He followed her to the stairs and watched her go slowly up to her room. At the turn in the landing she stopped and looked down upon him. If he had been a bolder man he would have known that now at last she was deliberately “making eyes at him,” but when she shook her head with comic dolefulness and murmured, “Poet!” he saw only a beautiful sympathy for an unrequited affection!
CHAPTER XXII
THE COUNCIL FIRE
Mrs. Wells’ “books” were not arranged to facilitate the work of an auditor, but her correspondence was of considerable help. With the aid of Jerry’s notes and the letters Richard was able to get his clues. At occasional intervals Mitchell Lear’s brief notes would come along, each such invariable good sense that Richard began to have a liking for the man before he had seen him. Evidently Lear had been consulted before each disastrous transaction, and his advice was always to refrain from doing what events proved should have not been done. His terse opinions were worded with almost humorous sameness: “As I advised you in our talk on Wednesday, you will do well not to dispose of the orchards” or “not to try out experiments in grape spraying,” and so on. Mr. Lear was evidently a friend and a man of sound judgment; and in compensation for his long failure to have his advice followed he was a good man to consult now.
Mitchell Lear was engaged in bowing a client out of the office when Richard appeared.
“It is the sort of case I never touch,” Mr. Lear was saying. There was a note of firm indignation in his voice, which his nervous, eager client seemed to miss.
“But your reputation at the bar would help us so——”
“My reputation at the bar is not for sale!” Mr. Lear interrupted ominously. “I am busy. Good-day, sir.”
“But if you could only see your way——”
“Good-day, sir!”
Some of the indignation still lingered in Mr. Lear’s keen eyes as he confronted Richard. The lawyer had the judicial rather than the legal face, and at this moment it was that of the righteous judge in the act of sentencing a deserving criminal.