"Perhaps I do," smiled Carruthers. "But whether one's self or 'the thing' is to blame, the result's much the same—satiety! Wait till you have had two or three seasons, and then tell me if you find this mill-wheel routine, these circus gyrations, so delightful! We are the performing stud, who go round and round in the hippodrome, day after day for show, till we are sick of the whole programme, knowing our white stars are but a daub of paint, and our gay spangles only tinfoil. You are a little pony just joined to the troupe, and just pleased with the glitter of the arena. Wait till you've had a few years of it before you say whether going through the same hoops and passing over the same sawdust is so very amusing."
"If I do not, I shall desert the troupe, and form a circus of my own less mechanical and more enjoyable."
"Il faut souffrir pour être belle, il faut souffrir encore plus pour être à la mode!" said Goodwood, on her right, while Lady Egidia Hautton thought, "How bold that little Montolieu is!" and her sister, Lady Feodorowna, wondered what her cousin Goodwood could see there.
"I do not see the necessity," interrupted Flora, "and I certainly would never bow to the 'il faut.' I would make fashion follow me; I would not follow fashion." ("That child talks as though she were the Duchess of Amandine;" thought Lady Marabout, catching fragmentary portions across the table, the Marabout oral and oracular organs being always conveniently multiplied when she was armed cap à pie as a chaperone.) "Sir Philip, you talk as if you belonged to the 'nothing-is-new, and nothing-is-true, and it-don't-signify' class. I should have thought you were above the nil admirari affectation."
"He admires, as we all do, when we find something that compels our homage," said Goodwood, with an emphasis that would have made the hearts of any of the Hereditary Princesses palpitate with gratification, but at which the ungrateful Petit Caporal only glanced at him a little surprisedly with her large hazel eyes, as though she by no means saw the point of the speech.
"Nil admirari? Oh no. I enjoy life, but then it is thanks to the clubs, my yacht, my cigar-case, my stud, a thousand things,—not thanks at all to Belgravia."
"Complimentary to the Belgraviennes!" cried Flora, with a shrug of her shoulders. "They have not known how to amuse you, then?"
"Ladies never do amuse us!" sighed Carruthers. "Tant pis pour nous!"
"Are you going to Lady Patchouli's this evening?" asked Goodwood.