assed a
fortune in Mincing Lane, which he had invested in profitable securities.

Ten years of ease, however, had not altogether obliterated in him the
business look. Though he lounged from January to December, he lounged
with the air of a financier taking a holiday; and when he visited, as
he frequently did, the studio of a painter, a stranger would have
hesitated to decide whether he had been drawn thither by a love of art
or by the possibility of an investment. His "acquaintances" have been
mentioned, and the word is suitable. For while he mingled in many
circles, he stood aloof from all. He affected the company of artists,
by whom he was regarded as one ambitious to become a connoisseur; and
amongst the younger business men, who had never dealt with him, he
earned the disrespect reserved for the dilettante. If he had a grief,
it was that he had discovered no great man who in return for practical
favours would engrave his memory in brass. He was a Maecenas without a
Horace, an Earl of Southampton without a Shakespeare. In a word,
Aix-les-Bains in the season was the very place for him; and never for a
moment did it occur to him that he was here to be dipped in agitations,
and hurried from excitement to excitement. The beauty of the little
town, the crowd of well-dressed and agreeable people, the rose-coloured
life of the place, all made their appeal to him. But it was the Villa
des Fleurs which brought him to Aix. Not that he played for anything
more than an occasional louis; nor, on the other hand, was he merely a
cold looker-on. He had a bank-note or two in his pocket on most
evenings at the service of the victims of the tables. But the pleasure
to his curious and dilettante mind lay in the spectacle of the battle
which was waged night after night between raw nature and good manners.
It was extraordinary to him how constantly manners prevailed. There
were, however, exceptions.

For instance. On the first evening of this particular visit he found
the rooms hot, and sauntered out into the little semicircular garden at
the back. He sat there for half an hour under a flawless sky of stars
watching the people come and go in the light of the electric lamps, and
appreciating the gowns and jewels of the women with the eye of a
connoisseur; and then into this starlit quiet there came suddenly a
flash of vivid life. A girl in a soft, clinging frock of white satin
darted swiftly from the rooms and flung herself nervously upon