Rising from his chair, he walked to the mantelshelf, took a cigarette from a box and lighted it.
"I may as well get it off my chest," he said. "I went to ask Bridget to marry me."
"Oh—Jimmy!" was the reproachful answer.
"You needn't bother yourself," he explained. "She took the wind out of my sails by the announcement that she was affianced to old Faversham before I saw her face."
"To Colonel Faversham!" cried Sybil. "Poor Carrissima!"
Sybil, it is true, had too much experience to be actually astonished at such enormity, but nevertheless she was deeply shocked. Why, Miss Rosser was engaged to be married to the colonel at the time when she had been seen in Mark Driver's arms.
"Understand," said Jimmy, "Carrissima is not to be told. No one knows but the two concerned and myself. I was never so sorely tempted in my life."
"Tempted!" exclaimed Sybil.
"To play the part of Young Lochinvar, you know. She would have gone with me!" he added excitedly. "She would have gone with me!"
"My dear," returned his sister, "you could surely never dream of acting so dishonourably. Such an old friend as Colonel Faversham, too!"