nd that it was justifiable for the
great legal brains of the country to devise means by which these laws
could be eluded. He didn't quite say that, but he meant it, and he
honestly believes it. The manner in which Mr. Erwin refuted it was a
revelation to me. I've been thinking about it since. You see, I'd never
heard that side of the argument. Mr. Erwin said, in the nicest way
possible, but very firmly, that a lawyer who hired himself out to enable
one man to take advantage of another prostituted his talents: that the
brains of the legal profession were out of politics in these days, and
that it was almost impossible for the men in the legislatures to frame
laws that couldn't be evaded by clever and unscrupulous devices. He cited
ever so many cases . . . "

Ethel's voice became indistinct, as though some one had shut a door in
front of it. Honora was trembling on the brink of a discovery: holding
herself back from it, as one who has climbed a fair mountain recoils from
the lip of an unsuspected crater at sight of the lazy, sulphurous fumes.
All the years of her marriage, ever since she had first heard his name,
the stature of James Wing had been insensibly growing, and the vastness
of his empire gradually disclosed. She had lived in that empire: in it
his word had stood for authority, his genius had been worshipped, his
decrees had been absolute.

She had met him once, in Howard's office, when he had greeted her
gruffly, and the memory of his rugged features and small red eyes, like
live coals, had remained. And she saw now the drama that had taken place
before Ethel's eyes. The capitalist, overbearing, tyrannical, hearing a
few, simple truths in his own house from Peter--her Peter. And she
recalled her husband's account of his talk with James Wing. Peter had
refused to sell himself. Had Howard? Many times during the days that
followed she summoned her courage to ask her husband that question, and
kept silence. She did not wish to know.

"I don't want to seem disloyal to papa," Ethel was saying. "He is under
great responsibilities to other people, to stockholders; and he must get
things done. But oh, Honora, I'm so tired of money, money, money and its
standards, and the things people are willing to do for it. I've seen too
much."

Honora looked at her friend, and believed her. One glance at the girl's
tired eyes--a weariness somehow enhanced--in effect by the gold sheen of
her hair--confirmed the truth of her words.