Miss Dane looked at him compassionately.
"You poor, unfortunate guardy! And you are really going to marry Blanche Oleander! Well, one comfort is, you will be ready to blow your brains out six months after; and serve you right, too! Don't let us talk about it to-night. I am sorry for you, and if you have any sense left you will soon be sorry for yourself. Here comes Doctor Oleander, and I mean to be as fascinating as I know how, just to drive the other two to the verge of madness."
She danced away, leaving Mr. Walraven pulling his mustache, a picture of helpless perplexity.
"I wonder if I have put my foot in it?" he thought, as he looked across the long room to where Blanche stood, the brilliant center of a brilliant group. "She is very handsome and very clever—so clever that I don't for the life of me know whether I made love to her or she to me. It is too late now for anything but a wedding or heavy damages, and of the two evils I prefer the first."
Mrs. Walraven's dinner-party broke up very late, and Blanche Oleander went home with her cousin.
"A pert, forward, bold-faced minx!" Miss Oleander burst out, the moment they were alone in the carriage. "Guy, what on earth did you mean by paying her such marked attention all evening?"
"What did Carl Walraven mean by paying you such marked attention all evening?" retorted her cousin.
"Mr. Walraven is no flirt—he means marriage."
"And I am no flirt—I mean marriage also."
"Guy, are you mad? Marry that nameless, brazen creature?"