Page:The cream of the jest; a comedy of evasions (IA creamofjestcomed00caberich).pdf/63

 For in the writing it all seemed perfectly real to Felix Kennaston. His life was rather barren of motive now. In remoter times, when he had wandered impecuniously from one adventure to another, sponging without hesitancy upon such wealthy people as his chatter amused, there had always been exquisite girls to make love to—such girls as the younger generation did not produce—and the ever-present problem of whence was to come the fares for to-morrow's hansoms, in which the younger generation did not ride. For now hansom cabs were wellnigh as extinct as velocipedes or sedan-chairs, he owned two motors, and, by the drollest turn, had money in four banks. As recreation went, he and Kathleen had in Lichfield their round of decorous social duties; and there was nothing else to potter with save the writing. And a little by a little the life he wrote of came to seem to Felix Kennaston more real, and far more vital, than the life his body was shuffling through aimlessly.

For as Horvendile he lived among such gallant circumstances as he had always vaguely hoped his real life might provide to-morrow. This Hor