Enter Bridget Part 21

"Be candid now!" cried the colonel. "Be honest. I like honesty.

Anyhow, you can't deceive me. Carrissima, I'll tell you one thing.

There's nothing on this earth would give me greater gratification, nothing!"

She durst not even yet allow her hopes to run away with her, and while she was wondering whether there would be time to go upstairs and powder her face or whether, after all, the remedy might not be worse than the disease, she heard the street door bell ring.

"I will go to Golfney Place to-morrow, if you like," she said, with a momentary sense of something resembling sympathy for her father.

Because, if what she was constantly hearing from Sybil were true, it seemed extremely probable that Colonel Faversham was doomed to disappointment. According to Sybil, Jimmy went to see Bridget day after day, and granting that she was determined upon escape from her pecuniary troubles by a marriage of some kind, surely she would choose Jimmy in preference to the colonel, if only for the fact that he was much more wealthy. So that Colonel Faversham were spared Carrissima did not feel disposed to judge Bridget too severely; disapproving of her manoeuvres, indeed, but having enough to do in the management of her own affairs.

"Well, well, go to-morrow," said her father. "I'll answer for it she will be pleased to see you. Take her a few flowers! Ah!" Colonel Faversham added, as the door opened, "here's Mark!"

"Where is Phoebe?" asked Carrissima, as she offered her hand.

"An awful bore," answered Mark. "Victor has a bit of a cold; anyhow I couldn't persuade his devoted mother to desert him this afternoon."

"I suppose," said Carrissima, hoping that she was not betraying her disappointment, "we must wait for another day."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Colonel Faversham. "Why shouldn't you keep to your arrangement? What is to hinder it, I should like to know."

"Do you mind, Carrissima?" asked Mark, gazing eagerly into her face.

"Not at all," she said, and a few minutes later Colonel Faversham stood on the doorstep, looking after them with obvious approval, as they were driven away from the house in a taxi-cab.

CHAPTER XVI

BUYING A CARPET--AND AFTER

Mark and Carrissima had not gone far on their way together before it became evident that they were not absolutely in harmony. His object was primarily to purchase a carpet for his dining-room as quickly as might be; while hers was to visit as many shops as possible and, in fact, thoroughly to enjoy the afternoon.

"Where shall we go first?" he suggested outside the door of Number 13, Grandison Square.

"Let me see!" she cried. "Tottenham Court Road will be the best."

So Mark directed the chauffeur accordingly, and, on getting out of the taxi-cab, Carrissima ominously suggested that it should be dismissed.

During the somewhat lengthy process which now began, she was not without moments of pleasurable embarra.s.sment. No doubt the various frock-coated salesmen, who patiently displayed their wares, desired to do precisely the correct thing, but there appeared to exist a considerable difference of opinion concerning Carrissima's status.

Some addressed her as "Miss," some as "Madame," but all agreed that she was either recently married to Mark Driver or on the point of becoming his wife. At first he enjoyed entering the huge warehouses by her side, standing by while she (obviously taking command of the expedition) expressed her wish to "see some carpets." He was amused to hear her discuss the nature of carpets in general; also at her manner of resisting every effort of persuasion, and finally walking to the door. When, however, several shops had been fruitlessly visited and enough carpets inspected to furnish a large, modern hotel, Mark began to feel weary.

"This is uncommonly hard work," he suggested. "I vote we have some tea as an _entr'acte_."

"Oh, very well, if you're tired already," said Carrissima, "we will go to Prince's."

"Can't we find a shop about here?" urged Mark.

"It won't take us half-an-hour in a taxi," she insisted, and a few minutes later they were on their way.

"After we have fortified ourselves," said Mark, "perhaps we shall find it possible to make up our minds."

When they reached the restaurant in Piccadilly, Carrissima admitted that she felt glad to sit down.

"Now, don't you think," suggested Mark, after she had drunk two cups of China tea and sampled the cakes, "we might begin serious business at the next place."

"If you're really sick of it," she answered, "we may as well go back to the beginning, though I wanted to visit one or two places about here."

"O Lord!" exclaimed Mark.

"You see," she replied, "I really made up my mind at once. We haven't seen anything so good for the price as that bronze and black Childema rug at Mabred's."

"Then we have simply wasted the whole afternoon!"

"It isn't very nice of you to say that," cried Carrissima, rising from her chair, with a laugh. They were soon on their way back to the first warehouse they had visited, and the bronze and black carpet having been after some trouble identified, Mark drew a cheque to pay the bill.

On going out to the street again, he was on the point of hailing another taxi-cab, when Carrissima proposed walking at least a part of the way.

"Carrissima," he said, gazing down into her eyes, a few minutes later, "what is the colour?"

"Oh well," she replied, "there are ever so many blended together, you know."

"I thought there must be two," he admitted.

"Of course," she said, "the general effect is bronze and black."

"Blue or grey?" murmured Mark, as she looked up again.

"Have many carpets made you mad?" she demanded. "I don't understand what you are talking about!"

"I was wondering about the colour of your eyes. I can't quite make up my mind about them," he continued. "At one moment they look grey, at another blue."

"Surely," answered Carrissima, quite unwontedly happy, "you have known me long enough to feel no doubt."

"It is possible," said Mark, "that I have known you too long."

"Oh, thank you," she exclaimed. "So custom stales any variety they possess."

"Not at all," he urged. "What I meant was that familiarity, as the copybooks say, may breed a kind of--well, scarcely contempt----"

"Mark," said Carrissima, "the more you say the worse you will make it.

I really think you had better be quiet. How long is it," she asked, as they walked towards Weymouth Street on the way to Grandison Square, "since you saw Bridget?"

"Not since the day after my return from Paris," he replied. "I have not been near Golfney Place. Nor," he added, "have I any intention of going. To all intents and purposes, Bridget has dropped out of my life."

"Any one would imagine," said Carrissima, "that she had done something to annoy you."

"Oh dear, no," was the answer. "I am simply indifferent." Before she had time to explain that she had promised to go to Golfney Place the following afternoon, he added, "By the bye, your fears have not been realized so far. I am immensely glad of that."

"Ah, yes," said Carrissima; "after Bridget's curious confidences, I suppose you expected something--something horrid to occur quite soon!"