I know there are people of the same class who are kind and considerate,
guileless and pure, the true nobility of their country--women who are
devoted to their homes and children, and men who spend their wealth and
strength for the public good--but my husband's friends were not of that
kind.
They were vain and proud, selfish, self-indulgent, thoroughly insincere,
utterly ill-mannered, shockingly ill-informed, astonishingly
ill-educated (capable of speaking several languages but incapable of
saying a sensible word in any of them), living and flourishing in the
world without religion, without morality, and (if it is not a cant
phrase to use) without God.
What their conduct was when out shooting, picnicking, driving, riding,
motoring, and yachting (for Mr. Eastcliff had arrived in his yacht,
which was lying at anchor in the port below the glen), I do not know,
for "doctor's orders" were Alma's excuse for not asking me to accompany
them.
But at night they played bridge (their most innocent amusement), gambled
and drank, banged the piano, danced "Grizzly Bears," sang duets from the
latest musical comedies, and then ransacked the empty houses of their
idle heads for other means of killing the one enemy of their
existence--Time.
Pages:
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489