The Real Charlotte. 51 



however, rejoined that she had always found Mr. Dysart a 

 most humble-minded young man on the occasions when 

 she had met him at his cousin Mrs. Gascogne's, and by no 

 means puffed up with his rank or learning. This proposi- 

 tion Mrs. Baker had not attempted to dispute, but none the 

 less she had felt it to be beside the point. She had not 

 found that Christopher's learning had disposed him to come 

 to her tennis parties, and she did not feel humility to be a 

 virtue that graced a young man of property. Certainly, in 

 spite of his humility, she could not venture to take him to 

 task for his neglect of her entertainments as she could Mr. 

 Hawkins ; but then it is still more certain that Christopher 

 would not, as Mr. Hawkins had often done, sit down before 

 her, as before a walled town, and so skilfully entreat her 

 that in five minutes all would have been forgiven and 

 forgotten. 



It was, perhaps, an additional point of aggravation that, 

 dull and unprofitable though he was considered to be, 

 Christopher had amusements of his own in which the 

 neighbourhood had no part. Since he had returned from 

 the West Indies, his three-ton cutter with the big Una sail 

 had become one of the features of the lake, but though a 

 red parasol was often picturesquely visible above the gun- 

 wale, the knowledge that it sheltered his sister deprived it 

 of the almost painful interest that it might otherwise have 

 had, and at the same time gave point to a snub that was 

 unintentionally effective and comprehensive. There were 

 many sunny mornings on which Mr. Dysart's camera occupied 

 commanding positions in the town, or its outskirts, while its 

 owner photographed groups of old women and donkeys, 

 regardless of the fact that Miss Kathleen Baker, m her 

 most becoming hat, had taken her younger sister from the 

 schoolroom to play a showy game of lawn-tennis in the 

 garden in front of her father's villa, or was, with Arcadian 

 industry, cutting buds off the roses that dropped their pink 

 petals over the low wall on to the road. It was quite inex- 

 plicable that the photographer should pack up his camera 

 and walk home without taking advantage of this artistic 

 opportunity beyond a civil lift of his cap; and at such times 

 Miss Baker would re-enter the villa with a feeling of con- 

 tempt for Mr. Dysart that was almost too deep for words. 



