“How do you think I’m looking?” he demanded, suddenly 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.