It seemed perfectly clear that she was holding the balance between himself and Colonel Faversham; and realizing that her income must some day inevitably be exhausted, shrinking from an appeal to her aunts at Sandbay, that she was determined to take Time by the forelock and seek safety in marriage.
Mark could understand now the significance of her behaviour during the first few weeks of their acquaintance, and while this offer of herself was in a manner distasteful, she looked so young, so seductive, so ingenuous while she made it that he must needs blame her environment rather than her disposition.
Bridget impressed him as a child masquerading in the garments of a somewhat audacious woman of the world, and he told himself that if she could be placed amidst more favourable surroundings, her natural character would shine forth triumphantly. Moreover, he was by no means free from egoism. He had enough vanity to experience some shadow of gratification, and even though the other candidate was no one more estimable than Colonel Faversham, there was, perhaps, a grain of satisfaction in the knowledge that he might have been first in the field.
As a matter of fact, Mark had never in his life been more attracted by Carrissima than on this first day after his return to London. At the same time he was a young man and Bridget was an extremely captivating young woman. Notwithstanding a sense of disapproval, it became judicious to take the precaution of saying "good-bye."
"Well, what am I to do?" asked Bridget, as he sat silent.
"I'm blessed if I know," he answered, and at once rose to his feet.
He saw that she was profoundly disappointed, and although it appeared plain enough that the transaction would in any case be regarded by her as mainly mercantile, he fancied that she would have been in other ways delighted if his answer had been different.
"Neither do I," she said, with a sigh, "unless I make up my mind to gratify Colonel Faversham. Why shouldn't I? Look upon this picture and on this. A year or two at the outside, and on the one hand I find myself without a penny. On the other, I have only to say the word and I make certain, as soon as I please, of a fair income, a good house and an excellent position in society; because, you know, I could hold my own. You see me here living through a kind of interregnum. I am just nobody! But in Paris and other places it used to be different, and so I intend it to be again. What else is there? You make an immense mistake if you imagine me as a governess or anything of that kind. What could I teach?"
"Anyhow," answered Mark, holding out his hand, "you need not do anything impetuously. At the worst your money will hold out for some time to come."
"Oh dear, yes!" she cried more brightly, "and before it has all gone, why, I shall be provided with somebody else's."