He sat leaning forward in his chair, close to Carrissima"s, his arms resting on his knees.
"Yes, that"s all right," he said. "But I have sometimes to advise patients to submit to operations, thinking how I should hate the ordeal on my own account. I quite understand that the only way is often to shut one"s eyes. Life seems to include a good many things which simply won"t bear thinking about. One realizes the fact, yet goes on thinking of them just the same."
"Well," murmured Carrissima, "you should try--you should try to mend your ways in the future."
"Do you think you could do it?" he asked.
"What?" asked Carrissima.
"Shut your eyes!"
"Mark!" she cried, after a pause.
"Well?" he said.
"Look----"
She was leaning back with her eyes tightly closed; her little face puckered, and one hand resting on each arm of the chair.
At the sight all Mark"s hesitation fell away, and rising impulsively, he took her cheeks between his palms and kissed her lips. The touch of nature made them kin, but not within the tables of affinity. They might have reasoned with themselves for months longer in vain, but being thrown alone together, their feelings quickly found free play.
It was true that Carrissima, although she may have hoped, and indeed she did devoutly hope for such a consummation, was in the sequel taken rather sharply by surprise. She had not antic.i.p.ated this sudden _denouement_! The time for procrastination had pa.s.sed, however, and as she opened her eyes she wound her arms about Mark"s neck.
"It must be nearly eight o"clock," she remarked, as she rose from her chair a few minutes later, going at once to look in the mirror which formed part of the overmantel.
"Carrissima," said Mark, "I begin to suspect----"
"What?" she demanded.
"That this must be a put-up job!"
"Oh, but Bridget would never dream of such a thing," said Carrissima.
"I should be rather sorry to say what she wouldn"t be capable of.
Anyhow," Mark added, "it would be a pity to spoil a good intention!
You haven"t said you will be my wife, you know."
"I--I fancied that I had," she was answering, when there arose a noise outside the drawing-room as if some one had violently knocked over a metal tray.
By the time the door opened, Carrissima was seated in the easy-chair gazing at the fire, while Mark stood at the farther side of the small room with one of David Rosser"s novels (hastily s.n.a.t.c.hed from a side table) in his hand.
Enter Bridget, accompanied by Jimmy and looking her best in what might have been her wedding dress.
"So immensely sorry!" she cried, hastening forward as Carrissima rose.
"She looks sorry, doesn"t she?" said Jimmy, with a laugh. "You must both try your hardest to forgive us," he added, as Bridget turned towards Mark.
"I do hope you two good people haven"t been bored to death," she continued. "Especially as Mark seems to be reading one of my father"s books!"
"We"ve done our level best--in the circ.u.mstances," he answered, with an embarra.s.sed, boyish laugh, and then, dinner being announced, Jimmy offered his arm to Carrissima. While the servants were present everybody seemed to have a great deal to say with the exception of Miss Faversham, whose silence failed, however, to attract the least attention. By the time dessert was reached she began to show symptoms of recovering from her not unnatural embarra.s.sment; Jimmy"s gla.s.s was full. He drank champagne this evening.
"I was wondering," said Mark, when the four were left by themselves, "whether I might be of some use before the evening ended. Carrissima suggested an accident."
"There was not much you could call accidental about it, was there, Bridget?" said Jimmy.
"Oh dear!" she exclaimed, "I wish somebody would say something illuminating! I am positively dying from curiosity!"
"The important question is," suggested Jimmy, "what did Carrissima say?"
"And," said Bridget, "what did Mark ask her?"
Carrissima looked entreatingly into his face across the table.
"The fact is," he explained, disregarding her mute appeal, "I asked her to marry me!"
Bridget was on her feet in an instant.
"Oh, how immensely pleased I am!" she cried, stooping to kiss Carrissima"s forehead. "Jimmy, you may drink your wine now!"
He lost no time in raising his gla.s.s.
"Carrissima!" he said. "Mark, old chap!"
She looked across the table, half smiles, half tears.
THE END