It accordingly relieved Teddie not a little, when Mr. William Shotwell arrived, to find him quite urbane and fatherly, although he did seem to survey her somewhat bald-looking studio with a momentary frown of perplexity. Then, removing his _pince-nez_, he was at pains to remind her that he had met that estimable lady, her mother, during his activities as an officer of the Cooperative Social Settlement Society, and had dined with her equally estimable father three years before at the annual banquet of the Astronomical Club, and stood in no way ignorant of the position and prestige which her family might claim both in the Tuxedo colony and the City itself. He appeared so reluctant to come to the point, in fact, that the none-too-patient Teddie was compelled to prod him on a bit. And even then he seemed to hesitate so long that Teddie, with a sinking heart, began to wonder if Raoul Uhlan had passed away from his injuries and she was about to be indicted as a murderess. Seeing that sharp look of distress in her eyes, the attorney for the plaintiff became more urbane than ever, and protested that from the first he had advocated adjustment of some sort, a quiet and respectable settlement out of court that would cast no reflection on a family as prominent as hers and would obviate, of course, a distressing and perhaps humiliating campaign of publicity. “I’ll be greatly obliged,” cried Teddie, shouldered over the brink of patience, “if you’ll tell me just what you’re driving at.” “I’m driving at this,” responded William Shotwell, with a slight evaporation of urbanity and a corresponding hardening of face-lines: “my client, Raoul Uhlan, is now under the care of a doctor, under the care of _two_ doctors, I might add, as the result of an assault which he sustained in this studio some twenty-four hours ago.” “Oh!” said Teddie, with the quite familiar feeling of a miscreant being called up for reproof. “That assault was condoned, and, I am given to understand, was personally instigated and abetted by you, Miss Hayden,” continued the enemy. “Mr. Uhlan is not only a gentleman of high social and professional standing, but is to-day one of the best-paid portrait-painters in America. Through the injuries which he sustained in this assault, I find, he is unable to execute a commission for the portrait of one of Pittsburgh’s most prominent millionaires, before the latter sails for Europe. And through that, I regret to inform you, he has sustained a direct loss of exactly twelve thousand dollars.” A tempered sigh of relief escaped Teddie. She had expected something much worse, something much more difficult of adjustment. “Well, if that’s all that’s worrying him,” she remarked, “I’ll be quite willing to make his loss good to him.” The aged attorney, as he sat massaging his bony knuckles, saw that the picking was good. So he could afford to become fatherly again.