be felicitated? Do you think it's agreeable to have to refuse work when one needs the money it would bring in? The trials of Tantalus were a joke to it. I had to let a twenty-thousand-word story for The Metropolis slide only the other day, and I could place half a dozen shorter stories every week if I'd the time to write them."
"You do write a great many," said Kent, "and you seem fairly comfortable."