I want the aid of the law to extricate my daughter from the consequences of her own folly.

Surely, such a marriage cannot be legal!" Schmidt weighed the point from behind the veil, and an unemotional reply soothed his fiery client.
"The idea is, perhaps, untenable--almost repulsive," he said, "but the law on the matter is governed by so many differing decisions that I cannot express a reasoned opinion offhand.

You see, the question of consideration intervenes.

And--and--where is the lady now ?" "I don't know." "You left Curtis at the Central Hotel!" "Yes." "In company with Steingall, and two elderly Curtises, and young Devar ?" "Yes." "Why didn't you demand your daughter's present address ?" "I--I was so stunned by what I regarded as official sanction of an outrage that I came away in a fury." Mr.Otto Schmidt rose, or rather, raised his oblong shape from a slight incline on a chair to a horizontal position.
"Let us go to the hotel," he said.

"And there must be no more fury.
Leave the inquiry in my hands, my lord, and it will be strange if I do not succeed in elucidating points which are now baffling us--in fact, I may say, inducing mental disturbance." Thus, it came to pass that Krantz, the reception clerk at the Central Hotel, had just seen the doctor sent to dose de Courtois with bromide leaving the building when the Earl and Mr.Schmidt entered.
As it happened, the lawyer was known to him, Schmidt having had legal charge of the corporation which reconstructed the hotel, so it was impossible for an employe to be reticent with him about the matters which were discussed forthwith.
"Mr.Steingall gone ?" inquired Schmidt affably.
"Yes, sir.