38 The Real Charlotte, 



" I am not in the least angry with you," replied Lambert 

 coldly, though his eyes turned in spite of himself to her 

 face. 



" Oh, I know very well you're angry with me," rejoined 

 Francie, with unfeigned enjoyment of the situation ; " your 

 mustash always gets as black as a coal when you're angry." 



The adornment referred to twitched, but its owner said 

 nothing. 



"There now, you're laughing!" continued Francie, 

 "but it's quite true; I remember the first time I noticed 

 that, was the time you brought Mrs. Lambert up to town 

 about her teeth, and you took places at the Gaiety for the 

 three of us — and oh ! do you remember — " leaning back 

 and laughing whole-heartedly, " she couldn't get her teeth 

 in in time, and you wanted her to go without any, and she 

 wouldn't, for fear she might laugh at the pantomime, and I 

 had promised to go to the Dalkey Band that night with the 

 Whittles, and then when you got up to our house and found 

 you'd got the three tickets for nothing, you were so mad 

 that when I came down into the parlour I declare I thought 

 you'd been dyeing your mustash ! Aunt Tish said afterwards 

 it was because your face got so white, but / knew it was 

 because you were in such a passion." 



" Well, I didn't like chucking away fifteen shillings a bit 

 more than anyone else would," said Lambert. 



"Ah, well, we made it up, d'ye remember?" said Francie, 

 regarding him with a laughing eye, in which there was a 

 suspicion of sentiment; "and after all, you were able to 

 change the tickets to another night, and it was ' Pinafore,' 

 and you laughed at me so awfully, because I cried at the 

 part where the two lovers are saying good-bye to each other, 

 and poor Mrs. Lambert got her teeth in in a hurry to go 

 v/ith us, and she couldn't utter the whole night for fear 

 they'd fall out." 



Perhaps the allusions to his wife's false teeth had a subtly 

 soothing effect on Mr. Lambert. He never was averse to 

 anything that showed that other people were as conscious 

 as he was of the disparity between his own admirable per- 

 sonal equipment and that of Mrs. Lambert ; it was another 

 admission of the great fact that he had thrown himself away. 

 His eyebrows and moustache became less truculent, he let 



