"Madam," said Lawyer Gooch, in the tone that he used in curbing his female clients, "this is an office for conducting the practice of law.
I am a lawyer, not a philosopher, nor the editor of an "Answers to the Lovelorn" column of a newspaper. I have other clients waiting. I will ask you kindly to come to the point."
"Well, you needn"t get so stiff around the gills about it," said the lady, with a snap of her luminous eyes and a startling gyration of her umbrella. "Business is what I"ve come for. I want your opinion in the matter of a suit for divorce, as the vulgar would call it, but which is really only the readjustment of the false and ign.o.ble conditions that the short-sighted laws of man have interposed between a loving--"
"I beg your pardon, madam," interrupted Lawyer Gooch, with some impatience, "for reminding you again that this is a law office.
Perhaps Mrs. Wilc.o.x--"
"Mrs. Wilc.o.x is all right," cut in the lady, with a hint of asperity.
"And so are Tolstoi, and Mrs. Gertrude Atherton, and Omar Khayyam, and Mr. Edward Bok. I"ve read "em all. I would like to discuss with you the divine right of the soul as opposed to the freedom-destroying restrictions of a bigoted and narrow-minded society. But I will proceed to business. I would prefer to lay the matter before you in an impersonal way until you pa.s.s upon its merits. That is to describe it as a supposable instance, without--"
"You wish to state a hypothetical case?" said Lawyer Gooch.
"I was going to say that," said the lady, sharply. "Now, suppose there is a woman who is all soul and heart and aspirations for a complete existence. This woman has a husband who is far below her in intellect, in taste--in everything. Bah! he is a brute. He despises literature.
He sneers at the lofty thoughts of the world"s great thinkers. He thinks only of real estate and such sordid things. He is no mate for a woman with soul. We will say that this unfortunate wife one day meets with her ideal--a man with brain and heart and force. She loves him.
Although this man feels the thrill of a new-found affinity he is too n.o.ble, too honourable to declare himself. He flies from the presence of his beloved. She flies after him, trampling, with superb indifference, upon the fetters with which an unenlightened social system would bind her. Now, what will a divorce cost? Eliza Ann Timmins, the poetess of Sycamore Gap, got one for three hundred and forty dollars. Can I--I mean can this lady I speak of get one that cheap?"
"Madam," said Lawyer Gooch, "your last two or three sentences delight me with their intelligence and clearness. Can we not now abandon the hypothetical and come down to names and business?"
"I should say so," exclaimed the lady, adopting the practical with admirable readiness. "Thomas R. Billings is the name of the low brute who stands between the happiness of his legal--his legal, but not his spiritual--wife and Henry K. Jessup, the n.o.ble man whom nature intended for her mate. I," concluded the client, with an air of dramatic revelation, "am Mrs. Billings!"
"Gentlemen to see you, sir," shouted Archibald, invading the room almost at a handspring. Lawyer Gooch arose from his chair.
"Mrs. Billings," he said courteously, "allow me to conduct you into the adjoining office apartment for a few minutes. I am expecting a very wealthy old gentleman on business connected with a will. In a very short while I will join you, and continue our consultation."
With his accustomed chivalrous manner, Lawyer Gooch ushered his soulful client into the remaining unoccupied room, and came out, closing the door with circ.u.mspection.
The next visitor introduced by Archibald was a thin, nervous, irritable-looking man of middle age, with a worried and apprehensive expression of countenance. He carried in one hand a small satchel, which he set down upon the floor beside the chair which the lawyer placed for him. His clothing was of good quality, but it was worn without regard to neatness or style, and appeared to be covered with the dust of travel.
"You make a specialty of divorce cases," he said, in, an agitated but business-like tone.
"I may say," began Lawyer Gooch, "that my practice has not altogether avoided--"
"I know you do," interrupted client number three. "You needn"t tell me. I"ve heard all about you. I have a case to lay before you without necessarily disclosing any connection that I might have with it--that is--"
"You wish," said Lawyer Gooch, "to state a hypothetical case.
"You may call it that. I am a plain man of business. I will be as brief as possible. We will first take up hypothetical woman. We will say she is married uncongenially. In many ways she is a superior woman. Physically she is considered to be handsome. She is devoted to what she calls literature--poetry and prose, and such stuff. Her husband is a plain man in the business walks of life. Their home has not been happy, although the husband has tried to make it so. Some time ago a man--a stranger--came to the peaceful town in which they lived and engaged in some real estate operations. This woman met him, and became unaccountably infatuated with him. Her attentions became so open that the man felt the community to be no safe place for him, so he left it. She abandoned husband and home, and followed him.
She forsook her home, where she was provided with every comfort, to follow this man who had inspired her with such a strange affection.
Is there anything more to be deplored," concluded the client, in a trembling voice, "than the wrecking of a home by a woman"s uncalculating folly?"
Lawyer Gooch delivered the cautious opinion that there was not.
"This man she has gone to join," resumed the visitor, "is not the man to make her happy. It is a wild and foolish self-deception that makes her think he will. Her husband, in spite of their many disagreements, is the only one capable of dealing with her sensitive and peculiar nature. But this she does not realize now."
"Would you consider a divorce the logical cure in the case you present?" asked Lawyer Gooch, who felt that the conversation was wandering too far from the field of business.
"A divorce!" exclaimed the client, feelingly--almost tearfully.
"No, no--not that. I have read, Mr. Gooch, of many instances where your sympathy and kindly interest led you to act as a mediator between estranged husband and wife, and brought them together again.
Let us drop the hypothetical case--I need conceal no longer that it is I who am the sufferer in this sad affair--the names you shall have--Thomas R. Billings and wife--and Henry K. Jessup, the man with whom she is infatuated."
Client number three laid his hand upon Mr. Gooch"s arm. Deep emotion was written upon his careworn face. "For Heaven"s sake", he said fervently, "help me in this hour of trouble. Seek out Mrs. Billings, and persuade her to abandon this distressing pursuit of her lamentable folly. Tell her, Mr. Gooch, that her husband is willing to receive her back to his heart and home--promise her anything that will induce her to return. I have heard of your success in these matters.
Mrs. Billings cannot be very far away. I am worn out with travel and weariness. Twice during the pursuit I saw her, but various circ.u.mstances prevented our having an interview. Will you undertake this mission for me, Mr. Gooch, and earn my everlasting grat.i.tude?"
"It is true," said Lawyer Gooch, frowning slightly at the other"s last words, but immediately calling up an expression of virtuous benevolence, "that on a number of occasions I have been successful in persuading couples who sought the severing of their matrimonial bonds to think better of their rash intentions and return to their homes reconciled. But I a.s.sure you that the work is often exceedingly difficult. The amount of argument, perseverance, and, if I may be allowed to say it, eloquence that it requires would astonish you. But this is a case in which my sympathies would be wholly enlisted. I feel deeply for you sir, and I would be most happy to see husband and wife reunited. But my time," concluded the lawyer, looking at his watch as if suddenly reminded of the fact, "is valuable."
"I am aware of that," said the client, "and if you will take the case and persuade Mrs. Billings to return home and leave the man alone that she is following--on that day I will pay you the sum of one thousand dollars. I have made a little money in real estate during the recent boom in Susanville, and I will not begrudge that amount."
"Retain your seat for a few moments, please," said Lawyer Gooch, arising, and again consulting his watch. "I have another client waiting in an adjoining room whom I had very nearly forgotten. I will return in the briefest possible s.p.a.ce."
The situation was now one that fully satisfied Lawyer Gooch"s love of intricacy and complication. He revelled in cases that presented such subtle problems and possibilities. It pleased him to think that he was master of the happiness and fate of the three individuals who sat, unconscious of one another"s presence, within his reach. His old figure of the ship glided into his mind. But now the figure failed, for to have filled every compartment of an actual vessel would have been to endanger her safety; with his compartments full, his ship of affairs could but sail on to the advantageous port of a fine, fat fee.
The thing for him to do, of course, was to wring the best bargain he could from some one of his anxious cargo.
First he called to the office boy: "Lock the outer door, Archibald, and admit no one." Then he moved, with long, silent strides into the room in which client number one waited. That gentleman sat, patiently scanning the pictures in the magazine, with a cigar in his mouth and his feet upon a table.
"Well," he remarked, cheerfully, as the lawyer entered, "have you made up your mind? Does five hundred dollars go for getting the fair lady a divorce?"
"You mean that as a retainer?" asked Lawyer Gooch, softly interrogative.
"Hey? No; for the whole job. It"s enough, ain"t it?"
"My fee," said Lawyer Gooch, "would be one thousand five hundred dollars. Five hundred dollars down, and the remainder upon issuance of the divorce."
A loud whistle came from client number one. His feet descended to the floor.
"Guess we can"t close the deal," he said, arising, "I cleaned up five hundred dollars in a little real estate d.i.c.ker down in Susanville.
I"d do anything I could to free the lady, but it out-sizes my pile."
"Could you stand one thousand two hundred dollars?" asked the lawyer, insinuatingly.
"Five hundred is my limit, I tell you. Guess I"ll have to hunt up a cheaper lawyer." The client put on his hat.
"Out this way, please," said Lawyer Gooch, opening the door that led into the hallway.
As the gentleman flowed out of the compartment and down the stairs, Lawyer Gooch smiled to himself. "Exit Mr. Jessup," he murmured, as he fingered the Henry Clay tuft of hair at his ear. "And now for the forsaken husband." He returned to the middle office, and a.s.sumed a businesslike manner.
"I understand," he said to client number three, "that you agree to pay one thousand dollars if I bring about, or am instrumental in bringing about, the return of Mrs. Billings to her home, and her abandonment of her infatuated pursuit of the man for whom she has conceived such a violent fancy. Also that the case is now unreservedly in my hands on that basis. Is that correct?"
"Entirely", said the other, eagerly. "And I can produce the cash any time at two hours" notice."
Lawyer Gooch stood up at his full height. His thin figure seemed to expand. His thumbs sought the arm-holes of his vest. Upon his face was a look of sympathetic benignity that he always wore during such undertakings.
"Then, sir," he said, in kindly tones, "I think I can promise you an early relief from your troubles. I have that much confidence in my powers of argument and persuasion, in the natural impulses of the human heart toward good, and in the strong influence of a husband"s unfaltering love. Mrs. Billings, sir, is here--in that room--" the lawyer"s long arm pointed to the door. "I will call her in at once; and our united pleadings--"
Lawyer Gooch paused, for client number three had leaped from his chair as if propelled by steel springs, and clutched his satchel.
"What the devil," he exclaimed, harshly, "do you mean? That woman in there! I thought I shook her off forty miles back."
He ran to the open window, looked out below, and threw one leg over the sill.