. She was
punctual in payment, but very grasping, and wrung many concessions from
the hotels by a persistence which no men and few women would have had
the courage to display. She was always seeking the ideal hotel, and for
this reason she was always wandering, and never was long enough in one
place to strike any roots and create a feeling of home. This life
corroded her character. She became more bad-tempered and nagging, always
up in arms, scenting out liberties, and thinking she was taken advantage
of. She was not a character which does well by itself, and under a
domineering manner she concealed her weakness, vacillation, and
timidity. She was divorced from every duty, every responsibility, every
natural tie, with no outlet for her interest or her sympathy. It seems
inconceivable that she should willingly have led such an existence. She
was however, much more satisfied with herself and with things in
general, than she had formerly been. She did not have stormy repentances
or outbursts against her lot; she no longer desired what was
unattainable. If she did not have a particularly high standard of
happiness or of character, neither, in her opinion, had the rest of the
world. Not that she thought much of these things. Over-thinking and
over-longing had caused her much misery in early life, and she shrank
from opening all those wounds again. She faced facts as little as she
could. She lived from day to day, and her inner self was really very
much what her outer self seemed, absorbed in the very small round of
events which concerned her. The days passed, the months passed, the
years passed. She saw them go unregretted, and when they were gone, she
did not remember them. Nothing had happened in them, bad or good, to
mark their course.

"What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in
faculty, in form, in moving how express and admirable, in action how
like an angel, in apprehension how like a god, the beauty of the world,
the paragon of animals!"

CHAPTER X

It has been shown that Henrietta had not much power of attracting
affection to herself, and she had long ceased to desire it. She was now
brought into contact with numbers of different people, and as travelling
acquaintances she liked them, but when they parted, she did not want to
see them again.

There was, however, an exception to this rule. Henrietta found many
companions in misfortune, expatriated either from health, pleasure, or