Their room was a large one, and it was full of beautiful and valuable things, but the furniture was huddled about in disorder. A large chamber-organ, a grand piano, a mandolin, and two violins, pictures on the floor as well as on the walls, many photographs scattered about everywhere, and the mirror over the mantelpiece fringed with invitation-cards, which were stuck between the glass and the frame.
Their man had brought in the coffee and cigarettes. Lord Robert was speaking in his weary drawl, which had the worn-out tone of a man who had made a long journey and was very sleepy.
“Come, dear boy, make up your mind, and let us be off.”
“But I'm tired to death of these fashionable routs.”
“So am I.”
“They're so unnatural—so unnecessary.”
“My dear fellow, of course they're unnatural—of course they're unnecessary; but what would you have?”
“Anything human and natural,” said Drake. “I don't care a ha'p'orth about the morality of these things—not I—but I am dead sick of their stupidity.”
Lord Robert made languid puffs of his cigarette, and said, in a tearful drawl: “My dear Drake, of course it is exactly as you say. Who doesn't know it is so? It has always been so and always will be. But what refuge is there for the poor leisured people but these diversions which you despise? And as for the poor titled classes—well, they manage to make their play their business sometimes, don't you know. Confess that they do sometimes, now, eh?”
Lord Robert was laughing with an awkward constraint, but Drake looked frankly into his face and said: