'I want no lawyers,' snapped Clara defiantly. 'Charles hates that woman and she knows it. She won't try to get him back.'
'Yes. But she won't stand you're being with him.'
'Then I'll live alone, and help Charles in my own way.'
'Help yourself first, lovey; then you can help other people.'
'I don't believe it. If you help yourself, you are kept so busy doing it that you don't know the other people are there.'
Of course Julia told Freeland, and in the morning he came tapping at Clara's door. She admitted him. His rather faded, handsome face wore a very serious expression, more serious indeed than was warranted either by the feeling in his heart or the thought in his head. It was a very serious situation, and he had assumed the appropriate manner.... Clara had slept soundly, and her fund of healthy good spirits made it possible for her to regard the whole complication as, in itself, rather superficial. The sun was shining in upon the mirror of her dressing-table, upon her silver brushes, upon the portrait of Julia in a silver frame, and upon the new frock which had come only the day before from the dressmaker. With the sun shining, and the eager thought of Charles in her heart, Clara could have no anxiety. No problem was insoluble, no obstacle, she believed, could be irresistible. Therefore she smiled as Freeland came in treading more heavily than his wont. He stood and looked down at her.
'It's a bad business, kid,' he said, 'a bad, bad business.'
'Is it?'
'He has ruined your life. I feel like shooting him.'
'That wouldn't help me.'