"I hate a woman with a long tongue!" he exclaimed. "Talk, talk, talk! She would argue with the Recording Angel! I positively saw nothing of you this afternoon. No time for a sensible word."
"Still, I have managed to survive, you see," said Bridget, "and Mr. Clynesworth is lovely!"
"So is a python from one point of view!" was the answer.
"Oh, what a far-fetched comparison!" she said, and leaned back, laughing, in her chair.
"Not at all," cried Colonel Faversham. "You'll generally find there's something in what I say. You can't be too careful of a man like Jimmy Clynesworth. For my part, I very seldom know what he is talking about; I question whether he knows himself. I am a plain, straightforward man--but there! I didn't come to talk about Jimmy."
"No, no," he replied; "I want you to fix the day for our marriage. Upon my word, I don't feel quite certain that frankness isn't the best in the long run--far the best."
The effect of this expression of opinion surprised Colonel Faversham. He had never seen Bridget so greatly excited. She started to her feet, and flushed almost as deeply as Carrissima.
"If you mean," she exclaimed, "that you have changed your mind, I have not changed mine. After all your wonderful arguments! Please understand, you are not to breathe a word to anybody, and to talk of our marriage before we have been engaged a week is really too ridiculous for anything."
Although Colonel Faversham left Golfney Place in a condition of intense dissatisfaction however, his sensations might have proved even more unenviable if he could have heard what Jimmy Clynesworth said to Sybil the same afternoon.
"Sybil," said Jimmy, "at last I've seen her!"
"And did she say she would come to-morrow?" asked his sister.
"Oh well, of course you must go there in the first place," he answered.
"Jimmy, what do you mean?" said Sybil, with an expression of bewilderment. "It is not in the least like Carrissima to be so ceremonious----"
"Who was talking about Carrissima?" cried Jimmy.
"Not a bit of it," said Jimmy. "Bridget--Miss Rosser!"
"Rosser--Rosser," murmured Sybil, taxing her memory. "I fancy there used to be some people named Rosser at Crowborough when I stayed with Colonel Faversham so many years ago."