He was received in the library, as usual, by Lawyer Mossop. The city’s leading solicitor had recently aged considerably. He looked thinner and grayer, his cheeks were hollow, there were more lines in his face. His only son, George, who in the natural course of events would have carried on a very old established business, had been killed in France, and news had lately come that his sister Edith’s boy, whom he had helped to educate and who had already begun to make his way at the Bar, had been permanently disabled by the explosion of a hand grenade.
Long training in self-conquest, backed by generations of emotional restraint, enabled Lawyer Mossop still to play the man of the world. He rose with a charming smile and an air of ready courtesy to receive his distinguished client and neighbor. At a first glance there was nothing to tell that for the solicitor, life had lost its savor.
The two men had a long and intimate talk. Oddly unlike as they were in temperament, education, mental outlook, their minds had never marched so well together as this evening in all their years of intercourse. Somehow the rude vigor, the robust sense of the client appeared to stimulate the more civilized, the more finely developed lawyer. Moreover, he could not fail to perceive that it was a humaner, more liberal-minded Josiah Munt than he had ever known who had come to talk with him this evening. Success, popularity, response to the overwhelming public need had ripened a remarkable man, rubbed off some of the corners, softened and harmonized the curious dissonances that had jarred in what, after all, was a fine character. Rough diamond as Josiah Munt still was and must always remain in the eyes of the critical, he stood out this evening as a right-thinking, straight-seeing citizen, a real asset to the community.
“Mossop,” he said a little shamefacedly, after their conversation had gone on some time, “I don’t like having to own up to it, but I’m bound to say that I wish I’d had the sense to take that advice you gave me in the matter of Sally.”
The lawyer could not help a furtive smile at the humility of the tone.
“You’ve got to put that gel back in my will.” It was a pretty stiff dose now that it had to be swallowed and a fierce frown did not conceal its nature. “And I want you to believe, Mossop,”—there was an odd earnestness in the deep voice—“that I had made up my mind to do it long before this—this damnable Serbian business happened.”
The lawyer assured Mr. Munt that he was convinced of that.
“Serves me right, though, for delaying. Mossop, I’m annoyed with myself. It has the look of a force-put now, but I as I say——”
The lawyer nodded a nice appreciation of the circumstances.