r shades of curiosity.
It was almost as if he was going to suggest to her something "off the
level" but which would nevertheless be worth her while. She was used
to these procedures, not in actual experience but from hearing them
talked about. They made up a large part of what Judson Flack
understood as "business." She felt it prudent to be as non-committal
as possible.

"I ain't so sure."

She meant him to understand that being tolerably satisfied with her
own way of life, she was not enthusiastic over new experiments.

His next observation was no surprise to her. "I'm a lawyer."

She was sure of that. There were always lawyers in these subterranean
affairs--"shyster" was a word she had heard applied to them--and this
man looked the part. His thin face, clear-cut profile, and skin which
showed dark where he shaved, were all, in her judgment, signs of the
sinister. Even his clothes, from his patent leather shoes with spats
to his dark blue necktie with a pearl in it, were those which an actor
would wear in pictures to represent a "shark."

She was turning these thoughts over in her mind when he spoke again.

"I've an office, but I don't practise much. It takes all my time to
manage my own estate."

She didn't know what this meant. It sounded like farming, but you
didn't farm in New York, or do it from an office anyhow. "I guess he's
one of them gold-brick nuts," she commented to herself, "but he won't
put nothin' over on me."

In return for her biography he continued to give his, bringing out his
facts in short, hard statements which seemed to hurt him. It was this
hurting him which she found most difficult to reconcile with her gold
brick theory and the suspicion that he was a "shark."

"My father was a lawyer, too. Rather well known in his day. One time
ambassador to Vienna."

Ambassador to Vienna! She didn't know where Vienna was or the nature
of an ambassador, but she did know that it sounded grand, so she
looked at him attentively. It was either more gold brick or else....

Then something struck her--"smote her" would be perhaps the more
accurately descriptive word, since the effect was on her heart. This
man was sick. He was suffering. She had often seen women suffer, but
men rarely, and this was one of the rare instances. Something in her
was touched. She couldn't imagine why he talked to her or what he
wanted of her, but a pity which had never yet been called upon was
astir among her emotions.

A