No doubt he was awaiting his opportunity for revenge.

He amused himself by sitting down beside his niece, stroking her hand, admiring the whiteness of her skin, and, drawing the governess into the conversation, enquired how Henrietta was getting on with her studies, whether she had still much to learn in English and French, and whether she was not, by this time, quite a virtuoso at the piano.

He insinuated at the same time that it would be just as well, perhaps, if she made haste to learn all that was necessary as soon as possible, because she was no longer a child, and when once a woman is married she has not very much time for study.
"By the way, Henrietta," he added suddenly, "have you chosen a lover yet ?" Henrietta was too much afraid of him even to blush at this question, she only glanced at him with timid, suspicious eyes and said nothing.
"Don't be afraid, sisterkin," continued Mr.John encouragingly.

"I'll bring you such a nice bridegroom that even your grandpapa, when he sees him, will snatch up his crutches in order to go and meet him half-way." Here the old man growled something which John smothered with a laugh.
"Yes, and if he won't give you up we'll carry you off by force." Henrietta shuddered once or twice at her uncle's blandishments, like one who has to swallow a loathsome medicine and has caught a whiff of it beforehand.
The porter interrupted this cheerful family chat by announcing that his lordship Baron Hatszegi wished to pay his respects to Mr.Lapussa.
Mr.Demetrius immediately raised himself on his elbows to read from Mr.
John's features what he was going to do.

Would he tell the lacqueys to turn Hatszegi out of the house?
or would he send him word to wait in the ante-chamber, as he himself had waited at Hatszegi's, and then put him off till the morrow?
Oh! John would be sure to do something of the sort, for a very proud fellow was John.
But, so far from doing any of these things, Mr.John rushed to the door to meet the arriving guest and greeted him aloud from afar in the most obliging, not to say obsequious, terms, bidding him come in without ceremony and not make a stranger of himself.