, Carrissima, I don't want you to drop upon her too heavily."

"Is that a custom of mine?" she exclaimed. "As if I want to drop upon
her at all! Frankly, I like Bridget. You see, we are in agreement so
far. Or rather, I should like her if she would let the foolish colonel
go. Oh dear, I really ought not to talk in this way!"

"Upon my word," said Mark, "I believe she scarcely realizes what she is
doing."

"Then you admit she is doing it!"

"A kind of youthful irresponsibility," he returned. "That accounts for
everything."

"You seem to forget she is older than I am," said Carrissima.

He laughed as he looked down at her small figure, and if he had not by
any means succeeded in relieving her dismal anticipations concerning
Colonel Faversham, he had to a certain degree caused her to feel easier
about his own future. Flattering herself that she had now a firm grip
of the situation, Carrissima began to marvel that a man of her father's
long experience could remain blind to the facts of the case.

"Father," she said, alone with him after dinner the same evening, "I
heard some rather astonishing news this afternoon."

"Ah well," answered the colonel, "it takes a great deal to astonish me.
The more I know of the world the more extraordinary things I expect to
hear."

"It was about Bridget," said Carrissima.

"What about her?" he demanded, turning in his chair to face his
daughter.

"Judging from the way she lives and dresses," Carrissima continued, "I
always assumed she had plenty of money."

"I hate to see a girl of your age mercenary," was the answer. "Good
gracious, when I was two-and-twenty I never gave money a thought. I
should never have dreamed of bothering myself about the amount of my
friends' incomes. I don't now for that matter. Always keep your heart
young, Carrissima! I am as disinterested now as ever I was in my salad
days, thank goodness! Odd where you get this calculating habit!"

"I didn't know I was mercenary and calculating and all the rest of it,"
said Carrissima. "I thought, perhaps, you might feel interested to
hear----"

"To hear what?" cried Colonel Faversham. "If I had wished to learn the
amount of Bridget's income I should simply have paid a shilling and
gone to Somerset House to look at David Rosser's will. But I didn't.
I've a mind above that sort of thing."

"You wouldn't have got much information there," said Carrissima,
"because Mr. Rosser left nothing. Bridget