"Did I hear you say that you would like to see my face, Gore? How very polite of you! most gratifying!" he said with a loud laugh, which seemed to correspond to his big and burly person. "You did," said Sir William. "Wentworth says you know everything about photography." "Ah! now, that," said Pateley, galvanised into real eagerness and interest as he turned round after shaking hands with Lady Gore, "I really do know at this moment, as I have just come from the Photographic Exhibition." "Oh!" said Miss Tarlton with an irrepressible cry, the ordinary conventions of society abrogated by the enormous importance of the information which she felt was coming. "Let me introduce you to Miss Tarlton," said Sir William. Miss Tarlton bowed quickly, and then proceeded at once to business. "Do you know the name of a quite tiny camera?" she said; "the very newest?" "I do," said Pateley. "It is the 'Viator,' and I have just seen it." A sort of audible murmur of relief ran through the company at this burning question having been answered at last. "And it is only by a special grace of Providence," Pateley went on, "assisted by my high principles, that that machine is not in my pocket at this moment." "Oh! I wish it were!" said Miss Tarlton. "I'm afraid it may be before many days are over," said Pateley. "I never saw anything so perfect. And do you know, it takes a snapshot in a room even just as well as in the open air. If I had it in my hand I could snap any one of you here, at this moment, almost without your knowing anything about it." "I am so glad you haven't," Lady Gore couldn't help ejaculating. "The man who was showing it took one of me as I turned to look at it. It is perfectly wonderful." "And that in a room?" Miss Tarlton said, more and more awestruck. "And simply a snapshot, not a time exposure at all?" "Precisely," Pateley said. "I shall go and see it," Miss Tarlton said, and, notebook in hand, she continued with a businesslike air to write down the particulars communicated by Pateley. "I am quite out of my depth," Lady Gore said to Wentworth. "What does a 'time exposure' mean?" "Heaven knows," said Wentworth. "Something about seconds and things, I suppose." "I can never judge of how many seconds a thing takes," said Lady Gore. "I'm sure I can't," Wentworth replied. "The other day I thought we had been three-quarters of an hour in a tunnel and we had only been two minutes and a half." "Now then," Pateley said with a satisfied air, turning to Sir William, "I have cheered Miss Tarlton on to a piece of extravagance." Sir William felt a distinct sense of pleasure. "I have persuaded her to buy a new machine." "The thing that amuses me," said Sir William with some scorn, having apparently forgotten which of his pet aversions had been the subject of the conversation, "is people's theory that when once you have bought a bicycle it costs you nothing afterwards."