"Yes, go on!"
"'And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head.' Well, I'll be hanged!" exclaimed Tutt. "Now, I would have staked a thousand dollars on it. But look here, you don't win! Delilah did cut Samson's hair—through her agent. 'Qui facit per alium facit per se!'"
"Your point is overruled," said Mr. Tutt. "A barber cut Samson's hair. Let it be a lesson to you never to take anything on hearsay. Always look up your authorities yourself. Moreover"—and he looked severely at Tutt—"the cerebral fluid—like malt extract—tends to become cloudy with age."
"Well, anyhow, I'm no Samson," protested Tutt. "And I haven't met anyone that looked like a Delilah. I guess after the procession of adventuresses that have trailed through this office in the last twenty years I'm reasonably safe."
"No man is safe," meditated Mr. Tutt. "For the reason that no man knows the power of expansion of his heart. He thinks it's reached its limit—and then he finds to his horror or his delight that it hasn't. To put it another way, a man's capacity to love may be likened to a thermometer. At twenty-five or thirty he meets some young person, falls in love with her, thinks his amatory thermometer has reached the boiling-point and accordingly marries her. In point of fact it hasn't—it's only marking summer heat—hasn't even registered the temperature of the blood. Well, he goes merrily on life's way and some fine day another lady breezes by, and this safe and sane citizen, who supposes his capacity for affection was reached in early youth, suddenly discovers to his amazement that his mercury is on the jump and presently that his old thermometer has blown its top off."
"Very interesting, Mr. Tutt," observed Tutt after a moment's silence. "You seem to have made something of a study of these things."
"Only in a business way—only in a business way!" Mr. Tutt assured him. "Now, if you're feeling stale—and we all are apt to get that way this time of year—why don't you take a run down to Atlantic City?"
Now Tutt would have liked to go to Atlantic City could he have gone by himself, but the idea of taking Abigail along robbed the idea of its attraction. She had got more than ever on his nerves of late. But his reply, whatever it might have been, was interrupted by the announcement of Miss Wiggin, who entered at that moment, that a lady wished to see him.
"She asked for Mr. Tutt," explained Minerva.
"But I think her case is more in your line," and she nodded to Tutt.
"Good looking?" inquired Tutt roguishly.
"Very," returned Miss Wiggin. "A blonde."
"Thanks," answered Tutt, smoothing his hair; "I'm on my way."
Now this free, almost vulgar manner of speech was in reality foreign to both Tutt and Miss Wiggin and it was born of the instant, due doubtless to some peculiar juxtaposition of astral bodies in Cupid's horoscope unknown to them, but which none the less had its influence. Strange things happen on the eve of St. Agnes and on Midsummer Night—even in law offices.
Mrs. Allison was sitting by the window in Tutt's office when he came in, and for a full minute he paused upon the threshold while she pretended she did not know that he was there. The deluge of sunlight that fell upon her face betrayed no crack or wrinkle—no flaw of any kind—in the white marble of its perfection. It was indeed a lovely face, classic in the chiseling of its transparent alabaster; and when she turned, her eyes were like misty lakes of blue. Bar none, she was the most beautiful creature—and there had been many—that had ever wandered into the offices of Tutt & Tutt. He sought for a word. "Wonderful"; that was, it, she was "wonderful." His stale spirit soared in ecstasy, and left him tongue-tied. In vulgar parlance he was rattled to death, this commonplace little lawyer who for a score of years had dealt cynically with the loves and lives of the flock of female butterflies who fluttered annually in and out of the office. Throughout that period he had sat unemotionally behind his desk and listened in an aloof, cold, professional manner to the stories of their wrongs as they sobbed or hissed them forth. Wise little lawyer that he was, he had regarded them all as just what they were and nothing else—specimens of the Cecropia. And he had not even patted them upon the shoulder or squeezed their hands when he had bade them good-by—maintaining always an impersonal and dignified demeanor.
Therefore he was surprised to hear himself say in soothing, almost cooing tones:
"Well, my dear, what can I do for you?"
Shades of Abigail! "Well, my dear!" Tutt—Tutt! Tutt!
"I am in great trouble," faltered Mrs. Allison, gazing in misty helplessness out of her blue grottoes at him while her beautiful red lips trembled.
"I hope I can help you!" he breathed. "Tell me all about it! Take your time. May I relieve you of your wrap?"
She wriggled out of it gratefully and he saw for the first time the round, slender pillar of her neck. What a head she had—in its nimbus of hazy gold. What a figure! His forty-eight-year-old lawyer's heart trembled under its heavy layer of half-calf dust. He found difficulty in articulating. He stammered, staring at her most shamelessly both of which symptoms she did not notice. She was used to them in the other sex. Tutt did not know what was the matter with him. He had in fact entered upon that phase at which the wise man, be he old or young, turns and runs.
But Tutt did not run. In legal phrase he stopped, looked and listened, experiencing a curious feeling of expansion. This enchanting creature transmuted the dingy office lined with its rows of calfskin bindings into a golden grot in which he stood spellbound by the low murmur of her voice. A sense of infinite leisure emanated from her—a subtle denial of the ordinary responsibilities—very relaxing and delightful to Tutt. But what twitched his very heartstrings was the dimple that came and went with that pathetic little twisted smile of hers.
"I came to you," said Mrs. Allison, "because I knew you were both kind and clever."
Tutt smiled sweetly.
"Kind, perhaps—not clever!" he beamed.
"Why, everyone says you are one of the cleverest lawyers in New York," she protested. Then, raising her innocent China-blue eyes to his she murmured, "And I so need kindness!"
Tutt's breast swelled with an emotion which he was forced to admit was not altogether avuncular—that curious sentimental mixture that middle-aged men feel of paternal pity, Platonic tenderness and protectiveness, together with all those other euphemistic synonyms, that make them eager to assist the weak and fragile, to try to educate and elevate, and particularly to find out just how weak, fragile, uneducated and unelevated a helpless lady may be. But in spite of his half century of experience Tutt's knowledge of these things was purely vicarious. He could have told another man when to run, but he didn't know when to run himself. He could have saved another, himself he could not save—at any rate from Mrs. Allison.
He had never seen anyone like her. He pulled his chair a little nearer. She was so slender, so supple, so—what was it?—svelte! And she had an air of childish dignity that appealed to him tremendously. There was nothing, he assured himself, of the vamp about her at all.
"I only want to get my rights," she said, tremulously. "I'm nearly out of my mind. I don't know what to do or where to turn!"
"Is there"—he forced himself to utter the word with difficulty—"a—a man involved?"
She flushed and bowed her head sadly, and instantly a poignant rage possessed him.
"A man I trusted absolutely," she replied in a low voice.
"His name?"
"Winthrop Oaklander."
Tutt gasped audibly, for the name was that of one of Manhattan's most distinguished families, the founder of which had swapped glass beads and red-flannel shirts with the aborigines for what was now the most precious water frontage in the world—and moreover, Mrs. Allison informed Tutt, he was a clergyman.
"I don't wonder you're surprised!" agreed Mrs. Allison.
"Why—I—I'm—not surprised at all!"