And this is scarcely a parody of the strict surveillance under which Dick lived, but from a mixture of lassitude and good nature it did not seem to annoy him too much, and he appeared to be most troubled when Kate murmured that she was tired, that she hated the profession and would like to go and live in the country. For now she complained of fatigue and weariness; the society of those who formed her life no longer interested her, and she took violent and unreasoning antipathies. It was not infrequent for Mortimer and Montgomery to make an arrangement to grub with the Lennoxes whenever a landlady could be discovered who would undertake so much cooking. But without being able to explain why, Kate declared she could not abide sitting face to face with the heavy lead. She saw and heard quite enough of him at the theatre without being bothered by him in the day-time. Dick made no objection. He confessed, and, willingly, that he was a bit tired of disconnected remarks, and the wit of irrelevancies; and Mortimer, he said, fell to sulking if you didn't laugh at his jokes. Montgomery continued to board with them, the young man very uncertain always whether he would be as unhappy away from her as he was with her. He often dreamed of sending in his resignation, but he could not leave the company, having begun to look upon himself as her guardian angel; and, without consulting Dick, they arranged deftly that Dubois should be asked to take Mortimer's place. Dick approved when the project was unfolded to him, the natty appearance of the little foreigner was a welcome change after Mortimer's draggled show of genius. He could do everything better than anybody else, but that did not matter, for he was amusing in his relations. Whether you spoke of Balzac's position in modern fiction or the rolling of cigarettes, you were certain to be interrupted with, 'I assure you, my dear fellow, you're mistaken' uttered in a stentorian voice. On the subject of his bass voice a child could draw him out, and, under the pretext of instituting a comparison between him and one of the bass choristers, Montgomery never failed to induce him to give the company an idea of his register. At first to see the little man settling the double chin into his chest in his efforts to get at the low D used to convulse Kate with laughter, but after a time even this grew monotonous, and wearily she begged Montgomery to leave him alone. 'Nothing seems to amuse you now' he would say with a mingled look of affection and regret. A shrug of the shoulder she considered a sufficient answer for him, and she would sink back as if pursuing to its furthest consequences the train of some far-reaching ideas.