"Yes, I think I love him," I replied without confusion. "I could easily be his daughter; we have much in common." He said nothing for quite a long time, during which he threw his cigarette away and lit a pipe. Then he turned to me: "Now for my parable." "Yes," I said; "tell me about it." "You guessed, of course, that it is a matter that affects me deeply and seriously?" "I was afraid so. I could not be certain, of course, but I felt that it was much more than an ethical conundrum." "God knows it was, and He knows, too, that I am grateful to you for the clear lead you gave, suspecting, as you must have done, that it meant much to me." Had I suspected? I suppose I did, for my heart, I remember, beat painfully; yet I had not thought much more of it since. I looked at him, and saw that his face was white but resolute, and I said hesitatingly: "I am sorry if you are in trouble, but Farmer Goodenough thinks that troubles are blessings in disguise. I wish I could give you more than second-hand comfort." "I am going to tell you exactly where I stand," he said, "and you must not allow your woman's instinct of comfort to cloud or bias your judgment. Goodenough may be right, but if I take the step I contemplate it will not be because I expect good to result to myself--though there may be, no doubt, a certain spiritual gain--but because it is the only course possible to me if I am to retain my self-respect. "You will hardly have heard of a rather prominent case in which I figured recently as counsel for the plaintiff." "Lessingham _versus_ Mainwaring?" I queried. "You have heard of it then? Do you know the details?" "Not at all. I simply read in the paper that you had won the case for your client." "I see. Well, it would take too long, and would be too uninteresting to you to explain everything, but put briefly the case was this. Mainwaring had got hold of a considerable sum of money--over L7,000, as a matter of fact--which Lessingham claimed belonged to him. There were a great many points which were interesting to lawyers, and when the plaintiff's brief was offered to me I jumped at it. A barrister has often to wait a long time before any plums fall to his share, but this was a big one, for the other side had engaged two of the most eminent counsel in the land; and I had a big figure marked on my brief. "We had a tremendous fight, and in the heat of the forensic duel I lost sight of everything except the one goal of triumphant and overwhelming victory. I have no desire to speak of my accomplishment in terms that may sound egotistical, but I may say without affectation that I found all the weak places in the defence and used every talent I could command to crush my opponents, and I succeeded, and became for a week one of the most talked-of men in London. Outwardly collected, I was inwardly exalted above measure, for I knew what the winning of the case meant for me.