“Her consent!” cried his cousin.  “She’ll accept Mr. Plateas gladly.  Since she can’t persuade her father to let her remain single, she will take the first husband that offers, rather than stand in the way of her sister’s happiness.  She has the soul of an angel,” the cousin went on, with enthusiasm.  “She doesn’t know her own worth; she sees that she is not pretty, and in her humility she even exaggerates her plainness; but her sweet unselfishness is no reason why she should be sacrificed.”

“Do you think, then, that it would be a sacrifice to marry Mr. Plateas?”

“How can we tell?”

His cousin’s reserve was more propitious than her merriment of a few minutes ago, and Mr. Liakos felt encouraged.

“If she were your sister, or even your daughter, would you not give her to him?”

This question struck deeper than he knew, for one of her daughters was not well-favored, and the girl’s future was beginning to give the maternal heart much uneasiness.  The mother laughed no longer; her eyes filled, and she made no reply.  Without searching into the cause of his cousin’s emotion, the judge was only too glad to take her silence for consent.

“Very well,” he went on.  “Now you must help me to arrange this marriage.”

In order to humor her innocent vanity, he pictured the obstacles that she would find in the character of Mr. Mitrophanis, and urged his own inability to overcome them; he frankly declared that his mediation had compromised his friend’s suit, and that the affair was far more difficult than if it had been in her hands from the beginning; he insisted that she alone could retrieve the mistakes committed, and bring about a happy ending.

His cousin’s objections gradually grew weaker and at last, after three hours of argument, the judge succeeded so well that she left her work (to the temporary disadvantage of her younger son), and put on her bonnet.  The two went out together, she to call on Mr. Mitrophanis, and he to find the professor.

V.

Poor Mr. Plateas was waiting for his friend impatiently.

On reaching home he had found his dinner growing cold, and Florou worrying over her master’s unusual tardiness; it was full twenty minutes after noon!  Although the professor was hungry and ate with relish, his mind was ill at ease.  He yearned to talk to some one, but there was no one to talk to.  He would have been glad to tell his story even to Florou, but she cared neither to talk nor to listen; conversation was not her strong point.

Besides, her master rather shrank from telling her that be had made up his mind to get married, and that her reign was over.  Since his mother’s death, Florou had had absolute control over the household; why make her unhappy before it was necessary?  On the other hand, he could contain himself no longer; if he had not spoken, there is no telling what would have happened.