'M sure," said Camilla, "that I'm not a bit ungrateful, or cynical, or anything of that kind—but—oh, well!"
"Which means, I suppose," replied Mrs. Battishill, "that you find life dull, wearisome, boring, tiresome"
"Oh no, no," protested Camilla. "How could I?"
"How, indeed?" responded her friend with just an inflexion of hardness in her careful voice. "But it is you fortunate people who do get bored."
"I'm not bored. I'm not, I'm not," said Camilla vehemently.
"You're ashamed to say it, anyhow," smiled Mrs. Battishill. "I suppose that is a saving grace. Bored? You've had a fairy-tale life. And you've the whole world before you. Think of it, my dear, the whole world."
"It doesn't mean anything, really," said Camilla quickly.
"It does." The visitor was drawing on her long soft gloves. "You know it does. But I can quite understand that you are bored. People like you, who have everything, always are."
Camilla reflected a second, with white wrinkled brows.
"I suppose you want a new sensation," remarked Mrs. Battishill.
"There aren't any," smiled Camilla.
To anyone who knew her, it might seem that she was right; wealth, beauty, culture, luxury, love, all the joys and glories of the earth, had always been hers. Camilla Attwood was not only of immensely rich people; she was in herself lovely, gifted, fascinating and popular. Wherever she went, she "queened it"; her friends were like a court about her; she had shone and dazzled through Europe and America; she was both exclusive and popular, adored by the elect, worshipped by the people.
She was really lovely, the culmination, as it were, of a type; and she was really clever, not in any superficial manner, or on merely "smart" lines. She had genuine gifts, and money had been poured out lavishly on the cultivation of them.
There was very little that she had not done, there were very few places that she had not seen, very few notable people she had not met, absolutely no accomplishment that she could not claim proficiency in; and now she was engaged to Sir Michael Warrington, an enormously rich banker and a finished cosmopolitan of admired intellect, pervading charm, and universal popularity.
As Lady Warrington, her life would be, if possible, even more delightful, varied, and dominant than it was now. She had chosen Sir Michael from literally a "crowd" of suitors, and as she had no reason for consulting anything but her heart in her choice, it was generally believed that she was extremely happy in her imposing lover's adoration.
Mrs. Battishill, however, as she rose to take her leave, wondered. She had known Camilla since she was a baby, and never before had she seen any hint of this restless boredom, this dissatisfied melancholy, that Camilla showed now. Oh, just a faint hint, but there it was.
"You're overwhelmed by the gifts of the gods," smiled Mrs. Battishill. "Too much has happened to you—you're only twenty-five, Camilla!"
"How long that makes the rest of life seem," answered the girl. "How strange to look ahead and see years and years of repetition and every year, I suppose, things getting more and more stale."
"What a horrible way of looking at it!" exclaimed the elder woman. "I don't want to throw truisms at you—but really!"
"I know," smiled Camilla. "Count my blessings and all that"
"It would take you a long time to count them," said Mrs. Battishill dryly.
Camilla, pulling at a chain slung with diamonds, Sir Michael's last gift, looked up earnestly; the fire-glow was vivid over her slimness and the gold and violet cushions behind her in the satin chair.
"This is what frightens me," she said seriously. "I don't see what can happen that hasn't happened before—one knows life so well, every turn of it; one knows people, one knows places—it's awful, I know. Why should we crave for something fresh? Yet we do."
"She's not in love!" thought Mrs. Battishill. "Poor Sir Michael!"
Aloud she said:
"It seems to me there is a novelty every day, in everything—from religions to chocolates"
"It's only the old flavours, the old dogmas turned about a bit," said Camilla quickly. "One is so tired of sampling—new religions and new chocolates!"
"I suppose," said Mrs. Battishill, "you don't know what you want?"
"Nothing, nothing. This is idle talk. I'm tired, I think. Oh, I don't know! I'm going down to Kitty Groves' to-night—and then—oh, I'm sick of London—the Riviera, I think. I like to break up seasons; the old round becomes like a treadmill."
She was to be married in the spring, and this was late autumn. Mrs. Battishill wondered if she looked on the future as a "treadmill."