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 Garnett 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.
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