"Don't feel well this morning?" he said lightly. "What a humbug you are, Blake--a little dissipation should be nothing for a healthy young country fellow like you."
"That's just it," replied Reginald, with some animation, slipping Una's letter into his pocket. "I am a country fellow, accustomed to lead a quiet simple life--and not an artificial existence."
"Oh, you'll soon get used to it."
"No doubt, but I'm not going to make the attempt."
"Oh, indeed!" observed Beaumont, concealing his annoyance. "So you intend to return to that dead-and-alive hole of a Garsworth?"
"Hole, as you think it," replied the young man, with some warmth, "it has been my home for many a long year, and I have grown to love it; besides, you forget--I go back to be married."
"But surely not yet?" objected Beaumont, earnestly. "Your father has not been dead very long? Besides, you must have a fling as a bachelor before you become Benedict, the married man."
"I've had enough 'fling,' as you call it," said Reginald, coldly, "and I don't like it--this incessant high-pressure style of life is not to my taste, so I am going away from it."
"I'm afraid I cannot leave Town, just now," said the artist, with a frown, feeling his prey was slipping through his fingers.
Blake looked at him in surprise.