in freshness and revived. This had been planned during Richard's absence
to surprise him.

Now the dream of travel was to Adrian what the love of woman is to the
race of young men. It supplanted that foolishness. It was his Romance,
as we say; that buoyant anticipation on which in youth we ride the airs,
and which, as we wax older and too heavy for our atmosphere, hardens to
the Hobby, which, if an obstinate animal, is a safer horse, and conducts
man at a slower pace to the sexton. Adrian had never travelled. He was
aware that his romance was earthly and had discomforts only to be evaded
by the one potent talisman possessed by his patron. His Alp would hardly
be grand to him without an obsequious landlord in the foreground: he must
recline on Mammon's imperial cushions in order to moralize becomingly on
the ancient world. The search for pleasure at the expense of discomfort,
as frantic lovers woo their mistresses to partake the shelter of a but
and batten on a crust, Adrian deemed the bitterness of beggarliness. Let
his sweet mistress be given him in the pomp and splendour due to his
superior emotions, or not at all. Consequently the wise youth had long
nursed an ineffectual passion, and it argued a great nature in him, that
at the moment when his wishes were to be crowned, he should look with
such slight touches of spleen at the gorgeous composite fabric of
Parisian cookery and Roman antiquities crumbling into unsubstantial
mockery. Assuredly very few even of the philosophers would have turned
away uncomplainingly to meaner delights the moment after.

Hippias received the first portion of the cake.

He was sitting by the window in his hotel, reading. He had fought down
his breakfast with more than usual success, and was looking forward to
his dinner at the Foreys' with less than usual timidity.