“It’s never too late to mend,” said Bridget.  “I mean, of course, for your sister.”

“You regard me as hopeless?”

“You appear to be full of confidence,” she answered.

“I am,” he said, “but naturally Sybil can’t go to see you until she knows your address.”

Hearing her tell him that she was lodging at Number 5, Golfney Place,
Colonel Faversham could endure it no longer.  Interrupting Mrs.
Reynolds’ discourse quite rudely, he limped across the room, whereupon
Jimmy at once rose to his feet.

“Sit down, colonel,” he urged.  “You will have to give old Mark a turn before you’ve done.”

“I have not troubled a doctor for the last ten years,” said Colonel Faversham.

“Oh, Mark wouldn’t mind the trouble,” cried Jimmy, and then he began to say “good-bye.”

Never until this afternoon had Colonel Faversham seen Bridget in a room with any one outside his own family.  While on the one hand he rejoiced to observe the ease of her manner, it dawned upon him that she was not likely to be contented to shut herself off from all the world but himself.  Departing from his custom, he went to Golfney Place after dinner that evening, and, flinging himself recklessly into a chair, began to rail against Mrs. Reynolds.

“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.”

“I thought you did,” said Bridget.

“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.