“How could I imagine such a thing?” said Reuben, more readily than was his wont. “I only sought to make a peculiar situation clear to you, who are not familiar with such things. If I asked him questions, or meddled in the matter at all, he would resent it; and by usage he would be justified in resenting it. That is how it stands.” “Then you cannot help me, after all!” She spoke despondingly now, with the low, rich vibration in her tone which Reuben had dwelt so often on in memory since he first heard it. “And I had counted so much upon your aid,” she added, with a sigh. “I would do a great deal to be of use to you,” the young man said, earnestly, and looked her in the face with calm frankness; “a great deal, Miss Minster, but--” “Yes, but that ‘but’ means everything. I repeat, in this situation you can do nothing.” “I cannot take a brief against my partner.” “I should not suggest that again, Mr. Tracy,” she interposed. “I can see that I was wrong there, and you were right.” “Don’t put it in that way. There was no question of wrong or right. I merely pointed out a condition of business relations which had not occurred to you.” “And there is no other way?” Another way had dawned on Reuben’s mind, but it was so bold and precipitous that he hesitated to consider it seriously at first. When it did take form and force itself upon him, he said, half quaking at his own audacity: “No other way--while--he remains my partner.” Bright women discover many obscure things by the use of that marvellous faculty we call intuition, but they have by no means reduced its employment to an exact science. Sometimes their failure to discover more obvious things is equally remarkable. At this moment, for example, Kate’s feminine wits did not in the least help her to read the mind of the man before her, or the meaning in his words. In truth, they misled her, for she heard only an obstinate reiteration of an unpleasant statement, and set her teeth together with impatience as she heard it. And had she even kept these teeth tight clinched, and said nothing, the man might have gone on in self-explanation, and made clear to her her mistake. But her vexation was too imperative for silence. “I am very sorry to have taken up your time, Mr. Tracy,” she said, stiffly, and rose from her chair. “I am so little informed about these matters, I really imagined you could help us. Pray forgive me.” If Reuben could have realized, as he stood in momentary embarrassment, that this beautiful lady before him had fairly bitten her tongue to restrain it from adding that he might treat this as a professional call, or in some other way suggesting that he would be paid for his time, he might have been more embarrassed still, and angry as well.