"I am well aware, sir, that your sister has honored my daughter by making her a magnificent present——"
Mr. Keller's face began to harden. "May I beg you to be so good as answer my question plainly?" he said, in tones which were peremptory for the first time. "Would you have objected to grant the fortnight's delay?"
She answered him, on the bare chance that a strong expression of her opinion, as the bride's mother, might, even now, induce him to revert to the date originally chosen for the wedding. "I should certainly have objected," she said firmly.
"What difference could it possibly make to you?" There was suspicion in his manner, as well as surprise, when he put that question. "For what reason would you have objected?"
"Is my objection, as Minna's mother, not worthy of some consideration, sir, without any needless inquiry into motives?"
"Your daughter's objection—as the bride—would have been a final objection, to my mind," Mr. Keller answered. "But your objection is simply unaccountable; and I press you for your motives, having this good reason for doing so on my side. If I am to disappoint my sister—cruelly to disappoint her—it must be for some better cause than a mere caprice."
It was strongly put, and not easily answered. Madame Fontaine made a last effort—she invented the likeliest motives she could think of. "I object, sir, in the first place, to putting off the most important event in my daughter's life, and in my life, as if it was some trifling engagement. Besides, how do I know that some other unlucky circumstance may not cause more delays; and perhaps prevent the marriage from taking place at all?"
Mr. Keller rose from his chair. Whatever her true motives might be, it was now perfectly plain that she was concealing them from him. "If you have any more serious reasons to give me than these," he said quietly and coldly, "let me hear them between this and post-time tomorrow. In the meanwhile, I need not detain you any longer."
Madame Fontaine rose also—but she was not quite defeated yet.
"As things are, then," she resumed, "I am to understand, sir, that the marriage is put off to the thirteenth of January next?"