CHAPTER III.
Mr.Abel Wharton, Q.C.
Lopez was not a man to let grass grow under his feet when he had anything to do.

When he was tired of walking backwards and forwards over the same bit of pavement, subject all the while to a cold east wind, he went home and thought of the same matter while he lay in bed.

Even were he to get the girl's assurances of love, without the father's consent he might find himself farther from his object than ever.

Mr.Wharton was a man of old fashions, who would think himself ill-used and his daughter ill-used, and who would think also that a general offence would have been committed against good social manners, if his daughter were to be asked for her hand without his previous consent.

Should he absolutely refuse,--why then the battle, though it would be a desperate battle, might perhaps be fought with other strategy; but, giving to the matter his best consideration, Lopez thought it expedient to go at once to the father.