amsay
Company hasn't anything down here." He reflected a moment, then beamed.
"I can get you the legal business of the Power Trust if you want it," he
said. "Their lawyer down here goes on the bench, you know--he was on the
ticket that won. Roebuck wanted a good, safe, first-class man on the
bench in this circuit."

But he added nothing more about the Power Trust vacancy at Pulaski.
True, my first impulse was that I couldn't and wouldn't accept; also, I
told myself it was absurd to imagine they would consider me. Still, I
wished to hear, and his failure to return to the subject settled once
more the clouds his coming had lifted somewhat.

Mother was not well enough to have the Ramsays at the house that
evening, so I dined with them in the car. Mrs. Ramsay was the same
simple, silent, ill-at-ease person I had first met at the Ann Arbor
commencement,--probably the same that she had been ever since her
husband's wealth and her children's infection with newfangled ideas had
forced her from the plain ways of her youth. I liked her, but I was not
so well pleased with her daughter. Carlotta was then twenty-two, had
abundant, noticeably nice brown hair, an indifferent skin, pettish lips,
and restless eyes, a little too close together,--a spoiled wilful young
woman, taking to herself the deference that had been paid chiefly to her
wealth. She treated me as if I were a candidate for her favor whom she
was testing so that she might decide whether she would be graciously
pleased to tolerate him.

Usually, superciliousness has not disturbed me. It is a cheap and
harmless pleasure of cheap and harmless people. But just at that time my
nerves were out of order, and Miss Ramsay's airs of patronage "got" on
me. I proceeded politely to convey to her the impression that she did
not attract me, that I did not think her worth while--this, not through
artful design of interesting by piquing, but simply in the hope of
rasping upon her as she was rasping upon me. When I saw that I had
gained my point, I ignored her. I tried to talk with Ed, then with his
mother, but neither would interfere between me and Carlotta. I had to
talk to her until she voluntarily lapsed into offended silence. Then Ed,
to save the evening from disaster, began discussing with me the fate of
our class-mates. I saw that Carlotta was studying me curiously,--even
resentfully, I thought; and she was coldly polite when I said good
night.

She and her mother called on my