instant the young man was at his side. "I will not ask your
reasons, sir," he said, "but I will give you mine for being here. Miss
Newell cannot be married unless you are present at the ceremony. The
young man's parents know that she has a father living, and they give
their consent only on condition that he appears at her marriage. I
believe it is customary in old French families--."

"Old French families be damned!" said Mr. Newell with sudden vigour.
"She had better marry an American." And he made a more decided motion
to free himself from Garnett's importunities.

But his resistance only strengthened the young man's. The more
unpleasant the latter's task became, the more unwilling he grew to see
his efforts end in failure. During the three days which had been
consumed in his quest it had become clear to him that the bridegroom's
parents, having been surprised into a reluctant consent, were but too
ready to withdraw it on the plea of Mr. Newell's non-appearance. Mrs.
Newell, on the last edge of tension, had confided to Garnett that the
Morningfields were "being nasty"; and he could picture the whole
powerful clan, on both sides of the Channel, arrayed in a common
resolve to exclude poor Hermione from their ranks. The very inequality
of the contest stirred his blood, and made him vow that in this case at
least the sins of the parents should not be visited on the children. In
his talk with the young secretary he had obtained some glimpses of
Baron Schenkelderff's past which fortified this resolve. The Baron, at
one time a familiar figure in a much-observed London set, had been
mixed up in an ugly money-lending business ending in suicide, which had
excluded him from the society most accessible to his race. His alliance
with Mrs. Newell was doubtless a desperate attempt at rehabilitation, a
forlorn hope on both sides, but likely to be an enduring tie because it
represented, to both partners, their last chance of escape from social
extinction. That Hermione's marriage was a mere stake in their game did
not in the least affect Garnett's view of its urgency. If on their part
it was a sordid speculation, to her it had the freshness of the first
wooing. If it made of her a mere pawn in their hands, it would put her,
so Garnett hoped, beyond farther risk of such base uses; and to achieve
this had become a necessity to him.

The sense that, if he lost sight of Mr. Newell, the latter might not
easily be found again, nerved Gar