"It looks a trifle small," she answered.
"Small—nonsense! A man doesn't want a hat to come down over his eyes.
I'm not a fogy yet, I hope."
"Why, of course not," she exclaimed. "Still, you will have to hold it on in the wind."
"Anyhow, that's better than using infernal pins that are a danger to the community," said Colonel Faversham. "I'll tell you what: next time I choose a hat I'll get you to come with me."
"I suppose you will be home to lunch," she suggested, telling herself she was shamefully cunning. But she could not help suspecting that he was off on some jaunt with Bridget, and no doubt she felt a little bitter about it.
"Shall I?" he answered, with a laugh. "Don't take too much for granted. I may get a snack at the club. Anyhow, you had better not wait."
She understood that he did not intend to return and wondered how she should dispose of her silver card-case. In no event would she go near Golfney Place that day! At about noon, however, it arrived from Donaldson's in a cardboard box, and really seemed too pretty to be wasted. There, too, were Bridget's initials, neatly engraved on its face, and, perhaps, after all, Colonel Faversham was reckoning without his guest. Miss Rosser might refuse to accept his present, whatever it might be—Carrissima felt very curious to know! She might decline to go out with him, and then her birthday would be spent in utter loneliness. Carrissima pictured her with melancholy reminiscences of her father and mother. Because whatever the girl's faults might be, she was certainly not lacking in natural affection. Surely some allowances ought to be made for the circumstances of the case. Carrissima was excellent at making allowances for people! She was one of those tiresome, inconsistent young women who remain blind to the teachings of reason and experience, and ever find some remnants of good in the rag-bags of humanity.
Bridget had lost her mother when she was eighteen! She had knocked about with her father for several years since. Of course she ought not to have encouraged Mark's visits night after night, as doubtless she had done; but, then, she may have had the intelligence to see that Mark was a man in a thousand—in a thousand! Mark was a man in a million!
In the end Carrissima left Grandison Square at a few minutes before four o'clock that afternoon, and having rung the bell at Number 5, Golfney Place, she was crushed to hear from Miller that Bridget had been out since a quarter to twelve.
"Oh!" said Carrissima, ashamed of her own artfulness, "I suppose she went with Colonel Faversham?"