It was now full summer, and when it is hot in Mariona it is very hot indeed. The old locusts in the court back of the law offices of Knight, Kittredge and Carr were green again and venturesome robins paused there now and then to challenge Opinion and Precedent. There was not much for unattached young men to do when their day’s work was done. The roof garden of the Hamilton Club offered itself to those who cared for that sort of thing, or were zealous in the eternal politics of the place, from which, save for the roof garden, there was no escape. Or, a man with an evening on his hands might sit on the lawn about the Tippecanoe Club, or, better still, with a crony or two, on the balcony that opened from the second story, where trees shut you in with the stars, and the music, not of spheres, but of the mechanical piano in the flat next door. It was possible to obtain there a mint julep compounded under the direction of an alumnus of the University of Virginia,—a julep that was happily calculated to lift the smothered, withered spirit beyond the stars to undiscovered ports of Heaven. You were at perfect liberty to whisper at the Tippecanoe, as you might not at the Hamilton, the name of Jefferson; or you might quote Robert Browning or Richard Cobden without subjecting yourself to fine or imprisonment.
There was the Country Club, another refuge, where college boys sang in dark corners of the veranda, after a hard day of golf or tennis; or danced the two-step with sun-browned summer girls. But the Country Club did not appeal to Morris just now. Zelda did not frequent the club, and the pretty, gray-eyed golf-champion with whom in other summers he had played many a round, bowed a little superciliously now when she passed him in her electric runabout. She did not salute him with a jangle of the gong as had been her pleasant habit in the genial days of their comradeship. Nor did the bands in the glittering beer-gardens tempt him; for there is something not wholly edifying in the passing spectacle of every one and every one’s cook.
Morris Leighton, lingering long after office hours in the dingy old library, found the robin’s mournful vesper note solacing. None of the possible midsummer night diversions appealed to him; he would not even go up to the Tippecanoe Club for dinner lest some one should break in upon what he felt to be his mood. He was reveling in that state of mind in which the young rather enjoy being melancholy. Zelda Dameron snubbed him persistently—consistently; and Morris was just now persuading himself that there was nothing left for him but to lose himself in his work. This is always an interesting stage, at which a young man’s fancy, interrupted in its flights elsewhere, lightly turns to thoughts of labor; and Morris was picturing to himself a long and successful, though austere, life, in which one face and one voice should haunt him. He was engaged in this sort of agreeable speculation when Mr. Carr, who had been attending a conference of railroad officials at one of the hotels, came in unexpectedly, and found his chief clerk engaged in the profitable pastime of reading decisions of the highest courts in the land without the slightest notion of what they were about.
“That you, Morris? I thought every one had gone. I want that English decision you had yesterday in the Transcontinental case.”
“It’s here on the table,” said Morris.
He lighted the gas in the brackets on the wall—they were old and had lost their pristine shine—and when the jets were lighted they spurted out queer shapes of flame, in the absurd manner of decrepit gas-fixtures.
“Thanks, Morris, I’ll take the book home with me. I’m not sure but that we should lay particular stress on that case.”
“It’s certainly a strong one.”
Carr pushed his panama hat back from his forehead and sat down and read the page that Morris indicated.
“That’s it! Those old chaps over there still know some law, don’t they?”
He closed the book and drew his hand across the back of it in a way that was habitual. He liked a book,—you knew it from the way he picked one up and handled it. Students in the offices of Knight, Kittredge and Carr who threw books about or left them open, face down, were not likely to stay long.
“Judge Armstrong of the Appellate Court said a pleasant word to me about your argument in the Mayberry case yesterday.”
“That’s cheering. I hope he’ll decide our way.”
“There’s no use in worrying about that. He said yours was one of the best oral arguments he had ever heard. He asked you some questions, didn’t he?”
Carr looked at Morris with the twinkle in his brown eyes that was his only outward manifestation of mirth.
“He did, indeed. He stopped me when I reached my most telling point, and asked me whether our supreme court hadn’t reversed itself in a decision I was citing. I knew it hadn’t and answered him pretty promptly,—perhaps I was too cocky about it.”
“Not a bit of it! He would like that. He was feeling you to see how much confidence you had in your case. He belongs to the old school of lawyers, who believe in making every case you take the passion of your life. You evidently made a good impression. It pleased me very much to have him speak to me about you.”
“Thank you.”
It was not often that Michael Carr’s praise was as direct as this.
“You will have been here four years the first of July.”
“Yes,—thanks to your tolerance.”
“You are the best clerk we ever had in the office, Morris. You are a good lawyer,—you are a lawyer after my own heart. I’ll have a hard time finding a clerk to take your place. Do you understand?”
Morris did not understand. The idea of losing his salary as clerk was not cheering.
“I’m going to check up,” said the old gentleman, settling back in his chair. “I’m sixty-four years old. I haven’t had any substantial vacation worth mentioning for twenty years. I’m getting to a time of life where a man has to think about the end of his days. Our old sign over the entrance has fallen down, and I take it as a hint that we need a new one. I have had a sentiment about keeping the name of the old firm; but it’s misleading to the new generation. I’m tired of the people that come in here and ask for the dead members. It’s hardly fair to subject their memories to that kind of treatment. We must drop the old name.”
“I should hate to see it go,” said Morris. “I’ve always been particularly proud to answer for the firm at roll-call on rule mornings.”
“I’m glad you feel that way about it. You never saw Knight or Kittredge, did you? I’m sure you didn’t. They were great men. There are no men like them at our bar.” And Michael Carr drew his hand gently across the book that lay in his lap, and was silent for a moment.
“Do you think you want to live here, Morris? Are you satisfied with the town?”
“It’s the only one I know. I think a man’s chances are as good here as anywhere.”
“I think so, too,” said Carr, reflectively. “I have had it in mind for some time to make you a full partner, changing the name to Carr and Leighton,—if you are agreeable. Don’t thank me; it’s purely selfish. You have been virtually a partner for a year. At this bar a law clerk doesn’t usually do the things that I have set you to doing. I’ve been glad of your help, and it will add to your influence with the courts to get away from the clerkship; and in the end that helps me.”
“The clerkship has been a great thing for me; I am in no mood for spurning it.” Morris’s heart was beating uncomfortably fast. He had never expected this. The best he had hoped for was a partnership with some young man at the bar. It was wholly like Michael Carr, though, to declare his intention in this way. The time and place seemed fitting. Morris loved the dim old rooms. He has a better office now,—for the old building has vanished, and the law library that was assembled through so many years by Knight, Kittredge and Carr is now established on the top floor of a ten-story building, where there are electric lights and steam heat.
“You don’t have to thank me for anything, Morris. If you must express a little gratitude, give it all to Rodney Merriam. It was he that brought you to me. I’ll have to thank him on my own account.”
“You are the best friend any young man ever had,” said Morris, feelingly.
“I prefer not to say anything about this change until the first of July. I’m going abroad then. Mrs. Carr has planned an extensive trip. I’ve never been over there and I suppose I may as well see it all at once, as we Americans get the credit for doing. We shall go to England and Scotland first, and then work our way south with the season. I’m going to leave you a full measure of work to do while I’m gone.”
“Some of your clients will object. I should hate to see you losing business on my account.”
“We can afford to lose a few and still have enough. I have a few clients that I shouldn’t mind losing. Old friends, many of them, who don’t want legal advice as much as friendly counsel.”
“There are some of them that you have to be pretty patient with.”
“Yes; there is Ezra Dameron. His business is worth little if anything. He’s always afraid some one will get the advantage of him. I don’t believe he trusts even me.”
“He’s a picturesque client, but not profitable, I imagine.”
“No; he’s not profitable. But I’ve always done whatever he had to do. He’s a poor lot, Ezra Dameron. I suppose Mr. Merriam never speaks of him to you?”
“Never a word.”
“That’s quite characteristic. He hates him like poison, but he has never intimated as much to me. The Merriams have been at outs with one another for years. I believe the trouble began when Ezra Dameron married Margaret Merriam. They were opposed to it.”
“He looks and acts the part of the traditional stage miser. His hammer and nails are part of his make-up.”
“He’s not attractive, to say the least. The only good thing I know about him is that his daughter stands by him. We all supposed that of course she would quit him after a few months; but she seems to be a Merriam. They are the real thing. Her mother stood by Ezra to the very last. She never let the family know if she suffered. She was a beautiful woman. She carried herself with a royal air. You don’t remember her?”
“No, I never saw her. I’ve seen a portrait of her at Mr. Merriam’s. Her daughter must be very like her.”
“Yes; they are very like. But there’s a difference; I haven’t made out what it is. I think Mrs. Dameron hadn’t quite the same spirit; there was a heart-breaking resignation in her. It got into her face as she grew older; but the girl hasn’t it.”
The talk drifted into a channel that Carr had not premeditated, but its direction suited his mood and the hour and place. He had thrown one short leg over the other and rested at ease in spite of the fact that it was now past his dinner hour.
“Mrs. Dameron’s will caused a good deal of wonder and gossip when she died. She had deliberately chosen to carry her faith in her husband beyond the grave. You’ve seen the will?”
“Yes; the law students here make a study of it.”
“As an example of what a will oughtn’t to be? Well; it was all regular enough. I prepared it myself. It’s sound enough legally; but foolish otherwise. She wished to make it quite clear that she trusted her husband. She had a quixotic idea that, in turning over all her property to him for the use of their daughter, she was putting a prop under him to make him stand. He ought to have a pretty good property to turn over to her at the termination of the trust. That comes,—let me see,—that comes on Zelda’s twenty-first birthday,—I think it’s next fall sometime. I suppose you don’t happen to know when Miss Dameron’s birthday comes?”
Michael Carr’s eyes twinkled, and he looked at Leighton with the smile the world has for a suspected lover.
“No,” said Leighton, laughing, “I don’t know.”
“Well,” said Michael Carr, rising and thrusting the book under his arm, “I hope you may know one of these days,—if you want to. Mrs. Carr and I are both interested in seeing you settled. My wife takes a good deal of stock in you,—not to say that I don’t! And we have decided that this would be a happy arrangement. The father-in-law would leave a good deal to be desired; but that wouldn’t be a consideration.”
“I like the idea,” said Leighton; “but you’ve set the mark too high.”
“Never give up the ship, young man. Demurrers are not necessarily fatal.”
“I didn’t say that I’d filed my petition yet,” said Morris.
“Better not wait too long,—or you may lose jurisdiction. And there’s always a statute of limitations that operates in such matter. Are you going home to dinner with me?”
“No, thank you; I can’t. I wish I could make you understand how much I appreciate your kindness to me. It isn’t that I’ve learned some law,—it’s the countless other things that you have done for me since I came here.”
The old gentleman had walked to the door to get away from Morris’s thanks, but he turned, with his rare smile.
“Are you keeping up your Horace? An ode once a day! I haven’t missed mine for forty years. There’s that particularly delightful one—the sixteenth—I recommend it to you,—the daughter more charming than her charming mother. A word to the wise! Good night, my boy!”
When Morris heard the outer door close he sat down and thrust his hands into his trousers pockets and indulged in dreams. He made a practice of writing once a week to his mother, and he wrote her a letter now, telling her of his stroke of fortune. “It is almost too good to be true,” the letter ran. “I’m twenty-six years old, and I’m to be the partner of the best lawyer in the state, something that I never expected. I know you will be glad. I only regret that father isn’t here to rejoice with us.”
He left the office with a quick step and a light heart, and walked to the post-office to mail his letter. He had known many lonely hours since moving to Mariona. He glanced up and down Jefferson Street as he crossed it. The lights, the noisy trolley cars, the great illuminated signs had all stood to him for loneliness; but he noted them to-night with a different spirit. He had been for five years an unimportant member of the community, winning respect from many; working hard, but enjoying his labor, and he felt a new courage. He had received a high mark of favor from the first lawyer at the Mariona bar; his name was to be linked with that of an historic law firm, and with a new elasticity of spirit he trod the familiar path from the old office to the federal building, where the United States Court sat. He wondered what his friend, the clerk of the court, would say when he heard of the new partnership; and the pleasant thought of the firm name of Carr and Leighton as it would appear in the court records caused Morris to parley chaffingly with a belated newsboy who sold him a paper at the post-office door.
He carried the paper to a table in a hotel restaurant where he sometimes got his meals, and opened it to the interurban time-table. It was seven o’clock. He could eat his supper, go to his rooms to change his clothes, and reach the Damerons’ by half-past eight. His mood of depression passed, but there still lingered in his heart the sense of longing, the need for sympathy, that an honest, clean love brings to the heart of a man.