Obenreizer stood silent for a moment, with the film over his eyes, and the faintly perceptible beat becoming visible again in his cheeks.

“If you will excuse me for a few minutes,” he said, with ceremonious politeness, “I should like to have the opportunity of speaking to my niece.”  With those words, he bowed, and quitted the room.

Left by himself, Vendale’s thoughts (as a necessary result of the interview, thus far) turned instinctively to the consideration of Obenreizer’s motives.  He had put obstacles in the way of the courtship; he was now putting obstacles in the way of the marriage—­a marriage offering advantages which even his ingenuity could not dispute.  On the face of it, his conduct was incomprehensible.  What did it mean?

Seeking, under the surface, for the answer to that question—­and remembering that Obenreizer was a man of about his own age; also, that Marguerite was, strictly speaking, his half-niece only—­Vendale asked himself, with a lover’s ready jealousy, whether he had a rival to fear, as well as a guardian to conciliate.  The thought just crossed his mind, and no more.  The sense of Marguerite’s kiss still lingering on his cheek reminded him gently that even the jealousy of a moment was now a treason to her.

On reflection, it seemed most likely that a personal motive of another kind might suggest the true explanation of Obenreizer’s conduct.  Marguerite’s grace and beauty were precious ornaments in that little household.  They gave it a special social attraction and a special social importance.  They armed Obenreizer with a certain influence in reserve, which he could always depend upon to make his house attractive, and which he might always bring more or less to bear on the forwarding of his own private ends.  Was he the sort of man to resign such advantages as were here implied, without obtaining the fullest possible compensation for the loss?  A connection by marriage with Vendale offered him solid advantages, beyond all doubt.  But there were hundreds of men in London with far greater power and far wider influence than Vendale possessed.  Was it possible that this man’s ambition secretly looked higher than the highest prospects that could be offered to him by the alliance now proposed for his niece?  As the question passed through Vendale’s mind, the man himself reappeared—­to answer it, or not to answer it, as the event might prove.

A marked change was visible in Obenreizer when he resumed his place.  His manner was less assured, and there were plain traces about his mouth of recent agitation which had not been successfully composed.  Had he said something, referring either to Vendale or to himself, which had raised Marguerite’s spirit, and which had placed him, for the first time, face to face with a resolute assertion of his niece’s will?  It might or might not be.  This only was certain—­he looked like a man who had met with a repulse.