With the result of this conversation Churchill was made acquainted as he and Barbara bent together over a large stereoscope in the drawing-room before dinner. In a few hurried words, interspersed with ejaculations of admiration at the views, uttered in a much louder tone, Barbara conveyed to her lover that their project would meet with no assistance from her aunt, even if that old lady did not actively and violently oppose it. Churchill shrugged his shoulders on hearing this, and looked somewhat serious and annoyed; but as she rose to go in to dinner, Barbara pressed his hand, and looking into her face, he saw her eyes brighten and her lip curl with an expression of triumph, and he recognised in an instant that her energy had risen at the prospect of opposition, and that her determination to have her own way had strengthened rather than lessened from her aunt's treatment. There was an accession to the dinner-table that day in the person of Mr. Schröder, a German long resident in England, and partner in the great house of Schröder, Stutterheim, Hinterhaus, and Company, bankers and brokers, which had branches and ramifications in all the principal cities of the world. No one would have judged Gustav Schröder to have been a keen financier and a consummate master of his business from his personal appearance. He was between fifty-five and sixty years old, heavy and dull-looking, with short, stubbly, iron-gray hair, dull boiled eyes, and thin dry lips, which he was constantly sucking. He was clumsy in his movements, and very taciturn; but though he spoke little, even to Miss Townshend, by whom he was seated, he seemed to derive intense satisfaction in gazing at her with a proprietorial kind of air, which nearly goaded Lyster, sitting directly opposite to them, to desperation. Upon his evidently uncomfortable state Captain Lyster was rallied with great humour by old Miss Lexden, who, however much she may have been inwardly annoyed, showed no signs of trouble. She opined that Captain Lyster must be in love; that some shepherdess on the neighbouring downs, some Brighton _poissarde_, must have captivated him, and she was delighted at it, and it would do him good; and in spite of Lyster's protestations--which, however, he soon gave up when he found he had the trouble of repeating them--the old lady launched out into a very unusual tirade on her part in favour of early marriages, of love-matches made for love's sake alone, which frequently turned out the happiest, "didn't they, Mr. Churchill?" At which question, Churchill, who was dreamily looking across the table, and thinking how artistically Barbara's head was posed on her neck, and what a lovely ear she had, stammered an inarticulate and inappropriate reply.