"Oh, how can you put such words into my mouth?" said Sybil. "As if I were capable of dreaming of such a thing. Some dear girl whom you love and respect----" "That's the difficulty," he answered. "Here I am waiting and trying not to be impatient, but she doesn't come along. As soon as I see a dear girl and love and respect her, I'll marry her like a shot if she's willing. Probably she won't be because, you see, she would have to love and respect me." Having nothing better to do and little dreaming of the fate in preparation for him, Jimmy set out in due course to Grandison Square, where, ten minutes earlier, Mrs. Reynolds had arrived: a tall, thin woman of about fifty years of age, who had been an intimate friend of the late Mrs. Faversham. She had a pleasant, if too grave face, and a certain dignity of bearing. On her entrance, she sat down close to Colonel Faversham's chair, holding him so closely in an uninteresting conversation that he could not pay the slightest attention to Bridget. She, left to her own devices, looked peculiarly charming this afternoon, in a new hat, which Carrissima knew must have cost quite five guineas. Colonel Faversham's face wore a gloomy expression. He was annoyed because Bridget had not been introduced to Mrs. Reynolds, and in considerable pain from the increasing rheumatism in his knee joint. In the midst of his old friend's monologue, Knight announced-- "Mr. Clynesworth." "Good-afternoon, Jimmy," cried Carrissima, rising promptly from her chair. "How nice and surprising of you to come!" "I'll tell the truth if I perish," he answered. "The fact is I was sent. I'm a special messenger." "Then Sybil is at home!" "She turned up last night," he explained. "The world has naturally stood still during her absence, and she hasn't a moment to spare for the ordinary pleasures of life. Moral, will you look her up to-morrow?" Jimmy then turned to Mrs. Reynolds, who was sitting with a deprecatory expression on her face, while Colonel Faversham, seeing an opportunity to cross the room to Bridget, gripped the arms of his chair preparatory to rising. "Ah, Jimmy!" he said. "I'm glad to see you!" "Yes, but please don't get up, colonel," returned Jimmy, looking sympathetically at his host's leg. "A little stiff at the joint? Rheumatism, I suppose?" "Nothing of the sort," said Colonel Faversham, wincing, as he stood erect. "I never felt better in my life." "In fact," suggested Carrissima, "father has a growing pain." "I have not any pain in my body," cried the colonel, devoutly wishing he had not. "I will walk you twenty miles any day you like." "Walking," said Jimmy, "is becoming a lost art. We all choose some other mode of locomotion when we can. If we don't fly, we motor, and before long it will be quite customary to skate on the pavement."