Jimmy Clynesworth now began to employ all his arts to induce Sybil to take some notice of Bridget. His eagerness, however, stood in his way. The more forcibly he attempted to convince his sister of his desire, the more obstinately she maintained her ground. Her hand was strengthened by a visit to Charteris Street, where Victor often attracted her, although some glass beads on her jacket made the child regard her as an enemy.

After Phoebe had voiced her husband's opinion of Miss Rosser, Lawrence himself came home in time to dot the i's and cross the t's. Sybil left the house with the opinion that poor Jimmy stood in the acutest danger. It seemed evident that she had scarcely exaggerated when she declared, in the first place, that Bridget was not "respectable"!

She stiffened herself as it was only possible to do when duty called her, and the consequence was that all of Jimmy's entreaties proved vain. He, however, was not on any account to be deterred. The only circumstance which would have been likely to hinder him was being sedulously hidden. Had he for an instant suspected the existence of any previous engagement he would have been the last man in the world to poach on another's preserve. As things were, he waited a few days, then presented himself with his usual cool audacity at Golfney Place.

"Where is Miss Clynesworth?" asked Bridget.

"I rather fancy she's spending the day somewhere in the neighbourhood of Deptford," was the answer.

"You must have forgotten what I told you," suggested Bridget.

"Every word you said is indelibly impressed on my memory," said Jimmy.

"I insisted," replied Bridget, "that you were not to come without your sister!"

"Oh dear, no," he exclaimed. "It's quite true you said I might come with her, but you will see on reflection that is a different matter."

"The fact is," said Bridget, "Miss Clynesworth is determined not to show me the light of her countenance."

"I am fairly certain that is a mistake," returned Jimmy. "I am convinced she will come, but not at present."

"Why not?"

He shrugged his shoulders and told himself that women were sometimes rather severe on one another. Wandering about the room, Jimmy looked at one or two of the oleographs on the light-papered walls, and presently his eyes rested on the hanging bookshelf.

"You have a collection of your father's novels!" he suggested.

"Have you read any of them?" she asked, with obviously quickened interest.

"Yes, several," was the answer. He took one down from the slide. "I was introduced to Mr. Rosser by old Faversham at Crowborough," he continued. "I wish to goodness I had seen you at the same time! Besides," continued Jimmy, as he turned the pages while Bridget stood looking over his shoulder, "I met him once afterwards. That was at the Garrick. I was dining there one evening, and he joined the party. I remember perfectly well that he was the life and soul of it. His books were always a delight to me, if only for their style."

Jimmy put back the volume he had been examining and took down another, continuing to discuss its contents for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour.

"Miss Rosser!" he cried suddenly, "I am the most arrant humbug!"

"Aren't you really interested in the books?" she asked.

"Yes, but, you know, life is more than letters. Not so much in the books as in you. Although I am going to ask you to let me take one of them home, and I shall enjoy reading it, my actual object is to find an excuse for coming again."

"Which will you take?" she asked.

"This looks promising," said Jimmy, selecting a grey-covered volume.

"It is about an ill-assorted marriage," she explained.

"Oh well, the majority of modern novels are."

"Certainly the majority of my father's," she said. "And yet his own marriage was such a perfect success."

"Obviously!" answered Jimmy, turning to face her.

"You have heard——"

"Not at all. The happy country has no history, you know. I merely judge by the result."

Her eyes fell under his gaze, and he saw the colour slowly mantle her face and neck. "Oh, why do you flatter me?" she murmured.

"Don't you like flattery?"

Now she raised her eyes again, meeting his own.

"Oh, I love it," she admitted. "But there are so very many undesirable things I adore."

"I wish I might become one of them!"

"Do you fulfil the condition of undesirability?" asked Bridget.

"Anyhow, I am one of the unemployed," he answered. "You see, I have been almost converted to opinions which cut away the ground from under my own feet. I have lived so far a delightful life, and now my conscience is beginning to nag me. The question is whether I am enjoying myself at some poor wretches' continual expense."

"Why have you never married, Mr. Clynesworth?" asked Bridget.

"I have seen only one woman I could ever care to make my wife."

"Isn't one enough?"

"She is bound to be in this country," was the answer; "although we may have to alter all that in order to get rid of our surplus!"

"Why haven't you married that one?"

"Well, I haven't asked her yet," said Jimmy. "Of course, I am going to, but there are, I suppose, rules to be observed. Hitherto, to tell you the truth, I have been a little frightened at the bare idea. One has so many object lessons! I know a man who was married a week or so ago. He was immensely fond of the girl, but I can swear she doesn't care for him a rap. Yet I imagine she succeeded in satisfying him that she was—well, over head and ears in love! So she was with some one else."

"Still, with so many awful examples," suggested Bridget, "you will naturally be cautious. For your own part, you would not put the momentous question to any woman unless you had the most perfect confidence——"

"Oh, I have!" he replied, more enthusiastically than she had ever heard him speak. "Being human, I suppose I am bound to assume there must be blemishes about her somewhere—I don't know where! But," Jimmy continued, "of one thing I am as certain as a man can be of anything in this world."

"What is that?" faltered Bridget.

"Her utter incapability of the remotest shadow of deception. At least I know that when the time comes to put my fate to the touch, she will answer with absolute honesty. If she loves me I shall be the most fortunate beggar under the sun, and if unhappily she doesn't, she will say so sans phrase."

"You put a premium on candour!" she suggested.

"Why, yes," he answered. "Whatever I may be I am not very intolerant, but double dealing is the one thing I think I might find it impossible to forgive. It isn't the spoken lie that's the worst."

"What is?" asked Bridget.

"The abominable whitewash we daub over our lives. The eternal pretence to be something we are not. The—— But," Jimmy broke off, with a laugh, "you must always pull me up when I show signs of beginning to preach!"

As he was speaking, the door opened and Miller in his quiet way announced—

"Colonel Faversham."

"Hullo, Jimmy, are you here!" he exclaimed, as Bridget offered her hand.

"Don't you think it looks rather like it?" answered Jimmy, with an ingratiating smile. "I hope your knee is better, colonel."

"Quite all right," said Colonel Faversham, with a scowl. "Never anything the matter with it. I am never ill. There isn't a sounder man in London."

"Oh well, that's a large order," answered Jimmy. "Still, at your age I don't suppose there is."

Colonel Faversham looked as if he would like to annihilate Jimmy, who was struggling to put David Rosser's novel into his jacket pocket. Then he said "good-bye" to Bridget, adding coolly—

"I shall bring back the book in a day or two."

With a nod to the colonel he left the room, whereupon Faversham lowered himself carefully into a chair.

"Has Jimmy often been here?" he demanded.

"Oh dear, no," she answered. "This is the first visit."

"Like his impudence! It won't be the last."

"I hope not," murmured Bridget, standing by the side of his chair.

"How many times have you met him since that afternoon at my house?" asked Colonel Faversham.

"Only once besides to-day!"

"He took that book," was the answer, "simply for the sake of bringing it back! I hate anything underhanded."

"But he isn't!" Bridget insisted. "He said that was his reason."

"Barefaced!" shouted the colonel. "The fact is Jimmy Clynesworth has never been the same since his sunstroke. Bridget," he added, "I should like to keep you entirely to myself. I should like——"

What his precise desire might be Bridget was not destined on the present occasion to hear. He suddenly stopped in the middle of his sentence, gazing at her with horror and alarm in his face. Covering hers, she had incontinently broken down, and her body shook with the violence of her sobs. Colonel Faversham found his feet so hastily that he could not suppress an exclamation as he stooped to rub his knee. He knew neither what to say nor how to act.

"What's the matter with you?" he demanded. "Tell me what it is. Only let me know. What more can a man ask?"

"Oh, it is nothing," said Bridget amidst her tears. "Only that I am the most miserable woman in the world."

Although he did his best, he could not succeed in tranquilizing her, and finally went away, leaving her in the most despondent mood. Alone in his smoking-room the same evening, Colonel Faversham did his utmost to arrive at some explanation of Bridget's passionate outburst of grief.

Could it be possible she was distressed at the sight of his disapproval. He ought to keep a firmer rein on his temper! He must remember that Bridget was a delicate girl, and treat her with the kindness she deserved.

This more satisfactory explanation, however, did not prove entirely convincing. She might be unhappy because she repented of her promise; well, in any event he intended to keep her to it! She could scarcely think of breaking her engagement on Jimmy's account! She had spoilt herself for that. Colonel Faversham, as she must know, was not the man to stand silently by while she transferred herself to a younger aspirant. She had sense enough to understand, too, that Jimmy had only to hear of the existing engagement to retire from the competition.

As a matter of fact, Jimmy had no thought of drawing back. The following Sunday morning the sun seemed to shine more brightly than usual, and Bridget stood at one of the windows of her sitting-room, looking out at the few passers-by on their way to the white-fronted church farther along the street. Its bell was ringing cheerfully.

Until the last few years she had always lived in the country, and now her thoughts flew back to earlier days, and she pictured the fields and hedgerows, remembering the places where she used to find daffodils and primroses and violets. A longing seemed to seize upon her as the church bells left off ringing, and then she heard a hooter, and saw a dark-red motor-car stop at the door, with a chauffeur driving and Jimmy, with a light-brown fur rug over his knees, sitting alone behind.

"A magnificent morning!" he cried, entering her sitting-room a few moments later. "I couldn't resist the temptation, and to tell you the truth, I didn't try very hard. I hope you'll let me take you for a spin into the country."

"Of course it would be lovely!" said Bridget.

"Then I shall give you five minutes to get ready," answered Jimmy.

"I really mustn't," she insisted.

"Why not?" he demanded. "Aren't you as free as the larks?"

Bridget sighed as she stood looking out at the car in the street below.

"Come," urged Jimmy. "Let me take you to hear them sing!"

"Where?" she faltered.

"Oh, you must give me carte-blanche!"

"Suppose I were reckless enough!" said Bridget.

"We would go to the farthest and most secluded corner of the earth where the sun always shines, but never too fiercely."

"Then," she cried more brightly, "English wouldn't be spoken."

"You and I would understand each other," said Jimmy. "That is all I care for."

"There would be the coming back," she suggested.

"Not necessarily," he replied, and Bridget seemed to start as if some fresh idea had suddenly occurred to her mind. "Anyhow, we needn't think of returning before we set out," he continued.

"I mustn't," she repeated.

"But, indeed, you must."

"Mr. Clynesworth——"

"What," he asked, "is the matter with 'Jimmy'?"

"I fancy he is very—very foolish," said Bridget. "I should have to get back by three o'clock," she added.

"Well, half a loaf is better than no bread," he returned.

"You promise faithfully I shall be home by three!"

"Anything in the world so that you come," said Jimmy.

She went to get ready, and presently returned wearing a small hat which became her as well as the wide-brimmed one in which he had seen her the other morning. She carried a heavy cloak over her arm, and seemed to find it difficult to button her gloves. Finally she held out her hand to Jimmy, who lingered over the process; but by and by they went down-stairs together, out into the street, and he put her into the car, tucking the fur rug about her before taking his seat by her side. Colonel Faversham was at church with Carrissima, looking forward during the Lessons to the afternoon, when he intended to reach Golfney Place by half-past three.