A summer girl who passed lowered her eyes coquettishly. He watched her
without stirring. Even to open his mouth or to smile would have seemed
too much exertion.
Thus he lay for hours. When at length noon drew nigh, it cost him a
great effort of will to shake off his drowsy mood and exchange his airy
costume for the conventional habilaments of the dining-room.
He had taken lodgings in a fashionable hotel. An unusual stroke of good
luck, hack-work that paid outrageously well, had made it possible for
him to idle for a time without a thought of the unpleasant necessity of
making money.
One single article to which he signed his name only with reluctance had
brought to him more gear than a series of golden sonnets.
"Surely," he thought, "the social revolution ought to begin from above.
What right has the bricklayer to grumble when he receives for a week's
work almost more than I for a song?"
Thus soliloquising, he reached the dining-room. The scene that unfolded
itself before him was typical--the table over-loaded, the women
over-dressed.
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