levelled at the bachelor; finally, he was rich, having amassed a
fortune in Mincing Lane, which he had invested in profitable
securities.

Ten years of ease, however, had not altogether obliterated in him
the business look. Though he lounged from January to December, he
lounged with the air of a financier taking a holiday; and when he
visited, as he frequently did, the studio of a painter, a stranger
would have hesitated to decide whether he had been drawn thither
by a love of art or by the possibility of an investment. His
"acquaintances" have been mentioned, and the word is suitable. For
while he mingled in many circles, he stood aloof from all. He
affected the company of artists, by whom he was regarded as one
ambitious to become a connoisseur; and amongst the younger
business men, who had never dealt with him, he earned the
disrespect reserved for the dilettante. If he had a grief, it was
that he had discovered no great man who in return for practical
favours would engrave his memory in brass. He was a Maecenas
without a Horace, an Earl of Southampton without a Shakespeare. In
a word, Aix-les-Bains in the season was the very place for him;
and never for a moment did it occur to him that he was here to be
dipped in agitations, and hurried from excitement to excitement.
The beauty of the little town, the crowd of well-dressed and
agreeable people, the rose-coloured life of the place, all made
their appeal to him. But it was the Villa des Fleurs which brought
him to Aix. Not that he played for anything more than an
occasional louis; nor, on the other hand, was he merely a cold
looker-on. He had a bank-note or two in his pocket on most
evenings at the service of the victims of the tables. But the
pleasure to his curious and dilettante mind lay in the spectacle