he was keen of mind, she was
brilliant of wit, but she was all woman--no doubt of that. He was
suddenly sure that she had known well enough all day the effect that she
had had upon him, and that it had amused her. His cheek reddened at the
thought. He wondered why on earth he should care to pursue an attempt at
acquaintance with one whose manner with him was frequently so disturbing
to his self-conceit. Well, at least he must forget her now, and redeem
himself with an hour's solid effort.

But, strange to say, although he had found it difficult to work in her
presence, in her absence he found it impossible to work at all. He stuck
doggedly to his desk for the appointed hour, then gave over the attempt
and departed. The moral of all this, which he discovered he could not
escape, was that though he had taken his university degree, and had
supplemented the academic education with the broader one of travel and
observation, he had not at his command that first requisite for
efficient labour: the power of sustained application. In a way he had
been dimly suspicious of this since the day he had begun this pretence
of work for his grandfather's old friend. To-day, at sight of a girl's
steady concentration upon a wearisome task in spite of his own
supposably diverting presence, it had been brought home to him with
force that he was unquestionably reaping that inevitable product of
protracted idleness: the loss of the power to work.

As he drove away it suddenly occurred to him that on the morrow, instead
of coming to the house in his car, he would leave it in the garage and
walk. Between the discovery of his inefficiency and his resolution to
dispense with a hitherto accustomed luxury there may have been a subtler
connection than appears to the eye.

CHAPTER VII

A TRAITOROUS PROCEEDING

"We shall have to make our work count this week, Mr. Kendrick. Next week
I anticipate that there will be no chance whatever to do a stroke." So
spoke Judge Gray to his assistant on one Monday morning as he shook
hands with him in greeting.

"Very well, sir," replied the young man, with, however, a sense of its
not being at all well. It was to him a regrettable fact that he seldom
saw much of the various members of the household, and of one particular
member so little that he was tempted to wonder if she ever took the
trouble to evade him. But, of course, there was always the chance of an
encounter, and he never opened the house do