"Just think!" she cried, "the name, 'Mrs. Howard Jeffries'--my name--paraded before the public! At a time when everything should be done to keep it out of the papers this woman is going to flaunt herself on the stage!" She fanned herself indignantly, while the lawyer rapped his desk absent-mindedly with a paper cutter. Alicia went on: "You know I have never met the woman. What is she like? I understand she's been bothering you to take the case of that worthless husband of hers. Do you know she had the impertinence to come to our house and ask Mr. Jeffries to help them? I asked my husband to describe her, but all I could get from him was that she was impertinent and impossible." She hesitated a moment, then she added: "Is she as pretty as her pictures in the paper? You've seen her, of course?" Judge Brewster frowned. "Yes," he replied. "She comes here every day regularly. She literally compels me to see her and refuses to go till I've told her I haven't changed my decision about taking her case." "What insolence!" exclaimed Alicia. "I should think that you would have her put out of the office." The lawyer was silent and toyed somewhat nervously with the paper cutter, as if not quite decided as to what response to make. He coughed and fussed with the papers on the desk. "Why don't you have her put out of the office?" she repeated. The judge looked up. There was an expression in his face that might have been interpreted as one of annoyance, as if he rather resented this intrusion into his business affairs, but Mrs. Jeffries, Sr., was too important a client to quarrel with, so he merely said: "Frankly, Mrs. Jeffries, if it were not for the fact that Mr. Jeffries has exacted from me a promise not to take up this case, I should be tempted to--consider the matter. In the first place, you know I always liked Howard. I saw a good deal of him before your marriage to Mr. Jeffries. He was always a wild, unmanageable boy, weak in character, but he had many lovable traits. I am very sorry indeed, to see him in such a terrible position. It was hard for me to realize it and I should never have believed him guilty had he not confessed to the crime." "Yes," she assented. "It is an awful thing and a terrible blow to his father. Of course, he has had nothing to do with Howard for months. As you know, he turned him out of doors long ago, but the disgrace is none the less overwhelming." The lawyer looked out of the window and drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. Suddenly wheeling round, and facing his client, he said: "You know this girl he married is no ordinary woman." "Oh!" she exclaimed sarcastically. "She has succeeded in arousing your sympathy." The judge bowed coldly.