Charlotte interrupted him.
“There’s another of you at it!” she exclaimed. “I think I’ll have to advertiss in the Irish Times that, whereas my first cousin, Isabella Mullen, married Johnny Fitzpatrick, who was no relation of mine, good, bad, or indifferent, their child is my first cousin once removed, and not my niece!”
Mr. Lambert blew a cloud of smoke through his nose.
“You’re a nailer at pedigrees, Charlotte,” he said with a patronage that he knew was provoking; “but as far as I can make out the position, it comes to mighty near the same thing; you’re what they call her Welsh aunt, anyhow.”
Charlotte’s face reddened, and she opened her wide mouth for a retort, but before she had time for more than the champings as of a horse with a heavy bit, which preceded her more incisive repartees, another person joined the group.
“Mr. Lambert,” said Pamela Dysart, in her pleasant, anxious voice, “I am going to ask you if you will play in the next set, or if you would rather help the Miss Beatties to get up a round of golf? How do you do, Miss Mullen? I have not seen you before; why did you not bring your niece with you?”
Charlotte showed all her teeth in a forced smile as she replied, “I suppose you mean my cousin, Miss Dysart; she won’t be with me till the day after to-morrow.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” replied Pamela, with the sympathetic politeness that made strangers think her manner too good to be true; “and Mr. Lambert tells me she plays tennis so well.”
“Why, what does he know about her tennis playing?” said Charlotte, turning sharply towards Lambert.
The set on the nearer court was over, and the two young men who had played in it strolled up to the group as she spoke. Mr. Lambert expanded his broad chest, gave his hat an extra tilt over his nose, and looked rather more self-complacent than usual as he replied: