"You think he will consent?"

"No; not at first; but you must make him. You must tell him how
sweet Hermione is--and you must see Louis, and be able to describe
their happiness. You must dine here to-night--he is coming. We're
all dining with the Hubbards, and they expect you. They have given
Hermy some very good diamonds--though I should have preferred a
cheque, as she'll be horribly poor. But I think Kate Hubbard means
to do something about the trousseau--Hermy is at Paquin's with her
now. You've no idea how delightful all our friends have been.--Ah,
here is one of them now," she broke off smiling, as the door opened
to admit, without preliminary announcement, a gentleman so glossy
and ancient, with such a fixed unnatural freshness of smile and eye,
that he gave Garnett the effect of having been embalmed and then
enamelled. It needed not the exotic-looking ribbon in the visitor's
button-hole, nor Mrs. Newell's introduction of him as her friend
Baron Schenkelderff, to assure Garnett of his connection with a race
as ancient as his appearance.

Baron Schenkelderff greeted his hostess with paternal playfulness,
and the young man with an ease which might have been acquired on the
Stock Exchange and in the dressing-rooms of "leading ladies." He
spoke a faultless, colourless English, from which one felt he might
pass with equal mastery to half a dozen other languages. He enquired
patronizingly for the excellent Hubbards, asked his hostess if she
did not mean to give him a drop of tea and a cigarette, remarked
that he need not ask if Hermione was still closeted with the
dress-maker, and, on the waiter's coming in answer to his ring,
ordered the tea himself, and added a request for _fine champagne_.