Mrs. Pendleton was dumbfounded. And Louise—poor Louise!—to her it seemed as if life had ended for her.
Mr. Pendleton recovered himself in an instant. He had been quite sure that Mr. Gardiner preferred his elder daughter Louise to his younger daughter, merry, rollicking Sally.
"I am sure, I am very well pleased," he said, heartily extending his hand to Mr. Gardiner. "Certainly I give my consent, in which my wife joins me."
Jay Gardiner's face flushed. He could not make a scene by refusing to accept the situation. He took the proffered hand. Mrs. Pendleton rose to the occasion.
"If he prefers Sally, that is the end of it as far as Louise is concerned. Sally had better have him than for the family to lose him and all his millions," she thought, philosophically.
Jay Gardiner's friends congratulated the supposedly happy lovers. Louise spoke no word; it seemed to her as though the whole world had suddenly changed; her golden day-dreams had suddenly and without warning been dispelled.
During that homeward ride, Jay Gardiner was unusually quiet. His brain seemed in a whirl—the strange event of the afternoon seemed like a troubled dream whose spell he could not shake off, do what he would.
He looked keenly at the girl by his side. Surely she did not realize the extent of the mischief she had done by announcing their betrothal.
It was not until he had seen his party home and found himself alone at last in his boarding-house that he gave full rein to his agitated thoughts.
It was the first time in the life of this debonair young millionaire that he had come face to face with a disagreeable problem.