"May I join you?" said Pierre Lamont, who had caused himself to be drawn to this group. "My infirmities make me a privileged person, and unless I thrust myself forward, I might be left to languish like a decrepit spider in a ruined web."
"Ill-natured people," remarked Adelaide, "might say that your figure of speech is a dangerous one for a lawyer to employ."
"Fairest of dames," said Pierre Lamont, "your arrows are sugar-tipped; there is no poison in them. Use me as your target, I beg. You put new life into this old frame."
"The old school can teach the new," said Christian Almer. "You should open a class of gallantry, Master Lamont."
"I! with my useless limbs! You mock me!"
"He will not allow me to be angry with him," said Adelaide, smiling on the lawyer.
Then Pierre Lamont drew the Advocate into a conversation on the trial which the Advocate would gladly have avoided, could he have done so without being considered guilty of a breach of courtesy. But Pierre Lamont was not a man to be denied, and the Advocate was fain to answer the questions put to him until the old lawyer was acquainted with every detail of the line of defence.
"Excellent--excellent!" he exclaimed. "A masterstroke! You do not share my enthusiasm," he said, addressing Jacob Hartrich, who had stood silently by, listening to the conversation. "You have no understanding of the intense, the fierce delight of such a battle and such a victory."
"The last word is not spoken here on earth," said Jacob Hartrich. "There is a higher tribunal."
"Well said, my son," said Father Capel.