“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 circumstances,” he answered, with an embarrassed, 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 embarrassment; Jimmy’s glass 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 glass.

“Carrissima!” he said.  “Mark, old chap!”

She looked across the table, half smiles, half tears.

THE END