or him to go over the details of the trust which Mrs. Manson
Mingott wished to create for her granddaughter. For a couple of hours
Archer had examined the terms of the deed with his senior, all the
while obscurely feeling that if he had been consulted it was for some
reason other than the obvious one of his cousinship; and that the close
of the conference would reveal it.

"Well, the lady can't deny that it's a handsome arrangement," Mr.
Letterblair had summed up, after mumbling over a summary of the
settlement. "In fact I'm bound to say she's been treated pretty
handsomely all round."

"All round?" Archer echoed with a touch of derision. "Do you refer to
her husband's proposal to give her back her own money?"

Mr. Letterblair's bushy eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch. "My
dear sir, the law's the law; and your wife's cousin was married under
the French law. It's to be presumed she knew what that meant."

"Even if she did, what happened subsequently--." But Archer paused.
Mr. Letterblair had laid his pen-handle against his big corrugated
nose, and was looking down it with the expression assumed by virtuous
elderly gentlemen when they wish their youngers to understand that
virtue is not synonymous with ignorance.

"My dear sir, I've no wish to extenuate the Count's transgressions;
but--but on the other side ... I wouldn't put my hand in the fire ...
well, that there hadn't been tit for tat ... with the young
champion...." Mr. Letterblair unlocked a drawer and pushed a folded
paper toward Archer. "This report, the result of discreet enquiries
..." And then, as Archer made no effort to glance at the paper or to
repudiate the suggestion, the lawyer somewhat flatly continued: "I
don't say it's conclusive, you observe; far from it. But straws show
... and on the whole it's eminently satisfactory for all parties that
this dignified solution has been reached."

"Oh, eminently," Archer assented, pushing back the paper.

A day or two later, on responding to a summons from Mrs. Manson
Mingott, his soul had been more deeply tried.

He had found the old lady depressed and querulous.

"You know she's deserted me?" she began at once; and without waiting
for his reply: "Oh, don't ask me why! She gave so many reasons that
I've forgotten them all. My private belief is that she couldn't face
the boredom. At any rate that's what Augusta and my daughters-in-law
think. And I don't know that I altogether blame he