It is doubtful whether Mrs. Endicott recognized the former “Mikky” under the title written below his most respectable law firm’s name. Any representative of Holt and Holt was to be recognized of course. She came down within a half hour, quite graciously with lorgnette in her hand, until she had reached the centre of the reception room where he had been put to await her. Then Michael arose, almost from the same spot where she had addressed him nearly four years before, the halo of the morning shining through the high window on his hair, and with a start and stiffening of her whole form she recognized him. “Oh, it is _you_!” There was that in her tone that argued ill for Michael’s mission, but with grave and gentle bearing he began: “Madam, I beg your pardon for the intrusion. I would not have come if there had been any other way. I tried to find Mr. Endicott but was told he had sailed—” “You needn’t waste your time, and mine. I shall do nothing for you. As I told you before, if I remember, I think far too much already has been done for you and I never felt that you had the slightest claim upon our bounty. I must refuse to hear any hard luck stories.” Michael’s face was a study. Indignation, shame and pity struggled with a sudden sense of the ridiculousness of the situation. What he did was to laugh, a rich, clear, musical laugh that stopped the lady’s tirade better than he could have done it in any other way. “Well! Really! Have you come to insult me?” she said angrily. “I will call a servant,” and she stepped curtly toward the bell. “Madam, I beg your pardon,” said Michael quickly, grave at once. “I intended no insult and I have come to ask no favor of you. I came because of a serious matter, perhaps a grave danger to your home, which I thought you should be made acquainted with.” “Indeed! Well, make haste,” said Mrs. Endicott, half mollified. “My time is valuable. Has some one been planning to rob the house?” Michael looked straight in her face and told her briefly a few facts, delicately worded, forcefully put, which would have convinced the heart of any true mother that the man before her had none but pure motives. Not so this mother. The more Michael talked the stiffer, haughtier, more hateful, grew her stare; and when he paused, thinking not to utterly overwhelm her with his facts, she remarked, superciliously: “How could you possibly know all these things, unless you had been in the same places where you claim Mr. Carter has been? But, oh, of course I forgot! Your former home was there, and so of course you must have many friends among—ah—_those people_!” She drew her mental skirts away from contaminating contact as she spoke the last two words, and punctuated them with a contemptuous look through the lorgnette.