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Justice before the Law

Michael Huemer
Justice before the Law
 Michael Huemer

Justice before
the Law
Michael Huemer
Philosophy Department
Univ of Colorado at Boulder
Boulder, CO, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-67542-4    ISBN 978-3-030-67543-1 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67543-1

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature
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The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Preface

I wrote this book for two reasons. The first is that the U.S. legal system,
which has a powerful influence on the rest of society, appears to me to be
among the most dysfunctional aspects of American society. The nation
traditionally known as “the land of the free” has become the world leader
in incarceration. Many are sent to prison for nonviolent offenses, includ-
ing many victimless crimes. Convicts often serve draconian sentences in
overcrowded prisons rife with abuse. Almost all prisoners were convicted
and sentenced without a trial, because prosecutors threaten defendants
with drastically higher sentences in the event that the defendant requests
a trial. Both the criminal and the civil courts are widely feared by
Americans, who know that being involved in legal difficulties can threaten
to bankrupt one, regardless of who is in the right. My first goal in these
pages has thus been to describe the largest problems with the American
legal system, along with some proposed remedies.
My second reason for writing this book is that the field of jurisprudence
has long seemed to me to be burdened with philosophical assumptions, of
central import to the field, that are indefensible. Such assumptions are
more common among legal professionals than among scholars. For
instance, one may hear judges and prosecutors declare that the proper func-
tion of juries is solely to evaluate the factual evidence in a trial, never to
exercise moral judgment. Similarly, many believe that the proper role of

v
vi Preface

judges is only to faithfully interpret and apply the law, not to exercise inde-
pendent moral judgment. And nearly all legal professionals will tell you
that a lawyer is ethically bound to do his best to serve his clients’ interests,
regardless of the interests of justice; hence, it is thought appropriate for a
defense attorney to attempt to set dangerous criminals free, or for a litigator
to attempt to extract exorbitant compensation in a civil case. These assump-
tions are often held with extreme confidence, as if they were proven facts
rather than debatable philosophical stances. When arguments are offered,
they tend to be among the least plausible arguments to be found in any
branch of philosophy or political discourse. Thus, my second goal in this
book is to address the largest errors in conventional jurisprudence. These
errors, by my read, have one main thing in common: they direct agents in
the justice system to disregard considerations of justice and morality.
The practical problems in the American justice system are related to
the intellectual problems in American jurisprudence. In accordance with
conventional legal philosophy, most participants in the justice system do
not directly pursue justice in individual cases. They seek to carry out their
social role as they understand it, regardless of whether the result be good
or evil, just or unjust. It is unsurprising that injustice often results. In this
book, I argue for prioritizing justice. It is not only, in my view, that the
system should be reformed to reduce the most egregious injustices; indi-
vidual agents within the system should explicitly aim at achieving justice
and should carry out their assigned roles under that constraint.
I wrote most of this book while on sabbatical from the University of
Colorado and serving as a Visiting Research Professor at the Murphy
Institute at Tulane University, in 2018–2019. I wish to thank the Institute
as well as my home institution for their support. In addition, I want to
thank Chris Surprenant, Brian Talbot, Stuart Rachels, Matt Skene, and
two anonymous referees for their valuable comments on the manuscript,
which helped to correct numerous mistakes and shortcomings. Of course,
none of these other scholars are responsible for any errors that remain. All
mistakes and shortcomings of the book are most likely the fault of the
government. Undoubtedly, a much better book could be written by a
philosopher at a private school.

Boulder, CO, USA Michael Huemer

 Contents

Part I Foundations for a Defense of Justice    1

1 Introduction   3
2 Law and Morality  13

Part II Legal Injustices   43

3 Unjust Laws  45
4 The Price of Justice  75
5 Extorted Pleas 111
6 Unjust Punishments 143
7 Abuse of Power 169

Part III In Defense of Justice  227

8 The Primacy of Justice 229
9 The Authority of Law 255
10 Role Playing 271
11 The Rule of Law 313
12 Conclusion 345

Index369

vii
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Taxonomy of appearances 36

Fig. 4.1 Length of the Code of Federal Regulations 86
Fig. 4.2 Prevalence of lawyers and lawsuits 102

ix
 Part I
Foundations for a Defense
of Justice
 1
Introduction

1.1 The Problem of Legal Injustice

If there is any institution in our society that should embody the pursuit
of justice, it is the legal system. The division of the system concerned with
criminal law is commonly referred to as “the justice system”. Many court-
house grounds are decorated with statues of Lady Justice. The motto
engraved in stone on the West side of the U.S. Supreme Court building
reads, in capital letters, “EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW”, while the
East side bears the inscription, “JUSTICE THE GUARDIAN OF
LIBERTY”. So one might assume that the system focuses mainly, if not
entirely, on justice, and that the details of legal procedures, doctrines, and
decisions will be explicable in terms of that concern for justice. And that,
indeed, is often true.
But not always. Frequently, there are clear, serious injustices built into
legal rules and practices. Some laws unjustly penalize behavior that is
morally blameless. Some legal norms encourage or expressly direct actors
within the system to place other concerns ahead of justice. Some prac-
tices violate individuals’ rights or create unreasonable risks of unjust out-
comes. In the following chapters, I will have much to say about these

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 3

M. Huemer, Justice before the Law, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67543-1_1
4 M. Huemer

problems. But for now, it will help to describe one simple example. This
is an actual case from early America, when New York was a British colony.

The Zenger Trial: In 1735, John Peter Zenger, then publisher of the
New York Weekly Journal, was put on trial for sedi-
tious libel. Zenger had published a series of articles in
his newspaper attacking the governor of New York,
and the governor had directed the prosecutor to pros-
ecute Zenger for printing these articles. During the
trial, Zenger’s attorney freely admitted that Zenger
had published the material in question. His defense
was that the material was all true, and he offered to
present evidence that this was so. The prosecutor,
however, argued that the accuracy of Zenger’s articles
was irrelevant to the charges; indeed, it was worse to
publish accurate criticisms of public officials than
false ones, because accurate criticisms were more
likely to undermine public confidence in the govern-
ment. The judge agreed with the prosecutor and
therefore prohibited the defense from offering any
evidence of the truth of the published material. The
judge instructed the jury that British law did not rec-
ognize truthfulness as a defense against a charge of
libel, and he all but ordered the jury to find the defen-
dant guilty. The jury, however, defied the judge and
the law and returned a verdict of not guilty.1

This was among history’s most famous instances of jury nullification, the
practice wherein a jury votes to acquit a defendant on the grounds that it
would be unjust or otherwise wrong to punish the defendant, regardless
of whether the defendant violated the law. This case played a role in
establishing the American tradition of freedom of the press.
Though the case had, to my mind, a happy ending, the case neverthe-
less illustrates two kinds of problem that appear in the legal system. The

1
Zenger (1736), Linder (2001).
 1 Introduction 5

first is an unjust law. It is obviously unjust, as well as socially harmful, to

prohibit citizens from truthfully criticizing government officials. The sec-
ond type of problem is the failure of agents in the legal system to priori-
tize justice. In the Zenger trial, the judge placed the value of deference to
authority, or deference to existing legal rules, ahead of the value of doing
justice to the defendant in the particular case before the court. Accordingly,
he considered the jury duty-bound to convict. It was the jury of ordinary
citizens not steeped in legal tradition who decided to place the dictates of
justice ahead of the dictates of government officials, including the judge
and the original lawmakers.
Many cases have less happy endings. When the law clashes with jus-
tice, the law usually wins. That is because individuals acting within the
system—judges, juries, lawyers, and so on—wrongly choose to place
fidelity to law, convention, or authority ahead of fidelity to justice. I have
two central theses in this book: (i) The current legal system contains fre-
quent, serious injustices in its rules and practices. (ii) When the rules and
practices of the legal system conflict with justice, we should place jus-
tice first.

1.2 Injustice in the Legal System

There are a great variety of legal systems across the world and across his-
tory, and it would not be possible to survey legal systems generally.2
Hereinafter, I shall focus on the practices and doctrines of the current
U.S. legal system, which is very similar to that of the U.K. and other
British-influenced nations. In the following chapters, I shall review some
of the most widespread, clear, and serious failures in this system.
The injustices are of several kinds. First and most obvious are the
unjust laws. There will naturally be controversy surrounding any attempt
to identify unjust laws. However, a particularly strong case can be made,
for example, that the laws prohibiting recreational drug use are unjust.
These laws presently account for about 450,000 prisoners in the U.S., so
if these laws are unjust, they cause an enormous amount of unjust

2
But see Friedman et al. (2019) for an interesting survey of thirteen very different legal systems.
6 M. Huemer

punishment.3 A strong case can also be made that current immigration

law is unjustly restrictive. The number of people seriously harmed by
these laws is unknown, but it includes millions of individuals who could
effect enormous, permanent improvements in their lives, if they were
permitted to migrate out of poor, oppressive states. There are many other
unjust laws, but these are two of the most salient and consequential ones.
My contention will be not merely that these are suboptimal policies, but
that they constitute serious violations of the rights of many individuals.
It is for this reason that they become an issue of justice.
The second category of injustice is that of unjust conditions for using
the legal system. In particular, to pursue justice within the legal system, in
a large range of cases, one is forced to expend very large amounts of time
and money. Legal cases can cost individuals thousands to hundreds of
thousands of dollars, which means that often, only the rich can afford
justice, and even they must suffer unreasonable burdens to pursue it. As I
shall argue, this constitutes an injustice on the part of the state, both because
the state is largely to blame for exorbitant prices and because the costs
must frequently be incurred to avoid other unjust treatment by the state.
Third, there are objectionable legal practices which create excessive
risks of generating unjust legal outcomes. In the U.S. and other common-­
law countries, criminal defendants in theory have the legal right to have
their cases tried before an impartial jury and their guilt proved beyond a
reasonable doubt before they may be punished. In reality, despite the
amount of attention paid to trials by theorists and popular media, very
few cases ever see a trial. The overwhelming majority are resolved through
plea bargains, which are usually described as cases in which prosecutors
offer to reduce charges or punishments for a defendant in return for the
defendant’s guilty plea.4 An alternate description would be that prosecu-
tors coerce defendants into giving up their right to a trial by threatening
to charge the defendant with more crimes, or more serious crimes, if the
defendant insists on asserting that right.
Fourth, there are unjust punishments. Incarceration is particularly
overused in the U.S., which has by far the highest incarceration rate in

3
Wagner and Sawyer (2020).
4
The Week (2017).
 1 Introduction 7

the world. Multi-year prison sentences are often assigned for nonviolent
offenses. While serving these sentences, prisoners are vulnerable to abuse
by guards and other inmates. Given that such abuse would clearly be
unconscionable as an official punishment, sentences that have such abuse
as a known likely consequence are extremely dubious from the stand-
point of justice.
Fifth, there are unjust legal decisions, most notably false convictions.
False convictions are probably much more common than judges or pros-
ecutors are prepared to admit and are often caused by police and court
practices that are obviously untrustworthy, including high-pressure inter-
rogation techniques used against underage or mentally disabled suspects,
threats issued against suspects to extract confessions, the offering of bribes
to criminals for testimony against suspects, and leading methods of ques-
tioning witnesses.
Finally, there is abuse of power and other misconduct by government
officials. This includes especially cases of police brutality, malicious pros-
ecutions by the state, and illegal actions ordered by political leaders.
Serious official misconduct typically receives at most minor penalties in
comparison with the punishments handed down for similar wrongs com-
mitted by private parties. Often, it receives no punishment at all.
The reader may wonder why some of these injustices, especially those
of the last category, call for philosophical treatment. In any large institu-
tion, some unjust actions can naturally be anticipated as a result of the
general flaws in human nature and the impracticality of excluding all
individuals with impure motives from the institution. If the injustices
occurring in our legal system were merely the inevitable and circum-
scribed result of the moral flaws of a few individuals, then I should indeed
have little to say about them. What interests me here is the justice of the
system. What makes abuse of power a systemic injustice, rather than
merely an individual-level moral vice, is the way in which widespread
attitudes, doctrines, and practices contribute to abuse or culpably fail to
address it. I have in mind, for example, the extreme difficulty of success-
fully suing or prosecuting government officials, the extreme differences in
punishments received by government officials and private individuals,
and the excessive deference shown by courts to government officials.
8 M. Huemer

1.3  he Primacy of Authority

T
and the Primacy of Justice
How should one react to injustice in the legal system? There are at least
two broad views we might take. The first can be labeled the Primacy of
Authority. On this view, the most important value in the legal system is
respect for authority, that is, for the conventionally recognized authori-
ties, including the accepted laws and procedures. In case of a conflict
between our intuitive sense of justice and the existing laws, legal proce-
dures, or decisions of authority figures, we should generally obey the
existing laws, procedures, or authority figures. For a stronger doctrine of
the Primacy of Authority, one might add that we should maintain tradi-
tions and institutions that give wide discretion to authority figures so that
they may do what they see to be best. In cases of uncertainty, we should
give the benefit of the doubt to the state and assume that its actions are
well-motivated and well-considered unless proven otherwise.
The Primacy of Authority dictates that one must follow the law or the
orders of authority figures (provided that these are legally proper), even if
they appear unjust or immoral. And not only should one obey the law
oneself; one should help to enforce the law against others if one is in a
position to do so. Thus, the police should arrest those who violate the law,
juries should convict them, and judges should sentence them in accor-
dance with any applicable sentencing guidelines. None of these people, it
is thought, have any right to allow their own sense of justice or morality
to interfere with their performance of these duties.
I stress that this is not an unusual view in the legal world—it is not
just, for example, the view of far-right judges, or far-left judges. The
Primacy of Authority (though not under that name) is the orthodoxy in
legal circles; it is often taken for granted by mainstream judges and legal
scholars, whether liberal or conservative, and, when stated at all, the view
is advanced as a self-evident axiom, like 1+1=2. Thus, for example, many
legal scholars and most judges would say that the jury in the Zenger trial
(§1.1) obviously decided wrongly. When the judge in that case gave his
instructions to the jury, he did not offer them an argument that they
should defer to the existing legal rules, however unjust they might seem;
he simply presupposed this.
 1 Introduction 9

We should find this striking. The legal system is ostensibly designed to

achieve justice. Is it really obvious that we should set aside what appear to
be the demands of justice in individual cases, in deference to the demands
of authority?
I think this not only is not obvious; it is obviously false. My second
central thesis in this book is that of the Primacy of Justice: the primary,
guiding concern of the legal system, and of all who are involved in it,
should be justice to the individual. Not respect for authority, or the rule of
law, or the state’s broader policy objectives, but what justice demands for
the individuals in the case at hand. Citizens have no obligation to obey
unjust laws or other commands, and those involved with the system
should not assist in the implementation or enforcement of such laws.
When individuals violate unjust laws, it is morally wrong for the police
to arrest them, for prosecutors to charge them, for juries to convict them,
or for judges to sentence them. On the other hand, when individuals
violate just laws, it is morally wrong for anyone, including defense attor-
neys, to attempt to prevent their being justly punished. Nor should any
special deference be given to the state or its officials; they should receive
no special leeway and should be punished in the same way as anyone else
when they wrong others.
What is justice, and how should we decide what it demands? Roughly,
justice, in the present context, requires respecting the rights of individu-
als and giving each what they deserve. In criminal cases, for example,
individuals should be punished if and only if they have committed
wrongs serious enough to deserve punishment, and then they should be
punished proportionately to the seriousness of those wrongs and their
culpability for them. In civil cases, defendants should pay damages pro-
portionate to the harm they have wrongly caused and their culpability for
it. There are many philosophical questions about the specification and
application of these broad norms. Our concern, however, is not to pro-
vide a comprehensive theory of justice. It is enough that some rules and
procedures can be argued to be unjust based upon weak and widely-­
shared ethical judgments, as I hope will emerge in later chapters. This
suffices to raise the question of how one should react to legal injustices.
Those who embrace orthodox legal doctrine might object to being
described as opponents of justice. They might argue that what I consider
10 M. Huemer

as the improper privileging of respect for authority over justice is really

driven by a more subtle, more far-sighted concern for justice. Perhaps it
is necessary to uphold respect for authority in order to prevent a kind of
social chaos which would ultimately create more injustice overall. Or per-
haps authority figures actually have the power to alter the moral status of
actions, to convert a normally unjust action into a just one, simply by
commanding it. Thus, it is perhaps a mistake to portray authority and
justice as two separate, competing values.
I don’t mean to prejudge that sort of defense here. When I describe
conventional legal doctrine as privileging deference to authority over jus-
tice, I am not assuming that there could not ultimately be some justice-­
based argument for deferring to authority figures. What I mean is that
conventional legal doctrine privileges deference to authority figures over
non-authority-based considerations of justice in the individual case. By
“non-authority-based considerations of justice”, I mean justice consider-
ations other than those pertaining to deference to authority—for instance,
the principle that individuals should be punished proportionately to the
wrongs they have committed is a non-authority-based justice norm.
Note also that I speak of justice in the individual case: if, for example,
a defendant has been brought to trial for a crime, justice in the individual
case would be for that individual, on that occasion, to have his rights
respected and to receive the treatment he deserves. There may be justice-­
related effects on other people and other cases (perhaps the treatment of
this individual will affect whether others receive their due or have their
rights respected), but that is another matter. The primary concern of the
courts, in each case, should be to do justice to the parties in that case—or
so I shall maintain.
To clarify, I am no absolutist. I do not say “Let justice be done though
the heavens fall”. If punishing one innocent person would stop the deaths
of a million others, one must punish the innocent person. (What if it was
only a thousand others? Or a hundred? Or ten? I have no formula for
answering that sort of question. Some injustices may be accepted to pre-
vent some much greater harms, but I don’t know exactly which ones, or
how much greater the harms must be.) My claim is that this is not our
situation—nothing like that is realistically at stake in any of the cases I
 1 Introduction 11

am concerned with. In the cases in which orthodox legal doctrine allows

seemingly unjust harming of individuals, doing so does not save a million
others, or a thousand, or even—in most cases—anyone at all from unjust
harm. It is normally a gratuitous harming, accomplishing nothing other
than to satisfy a passing preference of the powerful.
Why should justice take precedence over respect for authority? My
core reasoning is simple: justice is the purpose of the legal system. We
have laws and authority figures so that they may provide justice—so that
they may protect our rights, hold wrongdoers to account, and vindicate
the innocent. It is irrational to value a means to an end over the end itself.
Therefore, it is prima facie irrational to value deference to law or author-
ity figures over justice.
I say here “prima facie”. Perhaps there could be other moral consider-
ations that override the importance of doing justice in the individual
case. We will consider proposals of that kind in due course. But the natu-
ral presumption must surely be that one ought to strive to bring about
justice in the individual case. One should do this unless there is some
powerful reason not to. I take it, therefore, that my task in what follows
is not to argue positively in favor of seeking to do justice in the individual
case, but merely to rebut reasons that could be given against doing so. I
shall contend that, in realistic cases in which the demands of justice seem
to conflict with the dictates of authority figures, there simply are no good
arguments for setting aside one’s sense of justice.

1.4 A Brief Preview

In the next chapter, I lay the philosophical foundations for my concep-
tion of justice. I explain the notion of moral rights, why one should
believe in such things, and why one should take at least some truths
about rights and justice to exist independent of the law. This discussion
will unavoidably be abstract and theoretical.
Readers who are mainly interested in the defects in the American legal
system may wish to proceed directly to chapter 3. It is in chapters 3, 4, 5,
6, and 7 (part II of the book) that I describe those flaws at length. Then,
12 M. Huemer

in chapters 8, 9, 10, and 11, I explain and defend the Primacy of Justice.
Chapter 12 summarizes the book, adds some speculations concerning
why American jurisprudence has often gone wrong, and ends with
remarks in appreciation for some of the things that the justice system has
fortunately gotten right.

References
Friedman, David, Peter Leeson, and David Skarbek. 2019. Legal Systems Very
Different from Ours. Independently published.
Linder, Douglas. 2001. The Trial of John Peter Zenger: An Account. http://
law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/zenger/zengeraccount.html. Accessed
5 Apr 2012.
The Week. 2017. Plea Bargaining: A Threat to Basic Human Rights? The Week,
September 21. https://www.theweek.co.uk/88453/plea-­bargaining-­a-­threat-­
to-­basic-­human-­rights. Accessed 24 June 2020.
Wagner, Peter, and Wendy Sawyer. 2020, March 24. Mass Incarceration: The
Whole Pie 2020. Prison Policy Initiative. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/
reports/pie2020.html. Accessed 24 June 2020.
Zenger, John Peter. 1736. A Brief Narrative of the Case and Trial of John Peter
Zenger. Available at http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/zenger/
zengerrecord.html. Accessed 5 Apr 2012.
 2
Law and Morality

2.1 The Autonomy of Ethics

In this chapter, I discuss foundational philosophical questions about the
nature of justice, our knowledge thereof, and the relationship between
law and morality.
To begin with, since I aim to indict the legal system for insufficient
commitment to justice, it is essential to my project that it be possible in
general to identify moral facts, especially facts of justice, independent of
legal rules. We must be able to know that a person is morally entitled to
x, is obligated to do y, or has a right to z, independent of the existing rules
of the legal system. I refer to this assumption as the Autonomy of Ethics.
(Herein, I use “ethics” and “morality” interchangeably.) Of course this
does not rule out that legal facts may influence the moral facts or vice
versa in certain cases.
There are two philosophical views that may pose challenges to the
Autonomy of Ethics:1

1
I assume herein that there are moral facts and that it is possible to know them. For defense of these
assumptions, see Huemer (2005, 2013, 2016).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 13

M. Huemer, Justice before the Law, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67543-1_2
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"Principal boy!" Melicent thought of the Vicarage at Fransdale. But her

attention was diverted by the gentlemen rising to go. Evidently Theo meant
to stay, and her presence prevented either of them from carrying out the
design with which they had come.

Lance's manner, as he spoke of their early meeting again, was so

significant, so obviously fraught with admiration, that the girl could not
mistake it. As she stood by him, near the door, while he took his leave, an
idea darted into the back of her mind.

Bert would be powerless to pursue her if she were married to someone

else.

It was very different from the career she had planned. She wanted to
build up a future, not to resign herself to a level, monotonous domesticity.
But under the pressure of her present scare, the bare notion of any way of
escape was welcome.

Carol departed with a distinct sense of disappointment. He hardly knew

what he had hoped. But the impression he took away with him was that Bert
had wholly failed to please or interest Millie. Not for a moment did he
guess that the secret was out. Under such circumstances, with the state of
feeling which she had so lately confessed to him, he would not have
thought her self-possession possible.

Slowly Melicent walked back to her seat by the fire, where Theo had
lighted another cigarette. On her homeward journey she had had time to
decide upon her plan of action. She was not going to say a word of her
discovery to anybody.

Her first impulse had been vehemently to reproach Carol Mayne for
treachery; but reflection had showed that she could not do this without Bert
being made aware that she knew him. To tell the Helstons would be to
subject herself to the continual fret of knowing herself observed. They
might even urge her to tell Bert that she knew; or counsel her to give up this
building scheme, to which her ambition turned with fierce longing. She felt
sure, in spite of her diffident words, that she could design and build at Lone
Ash a house which should make her reputation. To do this in peace, she
must keep her own counsel. After all, this was nobody's affair but her own.
If Bert had come for her, as seemed fatally obvious, it all rested with him
and with her. Single-handed he had engaged on the contest, and single-
handed she would fight him. There seemed something a little cowardly in
calling in the Helstons to her rescue. She did not mean to marry him. Well!
He would soon find that out. There were plenty of girls in England for a
man of property to woo successfully—Theo, for instance.

She leaned forward.

"Theo!" she said abruptly, "you've got to mind what you're about. There
was a girl at school with me who went on the stage, and she did what you
are doing—signed an agreement as principal boy—and she found she had
done for herself. Ever after, she had only boys' parts offered her. 'Oh,' said
they, 'you can't object, you have done it before.' She left the stage in
consequence. Of course, for all I know, you may prefer being boy, but I
thought I would just warn you what to expect."

"Awfully good of you," said Theo. She smoked in silence for a minute,
then broke out: "Anyway, I'm not going another tour with Tarver's
Company. After that Minnie Leslie's husband turning up, as I told you, at
Crewe, when she was in rooms with—"

"'Tsha!'" It was a little soft sound of disgust that Millie was prone to
make. "Look here, Theo, if you really are going on with this kind of life,
your only way to keep clean is to turn your back on all that kind of thing.
Don't be mixed up in it—don't talk about it."

"It's the agent that counts," said Theo evasively. "Bates is a right good
sort, and he isn't going to see me let in, you bet I was pretty careful what
agent I went to. I know the ropes, though you think me a country bumpkin.
I can't help knowing that Batey's going to give me every lift he can."

"Why?" asked Milicent bluntly.

"Because he thinks there's money in me."

This was unanswerable.

 CHAPTER XXV

THE WAY OUT

"Can it be right to give what I can give?"
—SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE.

The mild spring weather made strolling in the garden pleasant, even in
the keen air of Fransdale. Carol Mayne strolled accordingly, in company
with Mr. Hall of Ilberston, and forgot manifold preoccupations in the
pleasure of his company.

The last fortnight had been a curious and trying period in his life. He
had become a mere bystander, where he had previously been a confidant.
He was in the position of the trainer who has coached his man and sent him
into the ring, and now has no more that he can do but to watch the conflict.
Bert had stepped down into the arena, and had ever since ignored Carol to
the point of rudeness. He had refused interviews, shirked even looks; had
borne in total silence the daily rebuffs inflicted by Melicent—the continual
pin-pricks of indifference under which he smarted.

Carol would have liked to hold the sponge between these preliminary
rounds, but this was denied him. Perhaps, when some knock-out blow was
dealt, his champion would have need of him. Just now, he was nowhere in
the scheme of things.

But so deeply had he grown attached to this man that there was an
unexpected degree of suffering entailed by the sight of his pain. Day by day
his eye detected more and more of the old Bert surging up baffled, dogged,
passionate, under the fine bearing of Captain Brooke. He remembered so
well how things had gone in the old days—how long the big man would
endure, and then suddenly, the oath that showed him goaded past bearing,
the brief rage, the wild repentance. Twice he had seen Melicent—as he
believed, unconsciously—bring things to this point, and Bert only save
himself by immediate departure. But not a word of complaint, or of any
kind of feeling, was to be got out of him afterwards. The thing seemed too
deep, too momentous for comment to be possible. A kind of terror grew in
Mayne as the days went by. What would happen if Bert were ultimately
foiled? He could not foresee it, even dimly. He looked at the slip of a girl
who swayed the man's wild blood, and tried to choke back his secret fear
that tragedy might be the outcome of it all.

For Bert had encountered a rival on the very threshold of his enterprise;
and the rival was the man whose life he had saved, at risk of his own,
because he knew that through him he could get the introduction to Millie
which he craved.

That Lance should admire Melicent was in itself no bad thing. It was no
doubt well that Bert should not find himself alone in the field. But as the
days went by, it was clear to Carol, who thought of nothing else, and
watched all that went on, that Millie was, by her own conduct, whether of
set purpose or no, leading Lance on to be serious, where at first he had
merely been making holiday.

For Lance she broke through the crystal armour of "stand-offishness"

which she usually wore. She talked to him; as a rule, she listened only to
men, saying little. But she gave to Lance looks, smiles, and low tones.

To Bert her manner was quite friendly, even cordial, as from an

unknown artist to her first patron. But of good fellowship there was not a
trace. So clever was she that in all this fortnight Carol had not been able to
determine whether it was by accident or design that she had never for one
minute been tête-à-tête with Captain Brooke. Had he known the girl as
thoroughly as he knew the man, the underlying strain must have been
visible to him as it was to two who loved and understood her—Brenda
Helston and Mr. Hall. Brenda thought she knew its cause—that it was the
result of the sudden fulfilling of the girl's hopes, the terror lest her first great
effort should end in failure, and her professional prospects be injured by her
having undertaken what was beyond her powers.
 This was in a measure true. But not the whole truth. Melicent's real
preoccupation lay deeper; it was more complicated. How could she build
Bert's house, and keep clear of Bert himself?

If she meant to have nothing to do with him, as she vehemently did, was
it honest, was it wise, was it even sensible, to go on with the building?

But pride was at present a far stronger factor with Millie than self-
sacrifice. At the first suggestion that she should design a really big thing,
her ambitions had flown skyward. In spite of her secret knowledge, she
knew that she meant to go on.

"That's a fine fellow, that friend of yours, Captain Brooke," said Mr.
Hall musingly to Carol, as they paused to look at the first game of tennis
that season, now in progress on the Helston's court at Glen Royd.

"Yes; he's an unusual person," said Mayne. "He says odd things at
times. Last night, up at Ilbersdale, we got talking in the smoking-room
about the different things men mean when they speak of love. Most of the
things said had the materialistic tendency which I find to be characteristic
of English thought to-day. Then suddenly Brooke, who seldom argues,
came out with his opinion. He said that the difference between passion and
love was comparable to the difference between fact and truth. They asked
him to define the difference between fact and truth, and he answered
without a moment's hesitation that he thought that was obvious; fact is
temporal and truth eternal. How does that strike you?"

"Then he suggested that passion is temporal, and love eternal, just in the
same way?"

"Yes; I have been thinking it out, and there's a deal of truth in it. One of
the men asked him how you were to distinguish between the temporal thing
and the eternal, and he quite simply answered that you could only tell in the
result. They then said much what was said to Christ on the subject—that it
is not good to marry. He replied that we were in the same case with all big
things. We have to take chances in life. Nobody can say how anything will
turn out until they try. He said, in love, as in religion, as in art, as in all big
business undertakings, you don't have to hold an opinion merely, but to live
a life. They chaffed him tremendously about being a devout lover, but it had
simply no effect at all upon him."

"He must certainly be unusual! I should like to know more of him. He

might be strong enough to tame my wild bird."

"Your wild bird?"

"I mean your ward, Miss Lutwyche. She needs a deal of taming. She is
full of fine qualities, but has no chance to exercise them, all things being
well with her. She is spoilt, as the only child proverbially is. However, as
your friend says, we must leave it to life to teach her various things that she
will have to learn."

As he spoke, Carol's eye was following Melicent, who had finished

playing, and was arranging another sett. She had not once played in the
same sett as Brooke. Now she put him to play with Theo, against Sybil
Ayres and a curate. She was sorry for Theo, who had, after all, not
succeeded in obtaining Gertie Gordon's "crib," and was still "resting"
according to the language of her profession—a euphemism which ought to
have delighted Mr. Cooper.

Lancelot had been Melicent's partner, and was at her heels.

"You promised to show me the latest treasure-trove," he said, "and I've

been waiting all the afternoon."

"We found it at Citta della Piève," she said, "and I really do believe it is
valuable. Pater is wonderful, he has such an eye for the real thing."

She led the way to a little garden-house which was Harry Helston's
workshop, and lifted a cloth carefully from an object which lay on the table.

It was the oaken figure of a winged child, with dimpled hands and feet,
and exquisite face. It had evidently been wrenched from a frieze or mantel-
carving of leaves and flowers. Great part of the surface was still coated in
grey mould, but the face and throat had been skilfully cleansed.
 "He is treating it with glass paper, and it's slow work," said Melicent,
touching the angel with soft, appreciative fingers. "It was broken in two
places, but he has mended it perfectly. When it is polished, it is going to be
the finial of the baluster in the hall."

"Jove, he is clever!" said Lance. "What a house this is! One feels that a
mind created it! Brooke's a lucky chap if he's going to have such another."

Melicent laughed:

"We shan't exploit Tuscany for him, unless we get a special commission
to do so," she said. "But he is so rich, he can have what he chooses."

"How go the plans?"

"He seems to like them very much. But I have made two alternative
elevations, and he has not yet decided between them. Pater has helped me
tremendously, of course. But I'm afraid I'm neglecting your father's
cottages."

"He is very pleased with the drawings, I can tell you. Who would have
thought you were such a genius? But do you know, I feel very proud of
myself. I said so from the first."

"Said what?"

"That you were something wonderful. Do you remember"—his voice

grew soft—"how you sat up on the Rigg, on Tod's Trush, and we came by,
and you shot a grouse with my gun?"

"Yes; I remember."

"I said afterwards, to Helston, that there was something wonderful about
you, I felt a power in you..."

He broke off mute, like most of his countrymen, in face of an emotion.

Putting his hands in his pockets, he strolled round the little room, idly
taking up bits of carved wood and stone, tools and drawings, and laying
them down again. Melicent neither moved nor spoke. She stood silent
beside the oaken angel.

"It's wonderful," he suddenly began again—"don't you think it's

wonderful, how sometimes one's identity seems to come up against
someone else's, and a response sounds, as if we were two Marconi
instruments, and were in tune with each other. Have you noticed that?"

"I know what you mean."

He came nearer and stood beside her.

"The thing goes on a long time, before you're conscious of it; at least, it
did with me. When I got to London, I didn't realise why I wanted to go
straight and call upon the Helstons, until—until I saw you come into the
room. Then I knew that all the while I was in Africa, I had been thinking
about you.... Are you angry?" for she had turned away a little.

"No, I'm not angry. But ... you know very little of me. I ... never thought
about you like that."

"No, I daresay not. But as to knowing—when two people are tuned

together, intimacy comes, one hardly knows how. This Easter has been the
jolliest time I have ever known. I feel like the chap in Locksley Hall, who
thought the grass was greener than usual, and the birds brighter coloured....
This spring is like that to me, because of you—because of you! ...
Melicent!"

The girl looked up. She was of those whom excitement renders pale.
Her cheek was white, but as if a fire shone through the whiteness. Here was
the way definitely open to her, out of the intolerable strain of the past ten
day. But she was honest.

"I'm going to disappoint you," she said slowly. "I must. I don't feel like
that. I don't believe I ever should. My enthusiasm seems to be for things,
not people. I am ambitious and selfish. I suppose, to be ambitious is always
to be selfish."
 His voice was uneven and broken now, as if it fell over rough edges.

"You can only disappoint me by saying that you care for ... some other
fellow ... more than for me."

"I like you better than anybody else," said Melicent simply, raising her
eyes to his agitated face.

She was quite unprepared for the result.

Her hands, her waist, were caught, she was in his arms; before she was
fairly conscious of what he was about, he had kissed the ineffable, smooth
rose whiteness of her cheek.

"I'm content," he whispered. "You like me better than anybody else! Oh,
you darling! What is it? Have I frightened you? There, I will be good, I
swear I will! I'm not a brute ... only I lost my head! I never thought you
would, or could, but now—"

She edged away, sick and trembling. To her virginal aloofness, the fact
of his embrace clinched the matter. He had stolen a march on her. Unless he
were her betrothed, how could she face him again? He would become a
second incubus, like Bert Mestaer. Yet still her honesty fought for liberty.

"You did not let me speak," she cried. "I mean to say—I like you better
than anybody else, but that is not enough!"

"But it is enough," he cried triumphantly. "You say yourself that you are
cold—I don't care a shot for that, I want you as you are. And if you like me
best, what more is there? I'm not as clever as you, but I can give you money
and a title, and I did well in the campaign.... By the way, I shall be more
deeply indebted than ever to old Brooke! If it hadn't been for him—!"

The mention of the name was opportune. It stiffened up the girl's

resolution.

"Oh, yes; he saved your life! Tell me about it!" she said, with an idea of
gaining time to collect her thoughts, which seemed to be circling in a kind
of whirlpool, nearer and nearer to complete surrender.

"Would you like to hear?" he cried; and fell to musing for a moment.
"We were crossing the Vaal, you know," he said. "It's celebrated for its rapid
risings. The ford was quite easy when the first chaps went over, and in half
an hour it was impassable. There was a commando not far behind us, and
we knew, if we could get across, they couldn't follow, so we made a push
for it I, as you know, was correspondent, not combatant; and it so happened
that I had been with another column that morning, and had ridden hard to
pick up with Lacy's. My horse was completely done. I was hardly knee-
deep when I knew she would be washed away. Swimming against that
current wasn't possible; I just grit my teeth and prepared to drown. But by
instinct I worked my feet out of the stirrups, and we worried on, until the
poor beast's foot rolled on a big stone and she slipped away, with an awful,
human-sounding scream. There was a big trooper riding just above me. His
eyes had been on my face, and he had ridden all the way, so as to try and
break the force of the water for my mare. His horse was magnificent; and,
just as I was going under, I found his arm round my body—Jove, what a
grip! I wonder he didn't crack a rib or two.

"'Strike out with the other hand' he said in my ear; 'strike out for all
you're worth, and I can hold you up.' And he did! My head was mostly
under water, but I gave all the support I could, and his horse got through
with us both! It seemed to me as if it went on for days, the fighting with the
current, the struggle for breath; till all at once the water gave way under me,
as it were, and my legs flopped down, and he literally hauled me out,
holding me with his right arm, and I just clutching on as I best could. I
faintly heard the cheering as we came ashore, and half a dozen chaps rushed
to catch me, and then I fainted. They gave him his commission chiefly for
that, I believe, and jolly well he earned it. And that was the beginning of
our being chums."

She drew a deep breath. The long arm of coincidence had not been kind
to Bert Mestaer. But how could she help that?

For ten days now, she had not known a moment's peace. Her usual
profound, dreamless sleep had changed to white, wakeful nights of vague,
dreadful apprehension of she knew not what. This would put a stop to her
nameless fears. But it had come too suddenly. She was not ready.

Lance, however, would have no half measures. He had not, it is true,

come there that day with the deliberate intention of clinching matters; but a
fine opportunity had presented itself, and he had risen to the occasion with a
success which bewildered and delighted him. Melicent's suggestion that he
should give her time to think things over was impetuously scouted. Life was
not long enough for hesitation, he told her, and his intense confidence did to
a certain degree infect her. They would be married in the summer, and go to
Greece, Sicily—India, if she liked, to see the architectural treasures of the
world. Melicent told herself that it would be very nice indeed. He was
already embarked upon an idea for their own house, if she chose to build
one, when voices were heard, and steps on the gravel, and Captain Brooke
and Theo peeped in.

"Oh, here they are, looking at some wonderful relic of the past!" cried
Theo. "What a ridiculous, mouldering thing!" gazing with a laugh at the
oaken angel.

Melicent took up the cloth, without a word, to cover her treasure from
further insult. Captain Brooke arrested her hand.

"Won't you let me look?"

She laid down the cover and moved aside. The atmosphere thrilled with
a sense of something unusual. Brooke had no suspicion of the truth. He
knew Lance, but he thought he also knew Melicent. The idea of her taking a
husband as a weapon of defence against himself had not as yet occurred to
him. He looked quickly, searchingly, into her eyes, to ascertain what the
matter was.

The result was curious. She met his gaze; and there rose up and revealed
itself to him, the feeling always uppermost in her when he was present, fear.
She did not know that she betrayed it: defiance of his unspoken question
was what she meant to convey. But he saw fear; and the result was a flood
of light which fairly dazzled him. He knew that he was recognised, and his
heart rose within him. If she feared him, it was because she felt him
dangerous. For the first time since he came to England, he saw a chance, a
loop-hole for hope to enter by.

He let his eyes rest upon the angel lest their radiance should betray him.
In the thrill of consciousness which his new knowledge—the knowledge of
their mutual secret—gave him, he could hardly keep from smiling.

"Is this the treasure you found in Italy?" he asked somewhat hoarsely.

"Yes; do you like it?"

"I think it beautiful! I am learning to know beauty when I see it, you
know."

"Learning to know beauty when you see it, Captain Brooke! Didn't
know gentlemen had to be taught that, as a rule!" cried Theo, laughing
affectedly.

"You make a great mistake, Miss Cooper," said Lance. "Beauty requires
a trained eye. Which do you suppose a ploughman would rather hang on his
cottage wall—a Rembrandt etching, or a chromo-lithograph of the Royal
family on an almanack?"

"Oh, aren't you confusing beauty and art?" said Melicent, finding her
voice again.

Theo, who had never heard of a Rembrandt etching, looked blank.

"Mrs. Helston sent us to fetch you in to tea," she said. "Come, Mr.
Burmester, we had better let Melicent continue her treatise on beauty."

"She's well qualified to teach, by precept and example," said Lance,

with tender gallantry, standing aside to let his betrothed and Captain Brooke
pass out.

"Yes," said Theo, when she had procured a minute's delay by stooping
down to disentangle slowly a wisp of her flouncing from a splinter of wood
on the table-leg. "It's wonderful how well she's turned out, isn't it? Does her
such credit, poor thing, and the Helstons too. Mother was obliged to send
her away, you know; fortunately Mrs. Helston had no girls. She seems to be
quite all right now, doesn't she? You would never guess what she came
from."

Lance was so astonished that for a moment he could not speak. At last
he said:

"I don't understand. Are you talking of your cousin, Miss Lutwyche? I
thought her mother was the vicar's sister?"

"So she was; but you see, poor Aunt Melicent married a brute. It was a
runaway match, of course. I can't tell you what he did—drank himself to
death, or something of the kind. I believe my aunt died of a broken heart It's
a wretched story. But oh, I forgot! Papa does not like us to speak of it, on
poor Millie's account. He thinks it would be so bad for her if such a thing
got about, so you must try and forget what I have said! I am so heedless!"

She laughed boisterously. Lance was furious. He had always disliked

the Cooper girls, this turned his dislike to positive rancour. He felt sure that
almost the whole of what he heard was mere ill-natured calumny. Still,
there is no smoke without fire, and his self-esteem received a jolt. He was
the eldest son of a baronet, and though the Burmester blood was not blue, it
was very respectable. What would his parents say to a bride whose
antecedents were shady?

His discomposure was momentary. His eye fell upon the proud, careless
grace of Melicent as she walked along the path before him. She was giving
Captain Brooke a fluent account of the finding of the oaken angel, which
left him no chance to put in a word until they reached the others.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE END OF THE FIRST ROUND

 "Go, if you will! Let continents divide us,
And put the seas between, and sink the ships!
What space shall sunder us, what darkness hide us,
What force shall keep apart our meeting lips?"

One of Captain Brooke's first purchases when he came to England was a

motor; and it had since been Carol Mayne's fate to be driven hither and
thither by a driver whose want of skill at first was only equalled by his
recklessness. Now he had mastered the art, as he mastered most of the
things he cared to try; and it fell out that he drove Mayne and Burmester
home from the Glen Royd tennis-party, the early spring air being chilly, and
the ladies of the party all preferring Sir Joseph's motor, which was closed.

He took his seat at the wheel, with Mayne beside him and Lance behind,
in the tonneau. They had not gone far before Lance brought out his secret.
His people had not been told yet, he said, but these two were his very good
friends, and he must make known to them the great news that he had
proposed to Miss Lutwyche that afternoon and been accepted by her.

To Mayne the thing was like a bomb exploding in a non-combatant

country. It was utterly unlooked for. He had seen that something was afoot,
of course—had had vague fears that by the end of the summer perhaps...

And now it was suddenly all over. His champion had been knocked out
in the first round. To such a man as Carol the announcement had all the
effect of a hopeless finality. Melicent was betrothed; then Bert's chance was
over. He almost expected to see him reel visibly under the blow. Of course
the ordinary man is not openly affected by such things. We most of us in
our time have to listen politely while somebody cheerfully calls upon us for
congratulation upon the circumstance that is defeating our hopes. But to
Bert this news meant the loss of all things. His money, his lands, his
education, all he had and was, existed for Melicent....

The Bishop elect felt himself turning cold. Visions of possible tragedy
had brushed his eyes with their dark wing that afternoon, and behold,
already the darkness was upon them. Once before, after Bert's long
patience, at the moment of fruition, Carol had stepped in and asked him to
forego. He remembered the effect of brute strength in leash, the impact,
almost physical, of this man's will against his own. And then he had been
able to hold out hope, to say: "Wait, and try again when you have proved
yourself."

But this time it was final!

What would Bert do? Would his civilisation, his Christianity, even his
manhood, be proof against this stroke of Fate?

It had been better far for him to present himself avowedly to the girl, to
say: "Behold the result of my long effort to be more worthy of you. Will
you try to learn to love me?"

Mayne had counselled this all along; but Bert had, as usual, taken his
own way.

Mayne's eyes were fixed apprehensively upon the firm hands grasping
the wheel. He almost expected some explosion, some display of violent
resentment, of ungoverned temper, that should shoot them all down into the
ravine on their left, where the limekiln smoked blue against the dark moor
beyond.

There was not even a change of colour. Bert continued to look out
keenly along the road, as his manner was when driving.

"Asked Miss Lutwyche to marry you?" he said, in a preoccupied voice.

"What on earth d'you do that for?"

Lance was silent for a moment, in something closely approaching

stupefaction. Carol stared at Bert, in whose temples he saw a pulse visibly
throbbing; no other sign of discomposure.

"Surely you've seen, Brooke, that I was hard hit in that direction?" said
Lance presently, in a hurt tone.
 "Saw you admired her, of course; but so do I," said Bert shortly. "Had
no idea you had made up your mind."

"You must forgive our lack of warmth, Burmester," said Mayne. "It
seems to me very sudden. But you know they say, 'Happy's the wooing
that's not long a-doing.'"

"You don't know enough of each other," said Bert, still in that
preoccupied tone, as though his mind was concentrated on the road before
him.

"Well," said Lance, "but what were you saying last night in the
smoking-room? One has got to take one's chances. It is true, and it was that
that gave me courage to speak to-day."

Mayne saw the blood slowly overspread Bert's face. Lance, behind,
could not see the sardonic grin which accompanied the manifestation.

"Well, it seems I've made myself responsible for a big order," remarked
the chauffeur.

"Don't you think she's charming?" said Lance anxiously. "Charming in

such a very unusual way? You know, lots of girls are pretty, but you feel
you'd so soon get tired of 'em—run through 'em, so to speak, if Mayne will
pardon the expression. But with her—" his voice broke and softened.

Bert put on power, then jammed down the brake, as an opportune cart
came galloping downhill towards them; opportune, because it enabled him
to say "Damn!" with expression, to violently control the rocking car, and to
be occupied with it busily. When he spoke again, which was not for several
minutes, during which Mayne vainly searched his own mind for a suitable
remark, it was to say:

"What are you going to do about St. Petersburg?"

"Oh!" said Lance, unpleasantly reminded.

 It was only a fortnight since he had been rejoicing in the offer, made to
him by his newspaper, of going to Russia under very favourable conditions.

"Well," he said, after a pause, "that will have to be referred to—" Bert
made his whistle hoot so noisily that the final word was lost.

When they drew up at the door of the Grange, Bert said to Mayne, upon
whom he had not bestowed glance nor sign:

"Mayne, like a good chap, see if there's any post for me before I send
this machine away."

Mayne went in, and sent out the servant with a bundle of
correspondence, of that unclassified kind which the rich man and the buyer
is always burdened withal. Brooke sat in the car, opening envelope after
envelope; and after a minute, Mayne came slowly down the steps again and
stood near, his eyes soft with sympathy, but no words on his tongue.

"Ha!" said the Captain at last, as though to himself. "Yes; that's what I
expected. Well, I think I shall be off at once, and take my machine to
Wiltshire by road."

After a moment's surprise: "A good idea," said Mayne heartily.

Bert looked at him as if he had never seen him before.

"Oh," he said, "you think so, do you?" Then turning to Sir Joseph's
chauffeur, who waited: "Tell my man to be ready in an hour to take me to
London," he said laconically, getting out of the car as he spoke. "I must go
and apologise to Lady B." he remarked, with a grin, as he passed Mayne.
"See you later, old man. These are my builders' estimates, and I must get on
with that house of mine."

"But"—Mayne was so mystified that he followed him through the hall

—"but if your architect is—what I mean to suggest is, that she may not be
able to carry out—"
 Brooke turned and faced him with clear grey eyes that had the effect of
a locked door.

"She's signed her contract," he said, "and if she don't keep to it, I'll go to
law and make her. But this is business: women aren't so unbusiness-like as
you seem to suppose. Forman, where's her ladyship?"

* * * * * * * *

There is little doubt that her son's engagement would have been wholly
unpleasing to Lady Burmester had it not been for one fact which, curiously
enough, made her look more favourably upon it. This was nothing else than
the total lack of enthusiasm with which the Helstons regarded the new idea.

The thing was sudden; on Melicent's side they had noticed no

symptoms. They thought it rash and ill-considered. No doubt many young
people made up a match upon equally slender acquaintance; in fact, one
way and another, before Lance went abroad, he and Melicent had seen a
good deal of one another. Undoubtedly, from the worldly point of view, it
was an excellent match for their girl. The thing that distressed them was
that they felt sure her heart was not in it.

"But in that case—why?" they asked each other blankly.

They thought they knew her too well to imagine that the social
advantages weighed enough in her eyes to turn the scale. They were simply
mystified, without a clue.

"Are you sure you are wise, my child?" said Brenda earnestly, when
first discussing it with her adopted daughter. "You know we have always
spoken out frankly to each other. Don't let us forego that habit. Tell me
plainly. You care for Lance deeply? He's a charming fellow, I know, but
weak. Have you realised that he is weak, Melicent?"

"I don't like strong men," said the girl, with a perceptible shudder.
"There's something brutal about all strength, even moral strength. I fear it."
 This speech deepened the darkness in which Brenda groped. She could
not fathom it.

"Of course I understand his feeling for you," she said slowly. "You are
just the woman for him, and he has penetration to see it—"

"But you won't give me the credit for like penetration? Why shouldn't I
see it too? Isn't that kind of thing generally mutual?"

"Well, if you tell me it is so ... but it seems to me so rapid."

"It was unexpected to me," said Melicent thoughtfully. "I did ask him to
give me time to think. But he seemed so sure. You know, mater, I don't
think I should ever smile and cry and bill and coo. I'm not that kind. But I
know I like Lance better than anybody else. If I find that we don't get on, I
could break it off, you know."

"Lady Burmester would never forgive that."

"Oh, bother Lady Burmester!"

"There! That's the mood I distrust!" cried Brenda. "Melicent, you're

behaving like a child! You will have to consider your husband's relations,
and especially his mother! This is real life, remember. You are not going
away to live in an enchanted castle."

"Well, it seems to me that you want me to act as if I were, and doubt me

because I speak sensibly!" cried Melicent, hurt.

Brenda began to see that she had made up her mind. For the first time—
the very first time since she took this orphan to her heart—she was
conscious of feeling jarred. She ceased to argue, but went instead to her
own room and wept.

This was early in the day. Lancelot and his parents came to lunch.

Mr. Helston was quite outspoken. He said his position briefly was that
he was a man of moderate fortune, with two brothers, both with large and
needy families. He could not feel justified in leaving much to his adopted