The solid hotel dissolved, and in its place Christine saw the interesting, pathetic phantom of her own existence.  A stern, serious existence, full of disappointments, and not free from dangerous episodes, an existence which entailed much solitude and loss of liberty; but the verdict upon it was that in the main it might easily have been more unsatisfactory than it was.  With her indolence and her unappeasable temperament what other vocation indeed, save that of marriage, could she have taken up?  And her temperament would have rendered any marriage an impossible prison for her.  She was a modest success—­her mother had always counselled her against ambition—­but she was a success.  Her magic power was at its height.  She continued to save money and had become a fairly regular frequenter of the West End branch of the Credit Lyonnais. (Incidentally she had come to an arrangement with her Paris landlord.)

But, more important than money, she was saving her health, and especially her complexion—­the source of money.  Her complexion could still survive the minutest examination.  She achieved this supreme end by plenty of sleep and by keeping to the minimum of alcohol.  Of course she had to drink professionally; clients insisted; some of them were exhilarated by the spectacle of a girl tipsy; but she was very ingenious in avoiding alcohol.  When invited to supper she would respond with an air of restrained eagerness:  “Oh, yes, with pleasure!” And then carelessly add:  “Unless you would prefer to come quietly home with me.  My maid is an excellent cook and one is very comfortable chez-moi.”  And often the prospect thus sketched would piquantly allure a client.  Nevertheless at intervals she could savour a fashionable restaurant as well as any harum-scarum minx there.  Her secret fear was still obesity.  She was capable of imagining herself at fat as Marthe—­and ruined; for, though a few peculiar amateurs appreciated solidity, the great majority of men did not.  However, she was not getting stouter.

She had a secret sincere respect for certain of her own qualities; and if women of the world condemned certain other qualities in her, well, she despised women of the world—­selfish idlers who did nothing, who contributed nothing, to the sum of life, whereas she was a useful and indispensable member of society, despite her admitted indolence.  In this summary way she comforted herself in her loss of caste.

Without Gilbert, of course, her existence would have been fatally dull, and she might have been driven to terrible remedies against ennui and emptiness.  The depth and violence of her feeling for Gilbert were indescribable—­at any rate by her.  She turned again from the darkening window to the sofa and sat down and tried to recall the figures of the dozens of men who had sat there, and she could recall at most six or eight, and Gilbert alone was real.  What a paragon!...  Her scorn for girls who succumbed to souteneurs was measureless;