hours.

"Because I am in a hole--no end of a hole--and I thought you'd help me,"
murmured the boy, half penitently, half caressingly; he was very girlish
in his face and his ways. On which confession Rake retired into the
bathroom; he could hear just as well there, and a sense of decorum made
him withdraw, though his presence would have been wholly forgotten by
them. In something the same spirit as the French countess accounted for
her employing her valet to bring her her chocolate in bed--"Est ce que
vous appelez cette chose-la un homme?"--Bertie had, on occasion, so
wholly regarded servants as necessary furniture that he had gone
through a love scene, with that handsome coquette Lady Regalia,
totally oblivious of the presence of the groom of the chambers, and
the possibility of that person's appearance in the witness-box of the
Divorce Court. It was in no way his passion that blinded him--he did
not put the steam on like that, and never went in for any disturbing
emotion--it was simply habit, and forgetfulness that those functionaries
were not born mute, deaf, and sightless.

He tossed some essence over his hands, and drew on his gauntlets.

"What's up Berk?"

The boy hung his head, and played a little uneasily with an ormolu
terrier-pot, upsetting half the tobacco in it; he was trained to his
brother's nonchalant, impenetrable school, and used to his brother's
set; a cool, listless, reckless, thoroughbred, and impassive set, whose
first canon was that you must lose your last thousand in the world
without giving a sign that you winced, and must win half a million
without showing that you were gratified; but he had something of girlish