CHAPTER XVI
I T was not till long afterwards that Baltazar learned the cause of his son’s discomfiture. Marcelle learned it at once. The boy exploded with pent-up indignation. Dorothy had turned him down, callously turned him down. Could Marcelle imagine such heartlessness? He had gone to her after his Board. Seeing that she had undertaken to keep him in the army, it was only civil to report progress. Besides, the house had been open to him since childhood. Well, there she was alone in the drawing-room. Looked bewitching. Jolly as possible. Everything right as rain. Then, he didn’t know how it happened—perhaps because she hadn’t discouraged him at the Carlton—anyhow there it was; he lost his head; told her he loved her, worshipped her and all the rest of it, and asked her to marry him. S
