Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 1.djvu/81

Rh At the hotel in the Rue de Rivoli she had the disappointment of finding that Mrs. Dallow had not called, and also that no telegrams had come. She went in with the girls for half an hour, and then she straggled out with them again. She was undetermined and dissatisfied, and the afternoon was rather a problem; of the kind moreover that she disliked most and was least accustomed to: not a choice between different things to do (her life had been full of that), but a want of anything to do at all. Nick had said to her before they separated: "You can knock about with the girls, you know; everything is amusing here." That was easily said, while he sauntered and gossiped with Peter Sherringham and perhaps went to see more pictures like those in the Salon. He was usually, on such occasions, very good-natured about spending his time with them; but this episode had taken altogether a perverse, profane form. She had no desire whatever to knock about, and she was far from finding everything in Paris amusing. She had no aptitude for aimlessness, and moreover she thought it vulgar. If she had found Julia's card at the hotel (the sign of a hope of catching them just as they came back from the Salon), she would have made a second attempt to see her before the evening; but now certainly they would leave her alone. Lady Agnes wandered joylessly with the girls in the Palais Royal and the Rue de Richelieu, and emerged upon the Boulevard, where they continued their frugal prowl, as Biddy rather irritatingly called it. They went into five shops to buy a hat for Biddy, and her ladyship's presuppositions of cheapness were wofully belied.

"Who in the world is your funny friend?" Peter