"What is that?"
"To make no attempt to follow her!"
Jimmy laughed at this, and reminded Carrissima of his wish to speak to Colonel Faversham. Somewhat reluctantly she accompanied him down-stairs again, and opened the door of the smoking-room, taking the precaution to make as much noise as possible with the handle.
Colonel Faversham looked the embodiment of dejection, when at last, followed by Jimmy, she entered his room. He was sitting in an easy-chair, leaning forward with his hands to his head. All his usual exuberance appeared to have left him; he looked quite old and feeble.
Seeing Jimmy, he scowled fiercely, making no attempt to rise or to offer his hand.
"Good-morning, colonel," said the visitor cheerfully. "Sorry if I am disturbing you, but I wanted a few words, if you can spare a minute."
"A broad hint for me to go," cried Carrissima, backing towards the door, with the most painful curiosity.
"Well, what is it?" demanded Colonel Faversham, as soon as he was alone with Jimmy.
"I am going to ask you a straight question!" was the answer. "I have heard of your engagement----"
"Who the devil told you?" exclaimed Colonel Faversham, sitting suddenly erect.
"Well, you know," said Jimmy, "I imagine there was only one person who had it in her power to tell me."
"Bridget, you mean?"
"Yes," replied Jimmy.
"When was that?"
"Just after you left her yesterday morning."
Rising from his chair, Colonel Faversham seemed to pull himself together. He blew out his cheeks, put back his shoulders and fixed his eyegla.s.s as if he wished to examine Jimmy more distinctly.
"I should like to know," he said, "what my engagement has to do with you!"
"Nothing in the world," returned Jimmy, "if it still exists. That is all I am anxious to hear--whether it does or not."
Colonel Faversham stood glaring into Jimmy"s face. So it was true, as he had suspected, that he had been thrown over for the benefit of this confounded fellow, who had the audacity to catechize him! Well, the battle was to the young! Colonel Faversham set it down to that. He must be growing old, hang it all! and here was Jimmy Clynesworth, whom he had nursed as a small boy, civil enough, as far as that went, but probably laughing in his sleeve, as those who win may.
"Jimmy," said the colonel, with a chastened and rather pathetic air, "I tell you what it is. I"ve been infernally badly treated. No use to mince matters. I"ve been jilted, sir. Jilted!"
"I suppose I may gather from that," suggested Jimmy, striving to keep anything resembling elation from his voice, "that, as far as you"re concerned, Bridget is free----"
"Free!" cried Colonel Faversham. "Any woman can easily be free who attaches no value to her most solemn vows. Free! Good gracious! How can a man bind such a wench?"
"Thank you," said Jimmy, turning towards the door, "that"s all I wanted to hear!"
His position did not appear very enviable, because while he could not tolerate any abuse of Bridget, to tell the truth it was impossible to say a word in her defence.
"One minute--one minute, Jimmy!" cried Colonel Faversham. "The more I think of it, the more extraordinary this visit of yours seems! As a boy you always had plenty of cheek! Between ourselves! You seem to know a good deal. I hope to goodness you haven"t blabbed to Carrissima!"
"About your engagement, do you mean?"
"Yes, yes," said the colonel impatiently.
"I haven"t said a word. In fact, she has not the remotest idea of anything of the kind."
"Well, that"s a blessing," was the answer, and Jimmy went away, getting out of the house without seeing Carrissima again. The moment he reached Upper Grosvenor Street he inquired for Sybil, and being told she was in her own room, mounted the stairs several treads at a time.
"May I come in?" he asked, tapping at her door.
"Whatever is the matter now, Jimmy?" exclaimed Sybil, throwing it open.
"Well, it has been a wonderful morning," he explained. "I have got a free hand. Bridget has thrown old Faversham over."
"My dear," said Sybil, "how extremely barefaced!"
"I have seen him," Jimmy continued. "There is nothing on earth in my way. All I have to do is to find her, and that won"t take many days."
While he stood outside Sybil"s bedroom door, explaining how he had heard the news of Bridget"s departure from Golfney Place, his sister underwent the sorest temptation of her life. Surely no situation could be more tantalizing. If it were not for the solemn promise she had made to Carrissima, how easy it would prove to keep Jimmy from the pursuit which might end in his ruin!
Although he remained so strangely uninfluenced by the knowledge of Bridget"s engagement to Colonel Faversham, her simultaneous intrigue with Mark Driver could scarcely fail to bring Jimmy to his senses. For the present, however, Sybil tried to hope that there might be more difficulty in running his quarry to earth than he antic.i.p.ated. She might indeed be hiding somewhere perplexingly close at hand; and most likely Mark held the clue!
Jimmy lost no time in setting to work in earnest. In the first place, he inserted advertis.e.m.e.nts in the halfpenny evening papers and such of their morning contemporaries as made a special feature of betting news.
These he thought would be most in favour amongst taxi-cab drivers, and, of course, the important thing was to discover the man who had driven "a lady and her luggage from No. 5, Golfney Place" that fateful afternoon.
Not content with this, Jimmy motored to Sandbay, and stopping at a stationer"s shop, succeeded in purchasing a local Directory. In this he found the name of "Dobson, the Misses," who lived at No. 8, Downside Road. The house was named "Fairbank." Thither Jimmy drove at once, and few thoroughfares could have had a more sedately retired appearance. A wide, gravelled roadway, smoothly rolled, with red-brick villas all precisely alike on one side, and yellow-brick villas, equally uniform, on the other.
There must have been fewer than the average number of children in the neighbourhood, and these must have been unusually silent and well conducted. Such dogs as there were always went out with a lead, and often wearing neat little home-made coats, with a leather strap instead of a collar.
On almost every gate a metal label was affixed: "No hawkers or street musicians." In the most sedate of the red-brick villas with the neatest front garden, lived the Misses Dobson. If any one ever ventured to speak of them in their hearing as the "Miss Dobsons" he was certain to be corrected. In truth, "The Misses Dobson" seemed to describe them far more accurately.
The difference between their ages was only eighteen months, and casual observers a.s.sumed that they were twins. They invariably dressed alike, in a fashion which had become out of date in London several years before. They never went out separately, and in order that the same ideas should penetrate their minds at the same moment, one of the pair read aloud while the other sewed and listened.
Well-to-do in the world, they were exceedingly kind to the poor, and they had never succeeded in grasping Bridget"s reasons for refusing to accept their hospitality. This afternoon they were sitting together in their superlatively neat drawing-room, and Miss Dobson was knitting while Miss Frances was reading a novel from the circulating library.
In the middle of chapter four they were astonished to hear the unwonted sound of a motor-car, and when the sentence was finished they both rose and walked to the window.
There stood a large red car, with a chauffeur in dark-grey livery with a light-brown fur rug round his knees. Before their astonishment permitted the remark that some one must have stopped at the wrong house, the door opened and the most demure parlour-maid in England stood nervously holding the handle.
"A gentleman in a motor-car," said Selina.
"I think," answered Miss Dobson, "that he must have made a mistake in the number."
"He asked for Miss Dobson," said Selina. "Not knowing the name, I left him in the hall."
"Quite right," returned Miss Frances.
"Name o" Clynesworth," said Selina.
"Perhaps," suggested Miss Dobson, "he wishes to sell something."
"A motor-car!" remarked Miss Frances.