He had fully determined to be the hawk, he had picked out his minnow, and he was meditating the capture of his prey.

A great many people do as much as that, and discover too late that what they have taken for a minnow is an alligator, or a tartar, or a salamander, or some evil beast that is too much for their powers.

This was what Mr.
Barker was afraid of, and this was what he wished to guard against.
Unfortunately he was a little late in the selection of his victim, and he knew it.

He had determined to marry the Countess Margaret.
He knew perfectly well that Claudius had determined upon the very same thing, and he knew that Claudius was intimate, to say the least of it, with the woman he loved.

But Barker had made up his mind that Claudius had been refused, and had accepted the Platonic position offered him by the Countess, merely because he had not the strength to leave her.