Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/175

Rh Varuna, his entire universe. He thought of, considered, nothing from any other point of view than as it touched himself.

His consciousness of discomfort in the society of Orleigh, his bitterness of mood, his resentment of the distinctions not purposely made, but naturally existing and necessarily insuperable, between himself and those with whom he associated, all this sprang out of the one source, all came of the one disease—intense, all-absorbing, all-prevailing selfishness.

He observed the natural ease that pervaded all the actions of those with whom he was brought into contact in the upper world, and their complete lack of self-consciousness, their naturalness, simplicity, in all they said and did. He had not got it—he could not acquire it, he was like a maid-of-all-work from a farmhouse on a market day in the county town wearing a Mephistopheles hat on her red head, and ten-button gloves on her mottled arms. He was conscious of his self-consciousness—he feared it would be remarked. It made him suspicious and envious and angry. He could not reach to the ease of those above him, and therefore he desired to level them to his own plane. A man with black blood in his veins is fearful lest those at the table should look at his nails. Jingles was ever dreading lest some chance glance should discover the want of breed in himself.

This caused him much misery and this all came of his carrying about the cow-self with him into my lady's boudoir, and my lord's study, to the dining-room, and to the parlour.

I was at the autumn fair some years ago at Liège; on the boulevards were streets of booths, some for the sale of cakes and toys, others shows; but, as among the stalls those for cakes prevailed, so among the shows did the Rigolade Parisienne preponderate.

Not having the faintest conception of what the Rigolade was, I paid my sou and entered one in quest of knowledge;