"Send a wedding present! Of course! Why not?" answered Colonel Faversham, eager above all things to keep her for ever ignorant of his own engagement. "Better go to Donaldson's," he added.
"There's not much time to lose," suggested Carrissima. "I think I will go to-morrow morning."
"Upon my word," said her father, "I should rather like to get away for a bit."
"Oh, so should I!" was the answer.
"You wouldn't care to cut into the season!"
"I really shouldn't mind a scrap," said Carrissima.
She was inclined to feel that she did not much care about anything, and the news of Bridget's betrothal seemed to intensify her own disappointment.
"Would next week be too soon?" asked Colonel Faversham, and she promised to be ready by its end. He began at once to interest himself in the trip; they were to go abroad, and having fetched some old volumes of Baedeker from the smoking-room, he grew more cheerful than Carrissima had seen him for some days.
The next morning she spent an hour and a half at Donaldson's, inspecting various gold and silver articles, but at last selecting nothing more original than a large rose-bowl. On her way home, close to Golfney Place, she met Mark, and wondered whether she should stop if he showed no sign of doing so. She had never passed him by before, and in spite of a lingering sense of injustice, and even indignation, she had not the heart to let him go on without a word. She felt confident, however, that he would not have spoken if she had not taken the matter out of his hands.
"Have you heard the latest news?" asked Carrissima, as he raised his hat.