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Before Valerie had resided at Coombe six weeks she grew weary of the monotony of country life. In her discontented mood her surroundings were dull and uninteresting, while the local people she met lacked polish and _chic_, which, to her eyes, were the two necessary qualifications in acquaintances. Nothing was extraordinary in this, however. Women of the world meet in their life so many men and women -- young, middle aged, and old -- who commit all sorts of absurdities for or around them, that they end by entertaining a sovereign contempt for the whole human race, placing all persons in the same category. In each woman they see only an individual to impose upon and outvie in the matter of dress, and each fresh specimen of the genus man which is brought before them they regard only as a lamb destined for the sacrifice after being sufficiently shorn.
It was in consequence of an earnest wish she expressed that they had left Cornwall and travelled to Paris, taking up their abode at the Hotel Continental.