I felt snubbed. I didn’t know whether to stay or go, but he decided the matter by telling me to wait till he had had his bath, that he shouldn’t be long. He put on a dressing-gown, and left me. When he came back I didn’t know why he had asked me to stay, for he began to dress without taking the slightest notice of me. I sat on the edge of the bed and watched him. It seemed to me stupid that I should feel slightly in awe of him, but there was no use pretending that I didn’t. I had already made up my mind that I disliked him, yet somehow I could not be indifferent to him――I wanted him to think me important, to admire me. He was only a year older than I was, but he was infinitely more a man of the world, and it was this, really, that impressed me. He dressed very quickly, yet I noticed that the result was just as harmonious as it had been last night. His clothes were of a light brown colour, that was exactly the same shade as his hair, and a little darker than his skin. A pale violet tie was loosely knotted over a cambric shirt. His forehead was broad; his yellow-brown eyes were set widely apart, and were neither large nor small; his nose was straight and his mouth extraordinarily delicate. His ears seemed to me, too, to have their own peculiar beauty. His skin was of a golden-brown colour, but clear almost to transparency, and a tiny blue vein was faintly visible on his left temple, running from the delicate eyebrow to the cheekbone. When he listened his brows slightly wrinkled. I would have given a good deal to have looked like him. Suddenly I caught his eyes in the mirror watching me ironically. “Do you know you were extremely rude to me yesterday?” he said, without turning round. I blushed and had nothing to reply. “Well, I forgive you.” He patted me on the shoulder. “I’m ready now. Come along.” “Why wouldn’t you play properly when you were asked?” I blurted out, as we went downstairs. “I would have played if there had been anybody to play to. Neither Katherine nor Aunt Clara knows _God save the Queen_ from the _Moonlight Sonata_, and that Dick person is too absurd for words. I’ll play for you some time when they aren’t there. And now I must have breakfast; I won’t keep you very long.... What do you want all that for?” he asked, as Katherine suddenly appeared with a large basket. “For lunch; we’re not going to starve ourselves.” “Poor Katherine; evidently you’re not. We can each take our own lunch; a basket like that is only a nuisance.” “You needn’t carry it,” said Katherine. “You and I will carry it by turns,” she said to me. “What’s the use of talking like that,” answered Gerald. “It doesn’t mean anything. If that huge thing has to be dragged all the way I shan’t go at all.” He departed to the dining-room, while Katherine and I were left standing in the hall, the basket between us. “We needn’t take any drinkables,” I began, “there’ll be plenty of water.” “I haven’t put in any,” said Katherine.