350 The Real Charlotte, 



The accurate balance of the sentence and its nasal 

 cadence showed that Charlotte was delivering herself of a 

 well-studied peroration. Her voice clashed with the stillness 

 as dissonantly as the clamour of the young herons. Her 

 face was warm and shiny, and Christopher looked away from 

 it, and said to himself that she was intolerable. 



*' Of course — yes — I understand — " he answered stam- 

 meringly, her pause compelling him to speak ; " but these 

 are very serious things to say — " 



" Serious ! " Charlotte dived her hand into her pocket 

 to make sure that her handkerchief was within hail. " D'ye 

 think. Sir Christopher, I don't know that well ! I that have 

 lain awake crying every night since I heard of it, not know- 

 ing how to decide between me affection for me friend and 

 my duty to the son of my dear father's old employer ! " 



" I think anyone who makes charges of this kind," inter- 

 rupted Christopher coldly, " is bound to bring forward some- 

 thing more definite than mere suspicion." 



Charlotte took her hand out of her pocket without the 

 handkerchief, and laid it for a moment on Christopher's 

 arm. 



" My dear Sir Christopher, I entirely agree with you," she 

 said in her most temperate, ladylike manner, "and I 

 am prepared to place certain facts before you, on whose 

 accuracy you may perfectly rely, although circumstances 

 prevent my telling you how I learned them." 



The whole situation was infinitely repugnant to Chris- 

 topher. He would himself have said that he had not nerve 

 enough to deal with Miss Mullen ; and joined with this, and 

 his innate and overstrained dislike of having his affairs 

 discussed, was the unendurable position of conniving with 

 her at a treachery. Little as he liked Lambert, he sided with 

 him now with something more than a man's ordinary resent- 

 ment against feminine espionage upon another man. He 

 was quite aware of the subdued eagerness in Charlotte's 

 manner, and it mystified while it disgusted him ; but he was 

 also aware that nothing short of absolute flight would check 

 her disclosures. He could do nothing now but permit 

 himself the single pleasure of staring over her head with a 

 countenance barren of response to her histrionic display of 

 expression. 



