“But do you imagine that Jimmy means business?” demanded Mark.

“According to Sybil, he is merely biding his time:  waiting until a sufficient number of weeks have passed to enable him to come to the point with something like decency.”

“If that’s really the case,” said Mark, “I can only say I am immensely pleased!”

“So am I,” answered Carrissima, with quiet fervour.

“I would have done a great deal, if it had been possible,” Mark continued, “to prevent Bridget from marrying Colonel Faversham, if only for your sake; but as to Jimmy, I don’t care a rap.”

“Neither do I,” said Carrissima.

“If he can’t take care of himself after all his experiences,” Mark insisted, “the Lord knows who can.  I consider Jimmy fair game.”

They parted at her door, Mark refusing to enter the house, because he had a patient to visit—­one of the very few he had taken over from Dr. Harefield.  Never had Carrissima spent a more enjoyable or a more thoroughly satisfactory afternoon!  It proved an immense consolation to hear that Mark had not seen Bridget, with that one exception, since his return from Paris; whereas his manner of taking the news of Jimmy’s entrance on the field could scarcely have been more desirable.

Not only had the afternoon seen the disappearance of her last lingering feeling of jealousy of Bridget Rosser, but it encouraged the growth of sensations which had long been kept back.  As a rule, Carrissima enjoyed a serious talk with Mark, but to-day she had been the most delighted by his frivolity.  She laughed quietly as she remembered his remarks anent the colour of her eyes, and spent some minutes examining them in her looking-glass.

“You won’t forget, Carrissima,” said Colonel Faversham at breakfast the next morning.  “You won’t forget you’re going to see Bridget this afternoon.  Take a few flowers—­roses, if you ask me!  She is fond of roses.”

She assured her father that she had not forgotten, and eventually set out in excellent spirits; the optimism with which she was disposed to regard the world at large including Miss Rosser.  Carrissima made her way to a florist’s, and after hovering over various kinds of flowers for ten minutes, at last bought so many pink and yellow roses that she did not like to carry them through the streets.  A taxi-cab soon brought her to Golfney Place, and Miller did not keep her long at the street door.

“Is Miss Rosser at home?” she inquired, as she took a firmer grip of the rose stalks, which did not seem to be fastened very securely together.

“Will you walk in, please,” said Miller, leading the way up-stairs.

When they reached the first landing, Carrissima was about two yards in the rear.  She carried the large bunch of flowers in her left hand as Miller turned the handle and opened the sitting-room door.  At the same, moment, she came to a sudden halt, starting so violently that the loosely-fastened roses fell scattering on to the floor.