ordered--think how disgraceful! You must have managed him badly;
I'll go and see him myself."

The Baron, at this, turned abruptly from his study of the Place
Vendome.

"My dear creature, for heaven's sake don't spoil everything!" he
exclaimed.

Mrs. Newell coloured furiously. "What's the meaning of that
brilliant speech?"

"I was merely putting myself in the place of a man on whom you have
ceased to smile."

He picked up his hat and stick, nodded knowingly to Garnett, and
walked toward the door with an air of creaking jauntiness.

But on the threshold Mrs. Newell waylaid him.

"Don't go--I must speak to you," she said, following him into the
antechamber; and Garnett remembered the dress-maker who was not to
be dislodged from her bedroom.

In a moment Mrs. Newell returned, with a small flat packet which she
vainly sought to dissemble in an inaccessible pocket.

"He makes everything too odious!" she exclaimed; but whether she
referred to her husband or the Baron it was left to Garnett to
decide.