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?” be 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 he could only stammer out—­“You consent then?  I may go and tell her?”

“You may tell my girl—­yes.”  He gave a vague laugh and added:  “One way or another, my wife always gets what she wants.”

VII

MR. NEWELL’S consent brought with it no accompanying concessions.  In the first flush of his success Garnett had pictured himself as bringing together the father and daughter, and hovering in an attitude of benediction over a family group in which Mrs. Newell did not very distinctly figure.