354 ^^^ Real Charlotte. 



plored to Mrs. Gascogne Pamela's " hopeless friendliness " 

 towards men, and Mrs. Gascogne had admitted that there 

 might be something discouraging to a man in being treated 

 as if he were a younger sister. 



This unsuitable friendliness was candidly apparent in 

 Pamela's regret when she heard that Cursiter had come to 

 Bruff with the news that his regiment was to leave Ireland 

 for Aldershot in a fortnight, 



" Here's Captain Cursiter trying to stick me with the 

 launch at an alarming reduction, as the property of an 

 officer going abroad," said Christopher. '^ He wants to 

 take advantage of my grief, and he won't stay and dine here 

 and let me haggle the thing out comfortably." 



" I'm afraid I haven't time to stay," said Cursiter rather 

 cheerlessly. " I've got to go up to Dublin to-morrow, and 

 I'm very busy. I'll come over again— if I may — when I 

 get back." He felt all the awkwardness of a self-conscious 

 man in the prominence of making a farewell that he is 

 beginning to find more unpleasant than he had expected. 



^* Oh, yes ! indeed, you must come over again," said 

 Pamela, in the soft voice that was just Irish enough for 

 Saxons of the more ignorant sort to fail to distinguish, save 

 in degree, between it and Mrs. Lambert's Dublin brogue. 



It remained on Captain Cursiter's ear as he stalked down 

 through the shrubberies to the boat-house, and, as he 

 steamed round Curragh Point, and caught the sweet, turfy 

 whiff of the Irish air, he thought drearily of the arid glare 

 of Aldershot, and, without any apparent connection of ideas, 

 he wondered if the Dysarts were really coming to town next 

 month. 



Not ]ong after his departure Lady Dysart rustled into the 

 smoking-room in her solemnly sumptuous widow's dress. 



''Is he gone?" she breathed in a stage whisper, pausing 

 on the threshold for a reply. 



*'No; he's hiding behind the door," answered Christopher; 

 "he always does when he hears you coming." When 

 Christopher was irritated, his method of showing it was 

 generally so subtle as only to satisfy himself; it slipped 

 through the wide and generous mesh of his mother's under- 

 standing without the smallest friction. 



'* Nonsense, Christopher 1 " she said, not without a furtive 



