O'Bannon came out of court very well satisfied both with himself and the
jury and drove straight to the Thorne house. The smell of the grapes
started his pulses beating. Morson came to the door. No, Miss Thorne was
not at home.

"Did she leave any message for me?" said O'Bannon.

"Nothing, sir, except that she is not at home."

He eyed Morson, feeling that he would be within his masculine rights if
he swept him out of the way and went on into the house; but tamely
enough he turned and drove away. His feelings, however, were not tame.
He was furious against her. How did she dare behave like this--driving
about the country at midnight, gambling, letting him kiss her, and then
ordering her door slammed in his face as if he were a book agent?
Civilization gave such women too much protection. Perhaps the men she
was accustomed to associating with put up with that kind of treatment,
but not he. He'd see her again if he wanted to--yes, if he had to hold
up her car on the highroad.

He thought with approval of Eleanor, a woman who played no tricks with
you but left you cool and braced like a cold shower on a hot day. Yet he
found that that afternoon he did not want to see Eleanor. He drove on
and on, steeping himself in the bitterness of his resentment.

At dinner his mother noticed his abstraction and feared an important
case was going wrong. Afterwards, supposing he wanted to think out some
tangle of the law, she left him alone--not meditating, but seething.

The next morning at half past eight he was in his office. The district
attorney's office was in an old brick block opposite the courthouse. It
occupied the second story over Mr. Wooley's hardware shop. As he went in
he saw Alma Wooley, the fragile blond daughter of his landlord, slipping
in a little late for her duties as assistant in the shop. She was
wrapped in a light-blue cloak the color of her transparent
turquoise-blue eyes. She gave O'Bannon a pretty little sketch of a
smile. She thought his position a great one, and his age extreme--anyone
over thirty was ancient in her eyes. She was profoundly grateful to him,
for he had given her fiance a position on the police force and made
their marriage a possibility at least.

"How are things, Alma?" he said.

"Simply wonderful, thanks to you, Mr. O'Bannon," she answered.

He went upstairs thinking kindly of all gentle blond women. In the
office he found his assistant, Foster, the son of the local high-school