Mr. Lisle bowed.
"I heard that you were going away?"
"So I am—" he paused, and then added, "some day."
"What do you do with all your photographs—sell them? Oh, but to be sure you can't do that here. You must find the chemicals terribly costly."
"They are rather expensive."
"I'll tell you what, I will give you a little commission! How would you like to come over some morning and take me and Nip, and then the bungalow, and then a group of our servants?"
If Mr. Lisle's face was any index of his mind, it said plainly that he would not relish the prospect at all.
"I want to send home some photos to my sister, Lady Grubb. Of course I shall pay you—that's understood."
During this conversation, Colonel Denis looked miserably uncomfortable, and Mr. Quentin as if it was with painful difficulty that he restrained his laughter; the travelling photographer alone was unmoved; he surveyed his patroness gravely, as if he were taking a mental plate of her topee with its purple puggaree, her little eager light eyes, her important nose and ruddy cheeks, and then replied in a most deferential manner,—
"Thank you very much for your kind offer, but I am not a professional photographer."