e replied.

"You understand that I am in earnest?" she urged tenaciously.

"I am quite sure of it."

"Then I want you to repeat to him what I have said--I want him to be
left undisturbed. I don't want him ever to hear of us again!"

The next day, at the appointed hour, Garnett resorted to the Luxembourg
gardens, which Mr. Newell had named as a meeting-place in preference to
his own lodgings. It was clear that he did not wish to admit the young
man any further into his privacy than the occasion required, and the
extreme shabbiness of his dress hinted that pride might be the cause of
his reluctance.

Garnett found him feeding the sparrows, but he desisted at the young
man's approach, and said at once: "You will not thank me for bringing
you all this distance."

"If that means that you are going to send me away with a refusal, I
have come to spare you the necessity," Garnett answered.

Mr. Newell turned on him a glance of undisguised wonder, in which an
undertone of disappointment might almost have been detected.

"Ah--they've got no use for me, after all?" he said ironically.

Garnett, in reply, related without comment his conversation with
Hermione, and the message with which she had charged him. He remembered
her words exactly and repeated them without modification, heedless of
what they implied or revealed.

Mr. Newell listened with an immovable face, occasionally casting a
crumb to his flock. When Garnett ended he asked: "Does her mother know
of this?"

"Assuredly not!" cried Garnett with a movement of disgust.

"You must pardon me; but Mrs. Newell is a very ingenious woman." Mr.
Newell shook out his remaining crumbs and turned thoughtfully toward
Garnett.

"You believe it's quite clear to Hermione that these people will use my
refusal as a pretext for backing out of the marriage?"

"Perfectly clear--she told me so herself."

"Doesn't she consider the young man rather chicken-hearted?"

"No; he has already put up a big fight for her, and you know the French
look at these things differently. He's only twenty-three and his
marrying against his parents' approval is in itself an act of heroism."

"Yes; I believe they look at it that way," Mr. Newell assented. He rose
and picked up the half-smoked cigar which he had laid on the bench
beside him.

"What do they wear at these French weddings, anyhow? A dress-suit,
isn't it?" he asked.

The question was such a surprise to Garnett that for the moment