She was on the point of bursting into angry tears, but when she found
herself snatched up, her slippers tumbling off, the hood of the burnous
falling over her eyes, her face crushed anyhow against her husband's
sinewy chest, she suddenly felt oddly contented, disinclined to protest
or to struggle.
Lord Holme did not trouble himself to ask what she was feeling or why she
was feeling it.
He thought of himself--the surest way to fasten upon a man the thoughts
of others.
CHAPTER IV
ROBIN PIERCE and Carey were old acquaintances, if not exactly old
friends. They had been for a time at Harrow together. Pierce had six
thousand a year and worked hard for a few hundreds. Carey had a thousand
and did nothing. He had never done anything definite, anything to earn a
living. Yet his talents were notorious. He played the piano well for an
amateur, was an extraordinarily clever mimic, acted better than most
people who were not on the stage, and could write very entertaining verse
with a pungent, sub-acid flavour. But he had no creative power and no
perseverance. As a critic of the performances of others he was cruel but
discerning, giving no quarter, but giving credit where it was due. He
loathed a bad workman more than a criminal, and would rather have crushed
an incompetent human being than a worm. Secretly he despised himself. His
own laziness was as disgusting to him as a disease, and was as incurable
as are certain diseases.
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