"How dull! It's nothing like the carnival at Nice, and the people seem very common."
Her father was dozing uncomfortably, with his two lower chins telescoped into his billowing chest; Mrs. Banniman complained of the heat and the glare, and predicted a headache for herself. Near by, the rest of the party were striving to conceal their lack of interest by guying the crowd below. Van Dam had been the one to suggest this trip to New Orleans for the Mardi Gras, and he felt the weight of entertainment bearing heavily upon him. In consequence, he assumed a sprightly interest that was very far from genuine.
"This sort of thing awakens something medieval inside of one, don't you know," he said.
Miss Banniman regarded him with a bland lack of comprehension; her mother moaned weakly, the burden of her complaint being, as usual:
"Why did we leave Palm Beach?"
"All those dukes and things make me feel as if it were real," Van Dam explained further. "They say this Rex fellow is a true king during Mardi Gras week, and those chaps in masks are quite like court jesters. Maybe they sing of wars and love and romance—and all that rot."
"I dare say life was just as uninteresting in olden days as it is now," Eleanor remarked. "Love and romance exist mainly in books, I fancy. If they ever did exist, we've outgrown them, eh, Roly?"
Being a very rich and a very experienced young woman, Miss Banniman prided herself upon her lack of illusion. To be sure, she occasionally permitted Roland to kiss her in celebration of their engagement, but such caresses left her unperturbed; her pulses had never been stirred. She looked upon marriage as a somewhat trying, although necessary, institution. Van Dam, being equally modern and equally satiated by life's blessings, shared her beliefs in a vague way.
Manifestly, no lover could allow such an assertion as this to go unchallenged, so he rose to the defense of romance, only to hear her say:
"Nonsense! Do be sensible, Roly. Such things aren't done nowadays."