"Hullo, Jimmy, are you here!" he exclaimed, as Bridget offered her hand.
"Don't you think it looks rather like it?" answered Jimmy, with an ingratiating smile. "I hope your knee is better, colonel."
"Quite all right," said Colonel Faversham, with a scowl. "Never anything the matter with it. I am never ill. There isn't a sounder man in London."
"Oh well, that's a large order," answered Jimmy. "Still, at your age I don't suppose there is."
Colonel Faversham looked as if he would like to annihilate Jimmy, who was struggling to put David Rosser's novel into his jacket pocket. Then he said "good-bye" to Bridget, adding coolly—
"I shall bring back the book in a day or two."
With a nod to the colonel he left the room, whereupon Faversham lowered himself carefully into a chair.
"Has Jimmy often been here?" he demanded.
"Oh dear, no," she answered. "This is the first visit."
"Like his impudence! It won't be the last."