“You need not enter into such elaborate explanations,” she suggested.  “I have a small amount of intelligence, though you do not seem to detect it.”

He looked at her as one might look at an impatient child.

“Kindly not to interrupt me,” he replied mildly.  “How very impatient you are!  And how restless!  What must you have been like before you fell ill?”

But he took the hint all the same, and shortened his explanations, and as Bernardine was genuinely interested, he was well satisfied.  From time to time he looked at his old camera and at his companion, and from the expression of unease on his face, it was evident that some contest was going on in his mind.  Twice he stood near his old camera, and turned round to Bernardine intending to make some remark.  Then he chanced his mind, and walked abruptly to the other end of the room as though to seek advice from his chemical bottles.  Bernardine meanwhile had risen from her chair, and was looking out of the window.

“You have a lovely view,” she said.  “It must be nice to look at that when you are tired of dissecting cheese-mites.  All the same, I think the white scenery gives one a great sense of sadness and loneliness.”

“Why do you speak always of loneliness?” he asked.

“I have been thinking a good deal about it,” she said.  “When I was strong and vigorous, the idea of loneliness never entered my mind.  Now I see how lonely most people are.  If I believed in God as a Personal God, I should be inclined to think that loneliness were part of his scheme:  so that the soul of man might turn to him and him alone.”

The Disagreeable Man was standing by his camera again:  his decision was made.

“Don’t think about those questions,” he said kindly.  “Don’t worry and fret too much about the philosophy of life.  Leave philosophy alone, and take to photography instead.  Here, I will lend you my old camera.”

“Do you mean that?” she asked, glancing at him in astonishment.

“Of course I mean it,” he said.

He looked remarkably pleased with himself, and Bernardine could not help smiling.

He looked just as a child looks when he has given up a toy to another child, and is conscious that he has behaved himself rather well.

“I am very much obliged to you,” she said frankly.  “I have had a great wish to learn photography.”

“I might have lent my camera to you before, mightn’t I?” he said thoughtfully.

“No,” she answered.  “There was not any reason.”

“No,” he said, with a kind of relief, “there was not any reason.  That is quite true!”

“When will you give me my first lesson?” she asked.  “Perhaps, though, you would like to wait a few days, in case you change your mind.”

“It takes me some time to make up my mind,” he replied, “but I do not change it.  So I will give you your first lesson to-morrow.  Only you must not be impatient.  You must consent to be taught; you cannot possibly know everything!”