could not help regretting that circumstances denied him the opportunity of meeting so enigmatic a person.  The young man’s knowledge of Mrs. Newell’s methods made him feel that her husband might be an interesting study.  This, however, did not affect his resolve to keep clear of the business.  He entered the Hubbards’ dining-room with the firm intention of refusing to execute Mrs. Newell’s commission, and if he changed his mind in the course of the evening it was not owing to that lady’s persuasions.

Garnett’s curiosity as to the Hubbards’ share in Hermione’s marriage was appeased before he had been seated five minutes at their table.

Mrs. Woolsey Hubbard was an expansive blonde, whose ample but disciplined outline seemed the result of a well-matched struggle between her cook and her corset-maker.  She talked a great deal of what was appropriate in dress and conduct, and seemed to regard Mrs. Newell as a final arbiter on both points.  To do or to wear anything inappropriate would have been extremely mortifying to Mrs. Hubbard, and she was evidently resolved, at the price of eternal vigilance, to prove her familiarity with what she frequently referred to as “the right thing.”  Mr. Hubbard appeared to have no such preoccupations.  Garnett, if called upon to describe him, would have done so by saying that he was the American who always pays.  The young man, in the course of his foreign wanderings, had come across many fellow-citizens of Mr. Hubbard’s type, in the most diverse company and surroundings; and wherever they were to be found, they always had their hands in their pockets.  Mr. Hubbard’s standard of gentility was the extent of a man’s capacity to “foot the bill”; and as no one but an occasional compatriot cared to dispute the privilege with him, he seldom had reason to doubt his social superiority.

Garnett, nevertheless, did not believe that this lavish pair were, as Mrs. Newell would have phrased it, “putting up” Hermione’s dot.  They would go very far in diamonds, but they would hang back from securities.  Their readiness to pay was indefinably mingled with a dread of being expected to, and their prodigalities would take flight at the first hint of coercion.  Mrs. Newell, who had had a good deal of experience in managing this type of millionaire, could be trusted not to arouse their susceptibilities, and Garnett was therefore certain that the chimerical legacy had been extracted from other pockets.  There were none in view but those of Baron Schenkelderff, who, seated at Mrs. Hubbard’s right, with a new order in his button-hole, and a fresh glaze upon his features, enchanted that lady by his careless references to crowned heads and his condescending approval of the champagne.  Garnett was more than ever certain that it was the Baron who was paying; and it was this conviction which made him suddenly feel that, at any cost, Hermione’s marriage must take place.  He had felt no special interest in the marriage except