t he was
appearing before, and finally taken her up to the eighth floor in the
Federal Building and left her there, she was, though grateful,
distinctly glad to be rid of him.

What heightened this feeling was that just as she caught herself smiling
a little, down inside, over his callow absurdity, she reflected that a
year ago they had been equals; that, as far as actual intelligence went,
he was no doubt her equal to-day--her superior, perhaps. He'd gone on
studying and she hadn't. Except for the long-circuited sex attraction
that Doctor Randolph had been talking about last night, he was as
capable of being an intellectual companion to her husband as she was.
That idea stung the red of resolution into her cheeks. She would study
law. She'd study it with all her might!

She was successful in her project of slipping into the rear of the court
room without attracting her husband's attention, and for two hours and a
half, she listened with mingled feelings, to his argument. A good part
of the time she was occupied in fighting off, fiercely, an almost
overwhelming drowsiness. The court room was hot of course, the glare
from the skylight pressed down her eyelids; she hadn't slept much the
night before. And then, there was no use pretending that she could
follow her husband's reasoning. Listening to it had something the same
effect on her as watching some enormous, complicated, smooth-running
mass of machinery. She was conscious of the power of it, though
ignorant of what made it go, and of what it was accomplishing.

The three stolid figures behind the high mahogany bench seemed to be
following it attentively, though they irritated her bitterly, sometimes,
by indulging in whispered conversations. Toward the end, though, as
Rodney opened the last phase of his argument, one of them, the
youngest--a man with a thick neck and a square head--hunched forward and
interrupted him with a question; evidently a penetrating one, for the
man sitting across the table from Rodney looked up and grinned, and
interjected a remark of his own.

"I simply followed the cases cited in _Aldrich on Quasi Contracts_," he
said. "I have a copy of the work here, in case Mr. Aldrich didn't bring
one along himself, which I'd be glad to submit to the Court."

Rose gasped. It was his own book they were quoting against him.

"I propose to show," said Rodney, "if the Court please, that an
absolutely vital distinction is to be made between the cases cit