Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; San Francisco (Calif.) -- Fiction
"Not a thing--truly Edward! Some of Eleanor's slumming with Kate
Waddington and the Masters--they met by accident at a restaurant--Eleanor
asked him. You remember he was taken with her that afternoon just
before she went to Europe--the time he mortified me so dreadfully."
"And the time he attracted my attention," said Judge Tiffany. "And now
behold that youth, who will always get what he wants by frontal
attack, reading my California cases and wearing out my desk with his
feet."
"Do you think he will make a good lawyer?" asked Mattie Tiffany. She
turned full around at this, and the glance she threw into her
husband's face showed more than a casual matchmaker's interest.
"He'll make a good something," said the Judge. "So far as anyone can
judge the race from the start. But that isn't why I have him in the
office. You know how little I care in these days for such practice as
I have left. I tell myself, of course, that it is my lingering
interest in life as a general proposition which made me do it--I am
curious to see before I die how this find of yours is coming out. That
is what I tell myself. Probably in my very inside heart I know that
it's something else."
"What else?" asked Mattie.
"This is one of the hidden things which this experiment is to
discover," said Judge Tiffany. "What made me notice him in the first
place? What made you invite him to tea on the lawn? What has made you
and me and Eleanor remember this chance meeting so long--let me
see--how long was it?"
"A year ago last June," said Mattie. One of her functions in their
partnership was to hold small details always ready to the hand of the
wide-thinking Judge.
"Will he go back on me--that's the question," pursued the Judge.
"Success is probably at the end for him, but he has two ways of
success open. He may go slowly and well, or fast and ill. Road number
one: he stays with my moth-eaten old practice, he refurbishes it, he
earns a partnership; and so to conservative clients and, probably, to
genuine success." He hesitated.
"And the other road?" asked Mrs. Tiffany.
"Oh, that has many by-paths. He is trying one of them already. The
stealthy, invaluable Attwood has told me about it. This Mr. Chester
has made an investment in Richmond lots on information which he had no
right to use. Never mind the details. If he follows that general
direction, it will be a flashy success, a pretty worm-eaten crown of
laurels."
"Like Northrup's," broke in Mrs. Tiffany. That name always jarred on
their ears. Northrup, ex-congressman, flowery Western orator, all
Christian love on the surface, all guile beneath--he had taken to
himself that success which Judge Tiffany might have had but for his
hesitations of conscience. Theirs was a secret resentment. Judge
Tiffany's pride would never have let him show the world one glimmer of
what he felt.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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