“You would certainly require a clever defence,” returned Lawrence.  “A fine thing you have done by your unnecessary interference.”

“But what am I accused of?” she demanded.  “What is all the fuss about?”

“As I was walking home on Saturday,” he explained, “I turned up the Haymarket.  The people were just going in to the matinee——­”

“I mustn’t forget I want to go to the Haymarket,” said Carrissima.

“Do, for goodness’ sake,” he expostulated, “try to fix your mind on one thing at a time.”

“It depends on its nature,” said Carrissima.

“Whom should I see getting out of a taxi,” cried Lawrence, “but the colonel and some woman.”

“My dear Lawrence,” was the answer, “knowing father as well as you pretend to know everybody, surely you cannot imagine there’s anything very unusual about that.”

“Carrissima,” interposed Phoebe, “I really think from Lawrence’s description that she must have been Bridget Rosser.”

“Oh, but surely not!”

“I think it was,” Phoebe insisted.

“He has only seen her once,” said Carrissima.  “That was on Saturday week.  She would scarcely——­”

“Let me ask you one question!” cried Lawrence.

“Oh, a dozen,” said Carrissima.

“How do you know that was the only time he saw the woman?”

“Of course, I can’t say that I know for certain,” she admitted.

“There you are!  You don’t know.  You don’t even believe.  You simply jump to a conclusion.  You have no means of knowing.  Depend upon it, he has been at Golfney Place over and over again.  We shall be fortunate if he doesn’t end by marrying her.”

“Who is jumping to a conclusion now?” said Carrissima.

“Lawrence dear,” suggested Phoebe, quite humbly, “I understood you were afraid she might marry Mark.  After all, she can’t very well make victims of both him and your father.”

“No, but she may like to have two strings to her bow.  She may prefer a bird in the hand, and if he should escape, there’s Mark to fall back upon.”

“After all,” said Carrissima, “you have not even seen Bridget.  You don’t know she has the slightest desire to marry anybody.”

“She is simply an adventuress,” was the answer.  “A pretty woman on the make.”

Although Carrissima had little reason to be prejudiced in Miss Rosser’s favour, she was the possessor of an elementary sense of justice, and, moreover, it was always a satisfaction to contradict her brother.

“I don’t admit you have any right to say that,” she protested.  “I saw a great deal of her at Crowborough——­”

“Five years ago!”

“From what I have seen since,” Carrissima continued, “I believe you have found a mare’s nest.  You seem to forget that father is sixty-five.”

“Ah, yes, but he doesn’t begin to realize the fact,” said Lawrence.  “He thinks he is quite capable of acting like an ordinary man of half his age.  If you had tried to provide your friend with an easy prey, you couldn’t have gone a surer way to work.”