"I don't admit you have any right to say that," she protested. "I saw a great deal of her at Crowborough----"
"From what I have seen since," Carrissima continued, "I believe you have found a mare's nest. You seem to forget that father is sixty-five."
"Ah, yes, but he doesn't begin to realize the fact," said Lawrence. "He thinks he is quite capable of acting like an ordinary man of half his age. If you had tried to provide your friend with an easy prey, you couldn't have gone a surer way to work."
Carrissima, however, remained still unconvinced. She walked home to Grandison Square with the inclination to scoff at her brother's fears, although it was true that she was beginning to wish that Bridget had never crossed Colonel Faversham's path.
"Carrissima!" said Colonel Faversham, as he rose from the breakfast-table a day or two after her conversation with Lawrence and Phoebe.
"I have been thinking that it is high time we asked Miss Rosser to dine with us."
He was standing by the window holding the morning paper in his hands, and as he spoke he raised it so that Carrissima could not see his face.
"Oh, but do you really think that is necessary?" she answered, and crushing the paper into a shapeless mass, the colonel turned upon his daughter quite fiercely.
Of course he was convinced that there could be nothing in the least ridiculous in his behaviour! A man, as they say, is as old as he feels, and especially during the last fortnight Colonel Faversham had felt almost a boy again. The spring was in his blood! Moreover, he flattered himself that he had not begun to look old! Still, he was sensitive lest Carrissima should fancy he was making an ass of himself, and, as usual at such times, he began to bluster.
"Necessary!" he shouted, growing dangerously red in the face. "If it comes to that it isn't necessary we should dine at all. Most of us eat a great deal too much. Anyhow, it is very desirable that Miss Rosser should be treated with common courtesy. Besides, I wish it. That, I imagine, ought to be enough! We don't want a crowd or anything elaborate. No infernal fuss or ceremony. Just a family party: just Lawrence and his wife. They have never seen Miss Rosser!"
"Oh yes," said Carrissima. "Lawrence has seen her."