“I believe it, since you say so, and will not stop to inquire how it happens that he should ask me for the hand of my daughter, whom he does not know, the very day after receiving your confidence.

“But however that may be,” he went on, without letting Mr. Liakos speak, “I cannot give you an immediate reply; I must have time to consider the question.  Pray do not trouble yourself to call; I will make my decision known to you.”  The last words were spoken dryly.

The judge went away much disconcerted.  It was not a refusal that he had received, nor yet was it a consent; his most serious disquiet was caused by the old man’s tone and manner.  Although they might have arisen partly from the dispute in the warehouse, it was only too clear that his deep interest in the success of his mission had been as detrimental in awakening the merchant’s suspicions as in checking his own eloquence.

How many things he could have said to Mr. Mitrophanis if he had only dared!  He felt that his mediation had simply made matters worse, and might prove fatal.  A more skilful diplomatist than he would be needed to conduct the affair to a happy ending; why had he not acted on his first impulse and consulted his cousin?  Why not go to her even now?  Surely his friend could not be offended, especially if the result was successful; the poor judge was in trouble, and longed for encouragement and support; but while he reasoned with himself, his feet were carrying him to his cousin’s house, and by the time he reached her door, all his doubt had vanished.

Mr. Liakos found his kinswoman at work converting a jacket of her elder son, which had become too small for its owner, into a garment still too ample for the younger brother.  The boys were at school, while their three sisters—­who came between them in age—­were studying their lessons under their mother’s eye, and at the same time learning domestic economy from her example.

Being a woman of tact, she saw at once from the judge’s manner that he wished to speak with her alone, and sent the girls out to play.

“Well, what is it?” she asked as soon as they had left the room.  “What’s the news?”

“Why should you think there is any news?”

“Ah, indeed!  As if I didn’t know you!  I could see at a glance that you had something on your mind.”

In truth, her feminine insight was seldom at fault in reading Mr. Liakos, for she had seen him grow up from a child, and knew him thoroughly.  On his side, the judge flattered himself that he knew her quite as well, but then he ought to have foreseen that her help would not be easily enlisted in an affair that she had not been allowed to manage from the beginning.  She enjoyed busying herself with marriages in general and with those of her friends in particular; but she felt that she was peculiarly qualified to assume the chief part in planning and carrying out arrangements of this kind, and unless her claims were recognized, she rarely gave her approval, and even did not hesitate to oppose occasionally.  But for his discomfiture at the result of his visit to the old merchant, Mr. Liakos would doubtless have devised some way of conciliating his cousin; it had not occurred to him to take that precaution, and he soon perceived the blunder he had made.