Thank
heaven, my Lesbia wears real lilies and roses. Have you been here long?'
'About half an hour'
'I only wish I had known. I should not have dawdled so long over my
dressing.'
'I am very glad you did not know,' Lesbia answered coolly.
'Do you suppose I never want to be alone? Life in London is perpetual
turmoil; one's eyes grow weary with ever-moving crowds, one's ears ache
with trying to distinguish one voice among the buzz of voices.'
'Then why go back to town? Why go back to the turmoil and the treadmill?
It is only a kind of treadmill, after all, though we choose to call it
pleasure. Stay here, Lesbia, and let us live upon the river, and among
the flowers,' urged Smithson, with as romantic an air as if he had never
heard of contango, or bulling and bearing; and yet only half an hour
ago, while his valet was shaving him, he was debating within himself
whether he should be bear or bull in his influence upon certain stock.
It was supposed that he never went near the city, that he had shaken the
dust of Lombard Street and the House off his shoes, that his fortune was
made, and he had no further need of speculation.
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