Mark Driver must have been much more obtuse than the most of his friends believed, to fail to recognize the invitation in Bridget"s demeanour. Although he had not the slightest intention to profit by it, he could not pretend that for the moment it lacked enticement.
It seemed perfectly clear that she was holding the balance between himself and Colonel Faversham; and realizing that her income must some day inevitably be exhausted, shrinking from an appeal to her aunts at Sandbay, that she was determined to take Time by the forelock and seek safety in marriage.
Mark could understand now the significance of her behaviour during the first few weeks of their acquaintance, and while this offer of herself was in a manner distasteful, she looked so young, so seductive, so ingenuous while she made it that he must needs blame her environment rather than her disposition.
Bridget impressed him as a child masquerading in the garments of a somewhat audacious woman of the world, and he told himself that if she could be placed amidst more favourable surroundings, her natural character would shine forth triumphantly. Moreover, he was by no means free from egoism. He had enough vanity to experience some shadow of gratification, and even though the other candidate was no one more estimable than Colonel Faversham, there was, perhaps, a grain of satisfaction in the knowledge that he might have been first in the field.
As a matter of fact, Mark had never in his life been more attracted by Carrissima than on this first day after his return to London. At the same time he was a young man and Bridget was an extremely captivating young woman. Notwithstanding a sense of disapproval, it became judicious to take the precaution of saying "good-bye."
"Well, what am I to do?" asked Bridget, as he sat silent.
"I"m blessed if I know," he answered, and at once rose to his feet.
He saw that she was profoundly disappointed, and although it appeared plain enough that the transaction would in any case be regarded by her as mainly mercantile, he fancied that she would have been in other ways delighted if his answer had been different.
"Neither do I," she said, with a sigh, "unless I make up my mind to gratify Colonel Faversham. Why shouldn"t I? Look upon this picture and on this. A year or two at the outside, and on the one hand I find myself without a penny. On the other, I have only to say the word and I make certain, as soon as I please, of a fair income, a good house and an excellent position in society; because, you know, I could hold my own. You see me here living through a kind of interregnum. I am just n.o.body! But in Paris and other places it used to be different, and so I intend it to be again. What else is there? You make an immense mistake if you imagine me as a governess or anything of that kind.
What could I teach?"
"Anyhow," answered Mark, holding out his hand, "you need not do anything impetuously. At the worst your money will hold out for some time to come."
"Oh dear, yes!" she cried more brightly, "and before it has all gone, why, I shall be provided with somebody else"s."
Still she looked up at him rather pitifully, her eyes meeting his own, her chin invitingly raised with its delectable dimple. Now, Mark wished devoutly that the idea of that dimple as a sort of _point d"appui_ had never entered his thoughts, but there was the regrettable fact. Of course he had hitherto always resisted the temptation, which was the greater because he knew that he need not fear opposition; but still, there was Carrissima and he resisted it again.
He went to Grandison Square the following afternoon as if to seek a corrective; and once in her presence marvelled at his own weakness.
Here was the woman, as somebody says, for him to go picnicking through the world with. Not that the time had arrived just yet. Mark was not without a st.u.r.dy independence. Besides, there would be Colonel Faversham to deal with. As soon as he had made a beginning in his profession, then would be the time to ask Carrissima to share his lot.
"Well, did you see Bridget?" she asked.
"Oh yes," said Mark.
"If you appointed yourself her father-confessor she must have been a wee bit surprised."
"The surprise was on my side," said Mark.
"What about?" demanded Carrissima.
"The state of her finances. All she has in the world is the remnant of two or three thousand pounds she inherited from her mother. Rosser left her nothing, and she is calmly spending her capital."
"But why," suggested Carrissima, "should she go out of her way to enlighten you about her income?"
"Anyhow," was the answer, "the time is bound to come when she won"t possess one."
"What does she propose to do in that case?" said Carrissima. "At present her dressmaker"s bill must be rather extravagant, and I wish I could buy such hats! I suppose," Carrissima added, "that marriage is to be the way out of her difficulty."
"At least," replied Mark, "you may console yourself that nothing is settled at the moment."
"How do you know?" asked Carrissima hastily.
"You may accept it as a fact," he insisted.
"Undoubtedly," she retorted, "your conversation must have taken an extraordinary turn last night. Mark, you are rather tantalizing. It is so evident that you are only favouring me with elegant extracts."
"Oh well, I don"t want to give the girl away," he said. "And look here, 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 antic.i.p.ations 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 a.s.sumed 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"s money came from her mother."
"How did you discover that?" asked Colonel Faversham.
"Mark told me."
"Has he seen Bridget?" the colonel exclaimed in some surprise, because he had spent the afternoon at Golfney Place and she had not for a wonder mentioned Mark"s name.
"Yes, he went after dinner last night," said Carrissima. "There"s not the least shadow of doubt that she has been waiting to see whether he would ask her to marry him."
"Scandal!" shouted Colonel Faversham indignantly. "Abominable scandal!
How the devil is it possible you can know whether she expected Mark Driver to ask her to marry him or not?"