“I shall do nothing of the kind,” he said briefly. “I sail to-morrow.”
Uncle Donald had had a previous experience of being defied by a nephew, but it had not accustomed him to the sensation. He was aware of an unpleasant feeling of impotence. Nothing is harder than to know what to do next when defied.
Mr. Carmyle having started to defy, evidently decided to make a good job of it.
“I am over twenty-one,” said he. “I am financially independent. I shall do as I please.”
“But, consider!” pleaded Uncle Donald, painfully conscious of the weakness of his words. “Reflect!”
“You are determined to go running off to God-knows-where after this Miss I-can't-even-remember-her-dam-name?”
“Have you considered,” said Uncle Donald, portentously, “that you owe a duty to the Family.”
Bruce Carmyle's patience snapped and he sank like a stone to absolutely Gingerian depths of plain-spokenness.
There was a painful silence, broken only by the relieved sigh of the armchair as Uncle Donald heaved himself out of it.
“After that,” said Uncle Donald, “I have nothing more to say.”
“Good!” said Mr. Carmyle rudely, lost to all shame.
“'Cept this. If you come back married to that girl, I'll cut you in Piccadilly. By George, I will!”
He moved to the door. Bruce Carmyle looked down his nose without speaking. A tense moment.
“What,” asked Uncle Donald, his fingers on the handle, “did you say it was called?”
“I'll make a note of it,” said Uncle Donald.
“And after all I've done for her,” said Mr. Reginald Cracknell, his voice tremulous with self-pity and his eyes moist with the combined effects of anguish and over-indulgence in his celebrated private stock, “after all I've done for her she throws me down.”
Sally did not reply. The orchestra of the Flower Garden was of a calibre that discouraged vocal competition; and she was having, moreover, too much difficulty in adjusting her feet to Mr. Cracknell's erratic dance-steps to employ her attention elsewhere. They manoeuvred jerkily past the table where Miss Mabel Hobson, the Flower Garden's newest “hostess,” sat watching the revels with a distant hauteur. Miss Hobson was looking her most regal in old gold and black, and a sorrowful gulp escaped the stricken Mr. Cracknell as he shambled beneath her eye.