The Real Charlotte. 303 



he was within speaking distance ; " I couldn't find any- 

 thing but an old woman selling oranges, and I got you some 

 of those, and she made me get some cakes as well — I don't 

 know if they're fit to eat." 



Mr. Lambert spoke with a very unusual timorousness, as 

 he placed his sticky purchases in Francie's lap, and sat down 

 on the step beside her. 



" Oh, thank you awfully, Roddy, I'm sure they're lovely," 

 she answered, looking at her husband with a smile that was 

 less spontaneous than it used to be, and looking away again 

 immediately. 



There was something ineffably wearying to her in the 

 adoring, proprietary gaze that she found so unfailingly fixed 

 upon her whenever she turned her eyes towards him ; it 

 seemed to isolate her from other people and set her upon a 

 ridiculous pedestal, with one fooHsh worshipper declaiming 

 his devotion with the fervour and fatuity of those who for 

 two hours shouted the praises of Diana of the Ephesians. 

 The supernatural mist that blurs the irksome and the ludi- 

 crous till it seems like a glory was not before her eyes; 

 every outline was clear to her, with the painful distinctness 

 of a caricature. 



" I don't think you could eat the oranges here," he said, 

 *' they'd be down on us for throwing the skins about. Are 

 you too tired to come on down into the gardens where they 

 wouldn't spot us ? " He laid his hand on hers, " You are 

 tired. What fools we were to go walking round all those 

 infernal rooms ! Why didn't you say you had enough of 

 it?" 



Francie was aching with fatigue from walking slowly over 

 leagues of pohshed floor, with her head thrown back in per- 

 petual perfunctory admiration of gilded ceilings and battle 

 pictures, but she got up at once, as much to escape from 

 the heavy warmth of his hand as from the mental languor 

 that made discussion an effort. They went together 

 down the steps, too much jaded by uncomprehended 

 sight-seeing to take heed of the supreme expression of 

 art in nature that stretched out before them in mirrors of 

 Triton and dolphin-guarded water and ordered masses of 

 woodland, and walked slowly along a terrace till they came 

 to another flight of steps that fell suddenly from the stately 



