The man on the back seat was Solon Tucker--Crane's lawyer, by inheritance rather than by choice. He was a thin, erect man, with a narrow head and that expression of mouth at once hard and subtle that the Law writes on so many men's faces. His mind was excellently clear, his manner reserved, and his invariable presupposition that all human beings except himself were likely to make fools of themselves. He had, however, immense respect for Mrs. Falkener's opinions on any subject except law--on which he respected nobody's opinions but his own, least of all those of judges; and he believed that nothing would so effectively lighten his own responsibilities in regard to Crane as to marry him to Mrs. Falkener's daughter, an idea in which Mrs. Falkener cordially agreed. "You must make a point of staying with him, Solon," she was now murmuring into that gentleman's rather large ear, "if, as I fear, he actually takes this house. You have never seen such an extraordinary group of servants--except the butler. Do you suppose it could be a plot, a blackmailing scheme of some sort? The cook--Well, my dear Solon, a pocket Venus, a stage ingénue, with manicured nails! He was determined to engage her from the first. It seems very unsafe to me. A bachelor of Burton's means. You must stay by him, Solon. In fact," she added, "I think we had better both stay by him. Poor boy, he has no idea of taking care of himself." "He can be very obstinate," said his lawyer. "But I fancy you exaggerate the dangers. You are unaccustomed to any but the very highest type of English servant. They are probably nothing worse than incompetent." "Wait till you see the cook!" answered Mrs. Falkener portentously. Tucker looked away over the darkening landscape. "Dear me," he thought to himself. "What a mountain she makes of a mole-hill! How every one exaggerates--except trained minds!" In Tucker's opinion all trained minds were legal. II ON the following Monday, late in the afternoon, the old Revelly house was awaiting its new master. Already hunters, ponies, two-wheeled carts, an extra motor, to say nothing of grooms, stable-boys, and a tremendous head coachman, had arrived and were making the stable yards resound as they had not done for seventy years. But they had nothing to do with the household staff. They were all to be boarded by the coachman's wife who was installed in the gardener's cottage. The house, with its tall pillared portico and flat roofed wings, lost its shabby air as the afternoon light grew dimmer, and by six o'clock, when Crane's motor drew up before the door, it presented nothing but a dignified and spacious mass to his admiring eyes.