What did he care for people? He had never lived either to épater the bourgeois or to satisfy the ideal of the gentleman next door. He was going to do something he liked!...
He woke up the next morning at six o'clock with a ghastly chilly horror on him. What had he done? Had he been mad? To marry Miss Brill, the daughter of the landlord of a little suburban public-house! A girl of sixteen, pretty enough certainly, but with no pretensions to being a lady, no possibility of having anything in common with him. But it wasn't so much the question of what people would say—of course, most of the women he knew would drop him, and the men would laugh at him and make love to her—but, how long would it last? How long would this strange mania endure? Perhaps not a week. The poor child would have an awful time, too. She was much happier as she was.
Well! He was a sportsman, and had taken the risk. He must wait now. At the back of his mind he was wondering how he could get out of it.
He had not to wait long. His letters were answered by the first post. Evidently, the "Bald-faced Stag" had been kept up late that night to reply in time.
Gladys wrote very respectfully that she was very sorry she hadn't told him before, but she was privately engaged to the son of the landlord of the Green Man at Stanmore: the Eldest Son, she wrote with pride (as though he would inherit the title). She was awfully sorry. Besides, she was going to be a manicure, first, for two years, and then settle down at Stanmore. Her fiancé was twenty-one. She hoped Mr. Vaughan would come over to tea very soon, and she thought his letter was very kind, and remained his truly, Gladys Brill.
Mr. Brill had written a long and slightly rambling letter which suggested rough copies and even some assistance from the old vintages of the "Bald-faced Stag." He refused most firmly, though thoroughly sensible of the honour done him by Mr. Vaughan's offer, but he couldn't go back on his word to his friend at the Green Man. The arrangement had been made, when Gladys and the son were in their cradles, by him and his pal of the Green Man and he couldn't go back on his word. And Gladys liked the young chap; and it was a great honour, indeed, that Mr. Vaughan had done them, and it would have been splendid for Gladys in the worldly sense. But there! it was better, perhaps, not to mix up Stations. Mr. Brill repeated this sentiment over and over again, always using a capital S for station—(as though Vaughan had expressed an insane desire to confuse Victoria with the Great Western). And he remained very respectfully, Tom Brill.
"A manicure in Bond Street and then the landlady of a common country inn! Never! She shan't! I'll go down and persuade her. I'll make them come round."
Vaughan was so hurt and disappointed that he felt he could never smile again.
But he did.