"It's certain," cried Carrissima, "that she is a standing example of the way not to treat a husband. How ridiculous to form a prejudice against any one you have never even seen."
"If she had been the sort of woman I should like my wife to call upon," said Lawrence, "she wouldn't have allowed Mark to see her so often. A woman who lives alone! Why on earth couldn't you leave her to stew in her own juice? I don't wish to see my brother-in-law make an idiot of himself."
"Anyhow," returned Carrissima, "it can't have been Mark's account that set you against her."
"Oh, of course," exclaimed Lawrence, "Mark would swallow anything."
"It is his business in life," said Carrissima, with a laugh, "to make other people swallow things, isn't it, Lawrence?"
He went away dissatisfied, and the following Monday afternoon Bridget Rosser paid her first visit to Number 13, Grandison Square. Although her movements were even and unhurried, her appearance in her out-of-door garments was conspicuous. The brim of her hat struck Carrissima as being a shade wider than that of any one else, her dress closer about the ankles, while yet she wore it without a trace of anything that could be called vulgarity.
"I should have come even earlier," she said, taking Carrissima's hand; "but I only got back from Sandbay this morning. I have been staying since Saturday with my aunts; the dearest little Dresden china aunts in the world. They are my mother's sisters and they give me no peace. You see, they are terribly Early Victorian. You were saying that your brother insisted that no woman under forty is capable of looking after herself. Well, Aunt Jane and Aunt Frances think honestly that I am going to perdition as fast as I can."
"I suppose," suggested Carrissima, "they would like you to live with them?"
"Oh dear! they are quite mad about it. You know everybody is mad about something! They write every week, but I positively couldn't endure it. Of course my father did his best to put me off, although I believe his chief objection was that they had a hatred of tobacco."
"Still," said Carrissima, "I don't suppose you are a confirmed smoker and they might be good for you. I don't think I am Early Victorian, but still——"