He nodded at Dorian, and the old miser scowled.
"I have heard of the gentleman," he said angrily.
"Very well. Mr. Farnham, we have come here to ask if you have any objection to him as your ward's husband."
Dorian, with his hat in his hand, stepped in front of the old man, and gazed earnestly into his face.
What a contrast they presented, these two, Dorian in his fair beauty, and the grotesquely ugly, snarling old miser.
Van Hise's courteous question shook the old man with jealous rage, and he asked sullenly:
"What can my objections matter since he is already her husband? If the bond is a legal one, I have no power to break it."
Then Dorian spoke.
"We know that," he said in a troubled voice, yet with a frank, manly, half-appealing air. "Yet, strange to say, sir, my bride stands in such mysterious fear of your displeasure that she refuses to live with me—throws me off as if I had no claim on her loyalty."