31

"Poor Odette—she hates taxis! Why should she not have a motor?—You are grinchant, mon cher!—since she takes you out, too!"

"Believe me, Maurice, I am grateful, I shall repay all their kindnesses—they have all indicated how I can best do so—but I like to keep them waiting, it makes them more keen."

Maurice laughed again nervously.

"It is divine to be so rich, Nicholas"!

 

All sorts of people come to talk to me and have tea (I have a small hoard of sugar sent from a friend in Spain). Amongst them an ancient guardsman in some inspection berth here—He, like Burton, knows the world.

He tests women by whether or no they take presents from him, he tells me. They profess intense love which he returns, and then comes the moment (he, like me, is disgustingly rich). He offers them a present, some accept at once, those he no longer considers; others hesitate, and say it is too much, they only want his affection—He presses them, they yield—they too, are wiped off the list—and now he has no one to care for, since he has not been able to find one who refuses his gifts. It would be certainly my case also—were I to try.

"Women"—he said to me last night—"are the only32 pleasure in life—men and hunting bring content and happiness, work brings satisfaction, but women and their ways are the only pleasure."

32

"Even when you know it is all for some personal gain?"

"Even so, once you have realized that, it does not matter, you take the joy from another point of view, you have to eliminate vanity out of the affair, your personal vanity is hurt, my dear boy, when you feel it is your possessions, not yourself, they crave, but if you analyse that, it does not take away from the pleasure their beauty gives you—the tangible things are there just as if they loved you—I am now altogether indifferent as to their feelings for me, as long as their table manners are good, and they make a semblance of adoring me. If one had to depend upon their real disinterested love for their kindness to one, then it would be a different matter, and very distressing, but since they can always be caught by a bauble—you and I are fortunately placed, Nicholas."

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