nett to hold his ground in spite of
the resistance he encountered; and he tried to put the full force of
his plea into the tone with which he cried: "Ah, you don't know your
daughter!"

VI

MRS. NEWELL, that afternoon, met him on the threshold of her
sitting-room with a "Well?" of pent-up anxiety.

In the room itself, Baron Schenkelderff sat with crossed legs and head
thrown back, in an attitude which he did not see fit to alter at the
young man's approach.

Garnett hesitated; but it was not the summariness of the Baron's
greeting which he resented.

"You've found him?" Mrs. Newell exclaimed.

"Yes; but--"

She followed his glance and answered it with a slight shrug. "I can't
take you into my room, because there's a dress-maker there, and she
won't go because she is waiting to be paid. Schenkelderff," she
exclaimed, "you're not wanted; please go and look out of the window."

The Baron rose and, lighting a cigarette, laughingly retired to the
embrasure. Mrs. Newell flung herself down and signed to Garnett to take
a seat at her side.

"Well--you've found him? You've talked with him?"

"Yes; I have talked with him--for an hour."

She made an impatient movement. "That's too long! Does he refuse?"

"He doesn't consent."

"Then you mean--?"

"He wants time to think it over."

"Time? There _is_ no time--did you tell him so?"

"I told him so; but you must remember that he has plenty. He has taken
twenty-four hours."

Mrs. Newell groaned. "Oh, that's too much. When he thinks things over
he always refuses."

"Well, he would have refused at once if I had not agreed to the delay."

She rose nervously from her seat and pressed her hands to her forehead.
"It's too hard, after all I've done! The trousseau is ordered--think
how disgraceful! You must have managed him badly; I'll go and see him
myself."

The Baron, at this, turned abruptly from his study of the Place Vendome.

"My dear creature, for heaven's sake don't spoil everything!" he
exclaimed.

Mrs. Newell coloured furiously. "What's the meaning of that brilliant
speech?"

"I was merely putting myself in the place of a man on whom you have
ceased to smile."

He picked up his hat and stick, nodded knowingly to Garnett, and walked
toward the door with an air of creaking jauntiness.

But on the threshold Mrs. Newell waylaid him.

"Don't go--I must speak to you," she said, following him into the
antechamber; and Garnett remembered the dress-make