to please and to be liked, he had enjoyed lounging about at “Monte Carlo” and chaffing his cousin, but the price now demanded was exorbitant.  He recalled Cossie, stout and smiling, with rather pretty eyes and a ceaseless flow of chatter.  She had ugly hands and thick red lips, her hair was coarse, but abundant, and she frequently borrowed her sister’s rouge.  Cossie was immensely good-natured and affectionate, and he would be sorry to hurt her feelings, poor little thing.

Then as to his mother and her marriage to Levison, he hated to think of it.  He could not endure his future stepfather; between them there existed a bottomless chasm of dislike and distrust.  Levison considered Shafto a conceited young cub, “but a clever cub”; and Shafto looked on Levison as a purse-proud tradesman, ever bragging of his “finds,” his sales, and his titled customers.

Douglas had never felt so abjectly miserable since the time of his father’s death; his depression was such that he wished he was dead too; but fate was in a kindly mood and, although he was unconscious of the fact, the clouds were lifting.

CHAPTER VI

AN EMPTY OFFER

The night that Shafto subsequently spent was wakeful and seemed endless; he tossed about on his hard bed and thumped the irresponsive pillow, paced his room from end to end, drank all the water in the carafe—­and even encroached on the ewer; he felt as if his vitality had been sapped, that he had no energy with which to face his new position, nothing to which he could look forward, no gleam of hope and, as it turned out, no appetite for breakfast.  Seated at table, he proved infectiously depressing and gloomily silent.  On the way to the Underground, Sandy Larcher, who happened to be in exuberant spirits, noticed his cousin’s grave face and chaffed him about Cossie. (Sandy, a coarse-grained creature, knew no reserves, did not profess to be a gentleman, and had never heard of the word “tact.”)

“And so you couldn’t sleep for thinking of her, eh?  Ate no breakfast, only a bit of toast, and half a kipper; quite in a bad way, poor old chap.”

“Come now, Sandy, none of that!” angrily protested the victim.  “You are a sensible fellow, though you do play the ass; and must know as well as I do myself that you are talking through your hat.  I swear on my word of honour, I have never made love to Cossie, I’d as soon think of making love to the parrot next door, and I have not the remotest idea of marrying her.  Imagine marrying on a hundred and fifty pounds a year!”

“Oh well, I couldn’t face it myself, old man,” generously conceded his companion, “but the mater and the girls are dead nuts on the idea; they are awfully fond of you, and say you are so mortal clever, so well-bred and such top-hole style, that you are bound to rise in the world; and Cossie is getting rather long in the tooth.  Of course, I know as well as if you told me, how she rushes a chap, and writes silly notes, manicures his nails, and gives him flowers and cigarettes.  She overdid it with Freddy Soames and got the knock; and now he is formally engaged, I expect she is mad keen to show that two can play at that game!”