Diana threw the end of her cigarette at the lizard and laughed at its
precipitant flight. She had no desire to follow the example of her
escort and sleep. She was much too happy to lose a minute of her
enjoyment by wasting it in rest that she did not require. She was
perfectly content and satisfied with herself and her outlook. She had
not a care or a thought in the world. There was not a thing that she
would have changed or altered. Her life had always been happy; she had
extracted the last ounce of pleasure out of every moment of it. That
her happiness was due to the wealth that had enabled her to indulge in
the sports and constant travel that made up the sum total of her
desires never occurred to her. That what composed her pleasure in life
was possible only because she was rich enough to buy the means of
gratifying it did not enter her head. She thought of her wealth no more
than of her beauty. The business connected with her coming of age, when
the big fortune left to her by her father passed unreservedly into her
own hands, was a wearisome necessity that had been got through as
expeditiously as possible, with as little attention to detail as the
old family lawyer had allowed, and an absence of interest that was
evidenced in the careless scrawl she attached to each document that was
given her to sign. The mere money in itself was nothing; it was only a
means to an end. She had never even realised how much was expended on
the continuous and luxurious expeditions that she had made with Sir
Aubrey; her own individual tastes were simple, and apart from the
expensive equipment that was indispensable for their hunting trips, and
which was Aubrey's choosing, not hers, she was not extravagant. The
long list of figures that had been so boring during the tedious hours
that she had spent with the lawyer, grudging every second of the
glorious September morning that she had had to waste in the library
when she was longing to be out of doors, had conveyed nothing to her
beyond the fact that in future when she wanted anything she would be