bad--or for mixed purposes, after the usual
fashion in human action. But whatever the service to which it is put, it
acts with equal energy and precision. Character--that is a thing apart.
The character determines the morality of action; but only the intellect
determines the skill of action.

In the offices of that great law firm one of the keenest pleasures of
the more intelligent of the staff was watching the workings of Frederick
Norman's mind--its ease of movement, its quickness and accuracy, its
obedience to the code of mental habits he had fixed for himself. In
large part all this was born with the man; but it had been brought to a
state of perfection by the most painful labor, by the severest
discipline, by years of practice of the sacrifice of small
temptations--temptations to waste time and strength on the little
pleasant things which result in such heavy bills--bills that bankrupt a
man in middle life and send him in old age into the deserts of poverty
and contempt.

Such an unique and trivial request as that of Josephine Burroughs being
wholly out of his mental habit for down town, he forgot it along with
everything else having to do with uptown only--along with Josephine
herself, to tell a truth which may pique the woman reader and may be
wholly misunderstood by the sentimentalists. By merest accident he was
reminded.

As the door of his private office opened to admit an important client he
happened to glance up. And between the edge of the door frame and his
client's automobile-fattened and carefully dressed body, he caught a
glimpse of the "poor little forlornness" who chanced to be crossing the
outer office. A glint of sunlight on her hair changed it from
lifelessness to golden vital vividness; the same chance sunbeam touched
her pale skin with a soft yellow radiation--and her profile was
delicately fine and regular. Thus Norman, who observed everything, saw
a head of finely wrought gold--a startling cameo against the dead white
of office wall. It was only with the second thought that he recognized
her. The episode of the night before came back and Josephine's penitent
yet persistent note.

He glanced at the clock. Said the client in the amusing tone of one who
would like to take offense if he only dared, "I'll not detain you long,
Mr. Norman. And really the matter is extremely important."

There are not many lawyers, even of the first rank, with whom their big
clients reverse the attitude of serva