Lydia's drawing-room was brilliant with vermilion lacquer, jade, rock crystal, a Chinese painting or two and huge cushioned armchairs and sofas. Here she and Miss Bennett and Mr. Wiley were sitting--at least Mr. Wiley and Miss Bennett were sitting, and Lydia was standing, playing with a jade dog from the mantelpiece, pressing its cold surface against her cheek. As Eleanor entered, Lydia, with hardly a sound, did a thing she had occasionally seen her do before--she suddenly seemed to radiate greeting and love and gratitude. Miss Bennett introduced Mr. Wiley. Wiley had established his position early in life--early for a lawyer; so now at fifty-eight he had thirty years of crowded practice behind him. In the nineties, a young man of thirty, his slim frock-coated figure, his narrow, fine features and dark, heavy mustache were familiar in most important court cases, and in the published accounts of them his name always had a prominent place. His enemies at one time had been contemptuous of his legal profundity and had said that he was more of an actor than a lawyer; but if so juries seemed to be more swayed by art than law, for Wiley had a wonderful record of successes. He was a man of scrupulous financial integrity--universally desired as a trustee--an honorable gentleman, a leader at the bar. It was hard to see how Lydia could be in better hands. He might not have been willing to undertake her case but for the fact that he had been her father's lawyer and was her trustee. He had a thorough familiarity, attained through years of conflict over finances, with all the problems of his client's disposition. He knew, for instance, that she would be absolutely truthful with him, a knowledge a lawyer so rarely has in regard to his clients. He knew, too, that she might carry this quality into the witness chair and might ruin her own case with the jury. He was a man accustomed to being listened to, and he was being listened to now. Eleanor sat down, saying she was sorry if she interrupted them. She didn't. Wiley drew her in and made her feel one of the conference. "I had really finished what I was saying," he added. "I only wanted to know if the situation were serious," said Eleanor. "Serious, Miss Bellington?" Wiley looked at her seriously. "To kill a human being while violating the law?" "Mr. Wiley considers it entirely a question of how the case is managed," said Lydia. There was not a trace of amusement in her tone or her expression. "To be absolutely candid," Wiley continued, "and Lydia tells me she wants the facts, I should say that if juries were normal, impartial, unemotional people Lydia would be found guilty of manslaughter in the second degree--on her own story. Fortunately, however, the collective intelligence of a jury is low; and skillfully managed, the case of a beautiful young orphan may be made very appealing, very pathetic." "Pathos has never been my strong point," observed Lydia.