Bridget, presumably, expected her to employ some feminine wiles to bring Mark to a more amenable condition, but there Carrissima drew the line.  Within reach of the pillar-box, she took the letter in both hands, tore it into a dozen pieces and scattered them to the winds.

She would not, after all, make any definite appointment.  If Mark loved her he was not likely to change, and everything must eventually come right; if he did not, why, in that case she could not do aught to improve the existing condition of things, even if she would.  Time might, unassisted, enable him to judge her more leniently.  If she did not meet him before she left England, he could scarcely fail, sooner or later, to cross her path after her return.  In the meantime, rather miserably, she began her preparations; and, as it happened, she was to depart two days after Bridget’s marriage.

Although this had been arranged to take place very quietly at the church which Sybil so regularly attended, a good many of Jimmy’s friends seemed to hear of the affair.  Small as the wedding-party was (although it included the Misses Dobson), a large congregation gathered together.  Mark was present, at the rear of the church; but although Carrissima hesitated, she conquered her curiosity and stayed away.

Going to Charteris Street the same afternoon, she found Lawrence in a mood to moralize.

“Well,” he remarked, “they are a lively pair, Jimmy and this wife of his!”

“Yes, they will at least be that,” returned Carrissima.  “After all, I suppose it’s something to the good, and they’re certain to get along splendidly together.”

“They will flourish like the green bay tree,” exclaimed Lawrence.

“Oh, don’t be a Pharisee!” said Carrissima.

“I am a man of common-sense,” he protested.  “We all know Jimmy!  The only astonishing thing is that he was not too experienced a bird to be so easily caught.”

“Perhaps he was willing to meet his fate,” suggested Phoebe.

“Not a doubt about it,” said her husband.  “So complete was his beguilement.”

“You entirely ignore the possibility that Bridget may be sincerely fond of him,” said Carrissima.

“Just as she was fond first of Mark, then of father,” retorted Lawrence.  “You must admit that she angled for each in turn, and that she finally chose the richest.”

“Oh dear, yes,” said Carrissima.  “What is more, she would make the same admission herself.”

“A little barefaced,” remarked Phoebe.

“Anyhow,” Carrissima insisted, “I believe that Bridget simply fell in love with Jimmy, and that was why she altered her course.”

“Rotten sentimentality!” exclaimed Lawrence.  “The curse of the age.  Oh, there’s no doubt she was clever.  She played her cards so well that she succeeded in deceiving the principal looker-on as well as her victim.”

“Victim or not,” said Carrissima, “I positively can’t feel sorry for Jimmy.”