Philip was anxious; Dora was depressed; life was monotonous, and they were both bored to death. Dora would fain have said to the French Government, much as good old La Fontaine's cobbler said to the financier, "Give me back my songs and take again your lucre."
The artists, writers, and all the friends who had frequented the old house dropped away one after another, till Lorimer was almost the only one they continued to see anything of. He had always felt a sincere friendship for Philip and Dora, and now they were playing a little comedy before him which interested him keenly. He watched closely and awaited the dénouement. He came in his old intimate way, without waiting to be asked. His frequent visits delighted Dora, for he was the only friend to whom she opened her heart or from whom she could hope for sound advice. "Be patient," he would say; "Philip will grow tired of this kind of life; one of these days he will set to work and will return to his studio never to leave it."
To speak truly, Dora scarcely had time to brood on the past. The management of her house, which was kept with scrupulous order, six servants to superintend, her child to be watched over, visits to pay and receive—all these things filled up her time. But, full of occupation as her days might be, the life that they composed appeared to her empty and aimless, compared to the one she had led hitherto.
Once a week she received, and her rooms were crowded. By her sweetness and tact, the simplicity of her manner and rare beauty of her face and figure, it had been easy to her to make the conquest of the fashionable world as, years before, she had made the conquest of the artistic one. The men were loud and untiring in their praises of her. The women, who, with the best will in the world to do so, could find no flaw in her, declared that she was "very nice." Some of them went so far as to pronounce her charming, and one or two to say that she was fit to be a duchess.
"What do you think of my new acquaintances?" asked Dora of Lorimer, after he had helped her to entertain a number of them one Thursday afternoon.
"Lady A. is pretty," he replied; "Lady B. is not bad in her own style."
"No, no; I ask you for a general opinion."
"In the lump? Well, I would give the whole batch for a new umbrella."
"You are like me," said Dora. "I would give all the trees of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens for the few chestnuts and limes in my garden in Elm Avenue. And how stupidly they kill time, all these people! In spite of their rank and their fortune, they are bored to death. I can see it in their wrinkled foreheads and quenched, weary-looking eyes. The theatre makes them yawn, they prefer the vulgar inanities of the music-halls; they do not read; Art is nothing to them; their parties are mass meetings where one is hours on one's feet without being able to move or talk comfortably, and to get a sandwich or a glass of champagne costs the poor victims of this strange hospitality frantic struggles. When they speak of their pleasures it is with a sigh as if they were so many irksome tasks, and, the season over, they go to Homburg or elsewhere to drink the waters and get set up and patched up in readiness for the shooting and house-parties of the autumn."
"You exaggerate slightly," said Lorimer; "there are in that set plenty of very clever people with literary and artistic tastes, but I grant you that the majority lead a pitiful existence."