324 The Real Charlotte, 



She felt that the familiar mention of such names must of 

 necessity place her in a superior position, and she was so 

 stimulated by their associations with her present grandeur 

 that she raised her eyes, and looked at him. Their eyes 

 met with as keen a sense of contact as if their hands had 

 suddenly touched, and each, with a perceptible jerk, looked 

 away. 



" You say that Paris was hot, was it ? " said Hawkins, with 

 something of an effort. '^ I haven't been there since I went 

 with some people the year before last, and it was as hot 

 then as they make it. I thought it rather a hole." 



*^ Oh, indeed ? " said Francie, chillingly ; " Mr. Lambert 

 and I enjoyed it greatly. You've been here all the spring, 

 I suppose ? " 



*' Yes ; I haven't been out of this place, except for 

 Punchestown, since I came back from leave ; " then with a 

 reckless feeling that he would break up this frozen sea of 

 platitudes, " since that time that I met you on the pier at 

 Kingstown." 



" Oh yes," said Francie, as if trying to recall some unim- 

 portant incident ; " you were there with the Dysarts, 

 weren't you ? " 



Hawkins became rather red. She was palpably overdoing 

 it, but that did not diminish the fact that he was being 

 snubbed, and though he might, in a general and guarded 

 way, have admitted that he deserved it, he realised that he 

 bitterly resented being snubbed by Francie. 



" Yes," he said, with an indifference as deliberately 

 exaggerated as her own, " I travelled over with them. I 

 remember how surprised we were to see you and Mr. Lam- 

 bert there." 



She felt the intention on his part to say something 

 disagreeable, and it stung her more than the words. 



''Why were you surprised?" she asked coolly. 



" Well — er — I don't exactly know," stammered Mr. 

 Hawkins, a good deal taken aback by the directness of the 

 mquiry ; '* we didn't exactly know where you were — thought 

 Lambert was at Lismoyle, you know." He began to wish 

 he had brought Cursiter with him; no one could have guessed 

 that she would have turned into such a cat and given herself 

 such airs ; her ultra-refinement, and her affected accent, and 



