"Why not?"
"Anyhow, he refused to allow Phoebe to go to Golfney Place!"
"You will kindly do as I tell you," said the colonel. "Lawrence has more sense than you give him credit for."
Carrissima was compelled to admit that her father had a right to act as he pleased. She wrote to Phoebe the same morning, and Lawrence, reading the letter on his return from the Temple, at once declared that nothing on earth should induce him to go and meet "that woman"!
Having dined, however, and smoked a cigarette, he began to take a more tolerant view of the situation. Colonel Faversham had money to bequeath! As Lawrence told Phoebe, it might be their duty to pocket their feelings and consider Victor's future.
Colonel Faversham had the satisfaction of hearing from Bridget's own lips that she should be delighted to dine at his house. He seemed to live only for Bridget during these days. His golf was neglected, and he had come near to a quarrel with one of his oldest friends for revoking twice in one evening's bridge.
Whatever he did, wherever he went, his thoughts insisted on wandering to Golfney Place. Although he longed to shower expensive gifts upon Bridget, he durst not at present go beyond flowers, and it was only after much persuasion that she consented to let him take her to the Haymarket Theatre. Whilst he revelled in her society and his hope of being permitted to enjoy it uninterruptedly for the remainder of his days ran high, he dreaded to imagine what Lawrence would have to say on the subject.
Colonel Faversham felt confident that his son would prove "nasty," and even Carrissima could scarcely be expected to feel pleased by the prospect of a step-mother only a few months older than herself. The colonel found himself between two fires: longing on the one hand for the time to come when he might discreetly ask Bridget to be his wife, and fearing, on the other hand, the announcement of his good news!
It is true that the rose was not entirely free from thorns. In his less cheerful moods he could not regard Mark Driver as other than a possibly disturbing factor. Bridget made no secret of the frequency and gratification of his former visits to Golfney Place, with the result that Colonel Faversham wondered occasionally whether she looked upon himself rather too paternally. He would then puff out his chest, tug his moustache and make various other efforts to convince her that he was still in the prime of life.
Nevertheless there hung persistently in the background the tragedy of his years! He might upon occasion strike one as a comic figure, and of course he saw no reason why he should not live to be a hundred. An exceptional age, no doubt, but then he was an exceptional man, as perhaps every man appears to himself. But Colonel Faversham was not already without warnings which he would not admit for the world. In his desire to convince himself that he was as robust as ever, he continued to take the same amount of exercise as he had enjoyed twenty years earlier. No one knew how weary the evenings found him, and, besides, there was that increasing stiffness of his joints.