“I know how to take care of myself,” he answered sullenly; “and flowers are only flowers—just a little civility and nothing more.”
Mrs. Corbett’s shot about the aunt had gone home; and Blagdon actually began to waver with respect to the resolution he had made in the garden. He had a horror of being what is called ‘managed’—he who was so successfully exploited by his sister and his friends—and if only Lola could have let well alone, his idea of Letty Glyn might possibly have faded; but as it was, she was continually chaffing about ‘his little village maid,’ ‘his pretty schoolgirl, and her pinafores,’ and Hugo Blagdon, was a man who could not stand being laughed at,—although he keenly enjoyed seeing others turned into ridicule; so one evening at supper, surrounded by a gay and mixed company, when Mrs. Corbett threw her gibe across at him, stung to revolt and indiscretion, his temper suddenly boiled over, and he exclaimed:
“Now look here, Lola, I’m just a bit tired of your chaff—this joke is about played out. Miss Glyn,” and he glared round the circle, “is the prettiest girl I have ever seen—bar none—and I am going to marry her! Here,” he added, “fill your glasses—I call upon you to drink the health of the future Mrs. Blagdon!”
Sensation. To borrow an expression from legal cases of a dramatic character.
Mrs. Corbett was speechless; leaving her champagne untasted she exclaimed:
“But, Hugo, of course you are joking—why she is only a child of seventeen—twenty years younger than yourself! You must be out of your senses. You,” and there was a challenge in her eye, “never could be such a fool!”
“Wait till you see,” he growled.
“Perhaps the lady won’t have you?” suggested one of his fair friends with a malicious laugh.
“I don’t think there’s much doubt about that,” declared the Baron, who was, however, consumed with alarm by this sudden announcement; a bachelor Blagdon was one thing, a married man with a very pretty, and no doubt influential wife, was another—his day was done! No more hundred-pound cheques for him—no more big dressmaker’s bills for Mrs. Corbett, no more long-tailed hunters for Lord Robbie; all the same, there was no harm in hedging a bit. The day after the supper party Blagdon abruptly announced that he was going home. He had taken a final turn along the terrace alone under the stars, and assured himself, that these harpies were getting a bit too much for him. They looked upon him as their paymaster, and Lola was beyond all bounds—her bills were really outrageous; she was too fond of cigarettes and champagne; he had about enough of Monte Carlo, and decided to cut the whole blooming show.
Before leaving for England he went over to Cannes in order to interview his mother, and inform her that he was about to get married.