Enter Bridget | Page 9

facing Carrissima.
"Splendid," she answered. "I don't think I have ever seen you looking better."
"Well, I never felt better," he exclaimed, putting back his shoulders and puffing out his chest. "Never in the whole course of my life. Nobody at the hotel would believe I was anything like my age--fifty or fifty-five at the outside. Upon my soul, I can scarcely believe it myself. I can give a start to a good many youngsters yet. Not too much soda-water, Knight," he added, when the whisky and the syphon were brought in. "What's been happening while I've been away?" he asked, alone again with Carrissima.
"I wonder," she suggested, "whether you remember our holiday at Crowborough some years ago?"
"Remember it--of course I remember it. Do you think I'm in my dotage. You make an immense mistake. My memory was never better. I will back it against yours any day."
"Then you haven't forgotten Mr. Rosser----"
"Rosser!" cried Colonel Faversham. "A shortish man with a red beard and an invalid wife: wrote twaddling novels. I tried to read one of them--couldn't get through it. He played a devilish good game all the same. What about him?"
"I have met his daughter," said Carrissima, and, in reply to her father's demand for further information, she told him all she knew about Bridget; how that she had made Mark Driver late for dinner; how that, after some dubitation, a visit had been paid to Golfney Place, and duly returned.
On learning that Bridget was good to look upon and only a few months older that Carrissima, Colonel Faversham blinked his eyes and fingered his large grey moustache. He took a cigar from his case by and by, Carrissima trying to stifle her yawns while he talked about golf and described some of his hands at bridge. To illustrate his skill, he made her bring some cards, and, sweeping clear a space on the table, kept her up until past midnight.
Colonel Faversham always came to breakfast with brisk and almost aggressive robustness. He had an enormous appetite, and when this was at last satisfied, it was his custom to retire with the newspaper to his smoking-room until eleven o'clock. The morning was so bright that he began to regret his return to London, although it was true that he could reach his favourite golf-course in three-quarters of an hour in a taxi-cab. There, indeed, Colonel Faversham spent the most of his waking hours, usually finishing up with a couple of hours' bridge before returning by rail to Grandison Square in time for dinner. Then he was occasionally irritable, and although he would never admit that he felt tired, Carrissima had her own opinion.
On the Saturday after his return from Church Stretton, however, he stayed at home, and as he sat smoking after an excellent luncheon, Carrissima came in wearing her hat and jacket.
"I'm going to see Phoebe," she explained, in the act of fastening her gloves. "I don't suppose I shall be home to tea unless you want me."
"Want you!" was the answer. "Good heavens, no! Why in the world should I want you. Do you imagine I can't feed myself? Thank goodness, I'm not in my second childhood yet. Besides, I shall most likely have tea at the club. What a day, Carrissima! What a day!"
Having finished his cigar about a quarter of an hour later, Colonel Faversham went to his dressing-room, where he spent a few minutes brushing his hair with great vigour and twisting his moustache to a point. On going down to the hall again, he noticed that the street door stood open, and that Knight was talking to some one on the threshold. As the colonel took his top hat from the table, he saw that the visitor was a young lady who looked admirably in harmony with the spring season. She wore a lightish grey cloth frock and a wide-brimmed hat, beneath which a vast quantity of chestnut-coloured hair conspicuously appeared.
He reached the open door as she was on the point of turning away, but, seeing him, she hesitated.
"Miss Rosser, colonel," said Knight, standing between the pair.
"Good-afternoon, Miss Rosser," cried Colonel Faversham. "Pray come in! You wish to see Carrissima! I assure you she will be immensely disappointed if you refuse to wait. I may mention that I had the pleasure of knowing your father."
"Oh, I remember you perfectly," she replied. "As well as if it were yesterday."
"Come this way, come this way," he insisted, replacing his hat on the table as she entered the hall. "Carrissima would never forgive me. She was talking about you before I had been in the house ten minutes----"
"But you were just going out," she expostulated. "You mustn't let me take you up-stairs again."
"Stairs are nothing to me," he said. "I could climb a mountain. I have climbed many