Ellerson's ermine muff now sprawled like a huge white cat. 

Jimmy's father--a white-haired, white-mustached old gentleman, gold-eye-glassed, black-coated, a little bald of forehead but still ruddy of cheek--sat in his favorite attitude, one fine hand on the chair-arm, the other grasping an ivory paper-knife, at the leather-topped desk by the big bright window. By his side drooped his client. 

"Well?" queried Sir Peter Wilberforce. 

Jimmy turned to Lady Hermione. "I am afraid I can't get hold of Brunton for you. But Cavendish can see us if we go over at once." 

"Oh, that is kind of Mr. Cavendish!" purred Lady Hermione.

"Lady Hermione Ellerson, Sir Peter Wilberforce, Mr. James Wilberforce," announced Benjamin Bunce. 

Ronald, rising to receive his client, was met with an outstretched hand and a torrent of words. 

"Oh, Mr. Cavendish, you will help us, won't you? It's like this, you see. Last night while I was playing bridge at the club, Mr. Vereker--he's a barrister, you know--told me that I ought to settle. Of course, as Sir Peter says, he _is_ in a kind of way a friend of my husband's----" 

The tall willowy creature--she had dark hair, dark eyes, long nervous hands, and a long pearl necklace which bobbed nervously on her flat young bosom--rattled away till Wilberforce senior stopped her. Then she drooped to the offered chair, and sat interjecting staccato comments while the three men did their best to reassure her. 

"And still I think I'd rather settle," she ejaculated, after half an hour's conference. 

"My dear Lady Ellerson"--old Peter Wilberforce employed his softest purr--"of course I'll settle if you want me to. But I _do_ ask you to consider the effect on your reputation. And besides, we have an excellent case. A really excellent case. Your husband's own admission, in the interrogatories, that he had discussed the question of divorcing you with other people besides his father. The fact that he never _did_ institute proceedings for a divorce, that he never had the slightest grounds for instituting such proceedings----" 

"Still, Mr. Vereker said----" 

"Can't we forget Mr. Vereker? Mr. Cavendish has assured you that legally----" 

"Oh, 

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