"That part of it has something to do with the main issue. I'm going to pull out from Judge Tiffany as soon as I go up against the bar examinations next month. At least, I want to pull out, and I'm only wondering how the Judge will take it and how she will take it. You see, I might just as well get admitted, and then it is good-bye to law for me afterwards unless I use it in politics. Law--" Bertram rammed his finger on the table with each word that followed "law is too blame slow. Anyone could see that I couldn't be chasing about as I'm doing if I had to depend on what Judge Tiffany is paying me as a clerk. Why, I've made twice as much already whirling at business. I'll always have my admission to the bar, too. If I want to settle down on a law practice after I get rich, I can do it." "That seems very promising to me." "But here's the question. Is the Judge going to take it for a throw-down, and how is Eleanor going to like the program?" Kate appeared to be considering. In fact, she was considering a great many more things than Bertram knew. "I'm pretty sure Eleanor wouldn't care," she said at length. "Hers isn't a very practical mind. It's impossible to say about Judge Tiffany. He's crotchety. The right's on your side, for a man has a right to change his employment, hasn't he? And I'm sure you have more than returned your little salary. On the whole, I don't know but it would be better for you with Eleanor if the Judge did get angry with you. A girl with ideals like hers rather likes to have a man persecuted. And you can't let it stand in the way of your career." "But--" "Oh, it isn't as though it were a choice between the girl and the career. It isn't at all. The best way to win her is to build yourself up to the big, splendid man she'd like you to be. If you stay a little law clerk for five years or so, you won't have much inducement to offer her! When you consider marriage, you have to remember that a girl like Eleanor can't live on a trifle. I'd follow my own career. It isn't, you see, as though there were anyone else in the field. Other men come to the house, of course--men she's met at the Masters, old friends of the family--but I don't consider any of them as rivals. I did think for a time that Ned Greene was attracted, but he's crazy now over Katherine Herbert. So it isn't a case for immediate action." "Do you think--have you ever heard her speak of me?" Kate's answer came readily. "She has spoken to me of you--the way women do, so that you see under what they say. We women are devils"--she smiled--"no, I can't tell you what she said. I'm in a peculiar position about it. You see, her talk, as it happens, is all twisted up in a confidence she made to me--something else in her life--nothing to do with you--and I can't break it. But I can do something without breaking any confidence. I can tell you what I think you ought to do." "Well, I guess that's what I want--" with the air of one who would have liked a great deal more.