344 '^^ i?^«/ Charlotte. 



again, but with tenfold force, and, while he sat in the 

 waggonette and talked to his ancient foe, Miss Mullen, with 

 a novel friendliness, he gnawed the ends of his moustache 

 in the bitterness of his soul because of the coldness of the 

 eyes that were fascinating him. 



It was a bright and blowy afternoon, with dazzling masses 

 of white cloud moving fast across the blue, and there was 

 a shifting glimmer of young leaves in the Bruff avenue, and 

 a gusty warmth of fragrance from lilacs and laurel blossoms 

 on either side. As this strangely compounded party of 

 visitors drove up to the hall door they caught sight of 

 Christopher going down the lawn towards the boat-house, 

 and in answer to a call from Mr. Hawkins, he turned and 

 came back to meet them. He was only on his way to the 

 boat-house to meet Cursiter, he explained, and he was the 

 only person at home, but he hoped that they would, none 

 the less, come in and see him. Hawkins helped Francie 

 out of the carriage, giving her a hand no less formal than 

 that which she gave him. She recognised the formality, and 

 was not displeased to think that it was assumed in obedience 

 to her wish. 



They all strolled slowly on towards the boat-house, 

 Hawkins walking behind with Miss Mullen, Francie in front 

 with her host. It was not her first meeting with him since 

 her return to Lismoyle, and she found it quite easy to talk 

 with him of her travels, and of those small things that make 

 up the sum of ordinary afternoon conversation. She had 

 come to beheve now that she must have been mistaken on 

 that afternoon when he had stood over her in the Tally Ho 

 drawing-room and said those unexpected things to her — 

 things that, at the time, seemed neither ambiguous nor 

 Platonic. He was now telling her, in the quietly hesitating 

 voice that had always seemed to her the very height of good 

 breeding, that the weather was perfect, and that the lake 

 was lower than he had ever known it at that time of year, 

 with other like commonplaces, and though there was some- 

 thing wanting in his manner that she had been accustomed 

 to, she discerned none of the awkwardness that her experi- 

 ence had made her find inseparable from the rejected state. 



There was no sign of Captain Cursiter or his launch 

 when they reached the pier, and, after a fruitless five minutes 



