"I hoped," said Colter simply, "that you could give me some suggestion. Judge Bogart has asked me to leave."
In the silence that followed the lawyer tried to keep intense curiosity and anxiety from his eyes. Involuntarily Sard's name came to his lips. Stealing a look at the other man, he felt that Colter would also lock his uncertain lips on that name.
On the pause the flood of intelligence that swept through the lawyer brought obstinate anger and resentment. "Hog," he breathed as once before, "hog!" He could see Sard's wild dismay, her sense of shame as of someone who had been untrustworthy, the poor child's friendlessness. "Hog," said the lawyer in the bitter back room of his mind, "animal!"
Yet was not the Judge, the father of the girl, right? Could a man who knew the world allow a thing so radiantly impulsive her instinctive freedoms with an interloper, a rapscallion, someone who dodged on his tracks, played a worn-out game of ignorance as to his own identity, the responsibility he had in the world?
"Who are you?" repeated Shipman steadily. Then as a thought struck him, "Why did Judge Bogart ask you to leave?" The lawyer bethought himself of the "word test" in psycho-analysis. What word would make this fellow change, cringe, become maudlin, explanatory?
There was a short silence until the other man replied calmly, "I should prefer not going into that."
Suddenly, to the lawyer's enormous surprise, a curious thing happened. Colter, after taking a few nervous steps back and forth, came up to him, holding out his hand, and with an air almost winning in its friendliness, said, "Good-bye, I'm sorry I bothered. You see, I hoped you could help me to get work. If not, I must go."
The lawyer studied him. "What kind of work?" he asked curtly.
"Any kind to get food and lodging while I wait."
"Wait for what?"