;
a fineness different from Phebe's, submerged in the pursuit of her own
salvation. The former, he realized, was close to forty. If she had been
sympathetic with a strange child such as Eunice how admirably she would
attend any of her own. Unmarried. The blindness of men, their fatuous
choice, suddenly surprised him.

He determined to proceed directly to Stephen Jannan, and put into motion
at once the solving of his daughter's future. Never, he repeated, should
Eunice fall again into the lax hands of Essie Scofield. Stephen would
advise him shrewdly, taking advantage of the law, or skilfully
overcoming its obstacles. He had unbounded faith in the power of money
where Essie was concerned; at the same time he had no intention of
laying himself open to endless extortion, threats, almost inevitable,
ultimate scandal. What a bog he had strayed into, a quagmire reaching
about him in every direction. He must discover firmer ground ahead,
release from the act of that other man, his youth. The memory of the
serene purity of Miss Brundon's office recurred to him like a breath
from the open spaces where he had first known the deep pleasure of an
utter freedom of spirit.

Jasper Penny, revolving the complications of his position, made his way
directly over the uneven sidewalk of Spruce Street to Fourth; there,
passing the high, narrow residences of Society Hill, he proceeded to
Stephen's office, beyond Chestnut. It was in a square brick edifice of
an earlier period, with a broad marble step and door and wide windows
coped in scoured white stone. The lawyer's private chamber was bare,
with snowy panelling and mahogany, the high sombre shelves of a
calf-bound law library, a ponderous cabriolet table, sturdy, rush-seated
Dutch chairs, and a Franklin stove with slender brass capitols and
shining hod.

"A chair, Jasper," Stephen Jannan directed. "You ought to know them,
they came out of Myrtle Forge--some of old Gilbert's. Your mother gave
them to me when she did over the house in this new French fancy." Jasper
Penny was momentarily at a loss for an adequate opening of the subject
that had brought him there. Finally he plunged directly into his
purpose. "You must know, Stephen," he said, "that I am decidedly
obligated to a Mrs. Scofield." Jannan nodded shortly. "The thing dragged
on for a number of years, but is quite dead now; in fact, it has been
for a considerable number of months. That, in itself, doesn't bother me;
it is compar