Enter Bridget | Page 6

of Ronseau?--till he convinced me it wasn't of the slightest use to persevere. Then I came to London and soon began to wish I hadn't. Because I did know ever so many people in Paris, but over here I can't tell you how deadly dull it was until I met Mark."
"You must come and see me as soon as you can," suggested Carrissima.
"Oh dear, yes," said Bridget. "Do let me fasten your furs!" she added, as Carrissima rose from the sofa. "I shall return your visit as early as if you were a royal personage. I shall love to come."
"Number 13, Grandison Square," said Carrissima. "It is not very far, and I am quite alone just now. I don't know whether you remember my father----"
"Very indistinctly," answered Bridget.
"He is away at Church Stretton playing golf."
"Then you are in the same unprotected condition as I am," suggested Bridget.
"Oh well, I have the advantage of a peculiarly attentive brother. Lawrence has the firm and unalterable opinion that no woman under forty is capable of looking after herself. During my father's absence he generally pays me a visit once every twenty-four hours, either on his way home from the Temple or after dinner. I shall expect you before many days," said Carrissima, and Bridget insisted on accompanying her down to the hall.
CHAPTER IV
BRIDGET AT GRANDISON SQUARE
Carrissima walked back to Grandison Square, feeling not a whit less jealous than she had set out. There seemed, it is true, something about Bridget Rosser to which she was scarcely accustomed in her own personal friends; something difficult to describe. It might be due to an innate ingenuousness, or, in part, to the quasi-Bohemian life she had probably lived during the last few years abroad.
There seemed to be an absence of reticence; a kind of natural freedom which assuredly had a charm of its own, although some persons might not approve of it--Lawrence, for one!
He came to Grandison Square the same evening, entering the drawing-room still wearing his heavy overcoat.
"A bitter wind has sprung up," he said, standing close to the fire.
"What a pity you took the trouble to turn out in it," suggested Carrissima, always rather inclined to resent his superintendence.
"What have you been doing all day?" he asked. "You haven't given Phoebe a look in."
"I went to Golfney Place this afternoon," was the answer.
"Golfney Place----"
"To renew my acquaintance with Bridget," said Carrissima.
"Quite unnecessary!" retorted Lawrence.
"Far better if you had stayed away."
"Why?" demanded Carrissima.
"Phoebe suggested going," said Lawrence; "but I wouldn't allow it for a moment."
"It's certain," cried Carrissima, "that she is a standing example of the way not to treat a husband. How ridiculous to form a prejudice against any one you have never even seen."
"If she had been the sort of woman I should like my wife to call upon," said Lawrence, "she wouldn't have allowed Mark to see her so often. A woman who lives alone! Why on earth couldn't you leave her to stew in her own juice? I don't wish to see my brother-in-law make an idiot of himself."
"Anyhow," returned Carrissima, "it can't have been Mark's account that set you against her."
"Oh, of course," exclaimed Lawrence, "Mark would swallow anything."
"It is his business in life," said Carrissima, with a laugh, "to make other people swallow things, isn't it, Lawrence?"
He went away dissatisfied, and the following Monday afternoon Bridget Rosser paid her first visit to Number 13, Grandison Square. Although her movements were even and unhurried, her appearance in her out-of-door garments was conspicuous. The brim of her hat struck Carrissima as being a shade wider than that of any one else, her dress closer about the ankles, while yet she wore it without a trace of anything that could be called vulgarity.
"I should have come even earlier," she said, taking Carrissima's hand; "but I only got back from Sandbay this morning. I have been staying since Saturday with my aunts; the dearest little Dresden china aunts in the world. They are my mother's sisters and they give me no peace. You see, they are terribly Early Victorian. You were saying that your brother insisted that no woman under forty is capable of looking after herself. Well, Aunt Jane and Aunt Frances think honestly that I am going to perdition as fast as I can."
"I suppose," suggested Carrissima, "they would like you to live with them?"
"Oh dear! they are quite mad about it. You know everybody is mad about something! They write every week, but I positively couldn't endure it. Of course my father did his best to put me off, although I believe his chief objection was that they had a hatred of tobacco."
"Still," said Carrissima, "I don't suppose you are a confirmed smoker and they might be good for you. I don't think I am Early Victorian, but still----"
"Oh, I