“I am Mr. Richard,” he held out a hand.
“Yes, I know,” Mr. Lear took the hand firmly. “You are staying with the Wells’ at ‘Red Jacket.’ There was a note of the fact in the local papers,” he added by way of explanation. “Sit down. Excuse me if I seemed ruffled. That little rat was just about to—well, we won’t talk about it.”
His face remained stern as he looked expectantly towards Richard.
“You are Mrs. Wells’ lawyer, I believe,” Richard began.
The penetrating gaze of the lawyer was somewhat disconcerting; but at Richard’s question the immovable features relaxed into the most genial of smiles and the eyes broke into abrupt laughter.
“Not that I know it,” Mr. Lear chuckled. “I am simply her good friend. As such I give advice free. She always comes to me when she wants help in a bit of wrongdoing.”
The words seemed out of character with the man who had just dismissed a client who, no doubt, had been suggesting a shady legal partnership; but the face shone with delight in the paradoxical situation.
“When Mrs. Wells wishes to do something which she knows is quite unwise,” Mr. Lear explained, “something which her conscience tells her she should never do, she comes to me to get her will strengthened. She knows beforehand that I will decide against her and give her advice which she doesn’t want to take, but without opposition she is weak and vacillating. I am the man she selects to arouse her combativeness. The more clearly I prove the folly of her proposed undertaking the stronger grows her resolution to undertake it. She usually comes into my office in a mood of guilty indecision, but she always goes out righteously obstinate and determined to do exactly the opposite of everything I suggest.”
Richard knew that she would act exactly in that way, and he told Mr. Lear so; he told him also of the change that had come over her and the reason for it; and, as well, of Jerry’s assumption of command. Then he sorted out the papers and the notes on the correspondence. There was a name here and there of a note-holder, a generous note-holder it seemed, who seemed to take the non-payment of interest as a sort of lark.
Mr. Lear knew him; he was a distant relative of the Wells’—Uncle John they called him, although he was no uncle—and a man whose name should be Great-heart. But Mr. Lear did not know of the shocking financial state of “Red Jacket.” The smile left his face as he ran down the summary which Richard had prepared. Uncle John was generous, but it was not likely that he would be willing to underwrite so large a deficit, especially as the present income from the estate showed no chance of catching up with the expenses.