"She looks sorry, doesn't she?" said Jimmy, with a laugh. "You must
both try your hardest to forgive us," he added, as Bridget turned
towards Mark.
"I do hope you two good people haven't been bored to death," she
continued. "Especially as Mark seems to be reading one of my father's
books!"
"We've done our level best--in the circumstances," he answered, with an
embarrassed, boyish laugh, and then, dinner being announced, Jimmy
offered his arm to Carrissima. While the servants were present
everybody seemed to have a great deal to say with the exception of Miss
Faversham, whose silence failed, however, to attract the least
attention. By the time dessert was reached she began to show symptoms
of recovering from her not unnatural embarrassment; Jimmy's glass was
full. He drank champagne this evening.
"I was wondering," said Mark, when the four were left by themselves,
"whether I might be of some use before the evening ended. Carrissima
suggested an accident."
"There was not much you could call accidental about it, was there,
Bridget?" said Jimmy.
"Oh dear!" she exclaimed, "I wish somebody would say something
illuminating! I am positively dying from curiosity!"
"The important question is," suggested Jimmy, "what did Carrissima say?"
"And," said Bridget, "what did Mark ask her?"
Carrissima looked entreatingly into his face across the table.
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