lplessness out of her blue grottoes at him while her beautiful red
lips trembled.

"I hope I can help you!" he breathed. "Tell me all about it! Take your
time. May I relieve you of your wrap?"

She wriggled out of it gratefully and he saw for the first time the
round, slender pillar of her neck. What a head she had--in its nimbus of
hazy gold. What a figure! His forty-eight-year-old lawyer's heart
trembled under its heavy layer of half-calf dust. He found difficulty in
articulating. He stammered, staring at her most shamelessly both of
which symptoms she did not notice. She was used to them in the other
sex. Tutt did not know what was the matter with him. He had in fact
entered upon that phase at which the wise man, be he old or young, turns
and runs.

But Tutt did not run. In legal phrase he stopped, looked and listened,
experiencing a curious feeling of expansion. This enchanting creature
transmuted the dingy office lined with its rows of calfskin bindings
into a golden grot in which he stood spellbound by the low murmur of her
voice. A sense of infinite leisure emanated from her--a subtle denial of
the ordinary responsibilities--very relaxing and delightful to Tutt. But
what twitched his very heartstrings was the dimple that came and went
with that pathetic little twisted smile of hers.

"I came to you," said Mrs. Allison, "because I knew you were both kind
and clever."

Tutt smiled sweetly.

"Kind, perhaps--not clever!" he beamed.

"Why, everyone says you are one of the cleverest lawyers in New York,"
she protested. Then, raising her innocent China-blue eyes to his she
murmured, "And I so need kindness!"

Tutt's breast swelled with an emotion which he was forced to admit was
not altogether avuncular--that curious sentimental mixture that
middle-aged men feel of paternal pity, Platonic tenderness and
protectiveness, together with all those other euphemistic synonyms, that
make them eager to assist the weak and fragile, to try to educate and
elevate, and particularly to find out just how weak, fragile, uneducated
and unelevated a helpless lady may be. But in spite of his half century
of experience Tutt's knowledge of these things was purely vicarious. He
could have told another man when to run, but he didn't know when to run
himself. He could have saved another, himself he could not save--at any
rate from Mrs. Allison.

He had never seen anyone like her. He pulled his chair a little nearer.
She was so slen