The next afternoon Richard came to tea as usual. His eyes were red and watery, and he looked depressed, but his manner did not betray the least consciousness of anything out of the ordinary having happened. She had hardly expected that he would come at all, and received him in chilly surprise. "Oh, about yesterday," he said carelessly. "Mother and I had a beastly row. I had to promise her that you wouldn't come to the factory again. So now we won't allude to it any more. The little girl with the fair hair leaves us this evening. Give me a kiss." So they kissed, and everything was the same as ever. CHAPTER X The twigs of the chestnuts had again put on their yellow gloves, and many a leaf started on a whirling journey down the canal. Once more the vista of grey water through the opening in the branches widened, tame wild-ducks foraged along the banks, and the barges, sinking deep into the water under their cargoes of odoriferous summer fruit, drifted lazily to market. The world muffled itself up for coming winter days, and the purveyors of pleasure in the capital were astir. In seemly half-mourning the round of dissipation began again, Richard objecting to being kept in a glass case any longer. But this time they ceased to aspire to stage boxes and the gorgeous luxury of distinguished night restaurants. Having established a reputation through the ownership of a famous and withal inexpensive "_horizontale de grande marque_," one could afford to remain on the level of a middle-class "smart set," where German champagne is drunk and Kempinski's proves a lodestar. They passed countless hours of reckless debauchery in cabarets and theatres where smoking was allowed, in snug corners, and in eminently respectable-looking private back rooms. Women who had felt themselves a little _de trop_ in the other society were more festive hare than ever before, and the men congratulated themselves on not "bluing" so much money. The people you met remained pretty much the same. Only a few dandies fell off, not being able to conceive an existence of pleasure from which the joy of being patronised by cavalry officers in mufti was absent. Lilly followed the crowd, imagining there was no choice. She sat for the most part saying little, but smiling a great deal in a friendly way. She let the men pay her as much attention as they pleased, but responded without enthusiasm, and she listened indifferently to the women's confidences. She was popular with her feminine compeers, who all recognised in her the amiable quality of not wishing to poach on their preserves.