Colonel Faversham was in an unstable mood this morning.  Why couldn’t Bridget come?  She must know by this time that he detested waiting!  Every other minute he glanced at the door, and at last when she entered breathed a deep sigh of relief.

“What a very early bird!” she cried, coming towards him in her graceful, unhurried way.

“I want to catch the——­ No, no,” he said, “that won’t do!  You didn’t tell me you had seen Mark Driver!” he added, holding her hand.

“Didn’t I?” was the casual answer.  “But why should I?  You surely don’t imagine for a moment I tell you everything!  How deeply astonished you would be!  What an amusing disillusionment!”

“Why should it be?” he demanded.  “What have you to be ashamed of?”

“Ever so much,” said Bridget.  “So many men would like to shut us up in harems, wouldn’t they?”

“It depends on the woman,” returned the colonel.

“I assure you it would never answer in my case,” she exclaimed.  “Neither bolts nor bars would keep me in.”

“My dear,” he said, “you drive me half out of my mind.  You give me no peace.”

“Oh, you poor thing!” she murmured, resting a hand on his shoulder.

“Say you will be my wife and have done with it,” he urged.

“Now, supposing—­only supposing that I were foolish enough——­”

“You will,” he cried, and doubtless he looked a little ridiculous as he went down on one knee.  The joint, too, was stiffer than usual this morning.

“What do you imagine,” she suggested, “that Carrissima would say—­and your son!”

At this alarming reminder Colonel Faversham made an attempt to rise, but to his annoyance a cry of pain escaped.  Unable for the moment to straighten his knee, he remained at Bridget’s feet, conscious of the anti-climax.

“Let me help you,” she said, sympathetically offering her hand.

“Good heavens!” he cried; “why do you imagine I require help!  I am quite able to help myself.  I never depend on other people.  Give me independence,” he added, standing upright though the effort made him wince.

“Yet you ask me to sacrifice mine!” said Bridget.  “But what would Mr. Lawrence Faversham have to say?”

“Upon my soul I can’t imagine,” was the answer.

“I believe you are thoroughly afraid of him and Carrissima.  Well, so am I,” she admitted.

Colonel Faversham had never held Lawrence in greater awe than at this moment when he believed that happiness lay within his grasp.  He perceived that Carrissima the previous evening must have been attempting to influence him, and consequently that she already suspected his intentions.  Now Colonel Faversham had often turned the matter over in his mind, with the result that he conceived a plan which, if it could only be carried successfully out, might obviate everything unpleasant.

“Lawrence,” he said, “is a good fellow.  A little too good, perhaps.  I have never pretended to be an anchorite.  I’ve too much warm blood still in my veins.  Come to that, I’m to all intents and purposes a younger man than my son.  I have the greatest respect for Lawrence, but he seems to have been born old.”