She understood why Cheever wanted to protect the name of the child's mother from the courts, and she was baffled by the situation. The lawyer, who was so flippant about the things the Church held so sacred, was like a priest in his abhorrence of any tampering with the letter of the law.
She left his office for a conference with Cheever. She found at home that he had been telephoning to her. She called him up, and he came over at once.
“I'm in a devil of a mess, Charity,” he said. “My lawyer refuses to help me give you evidence, and Zada—Miss L'Etoile—has developed a peculiar streak of obstinacy. She is determined that no other woman shall be named as the—er—co-respondent. She would rather be named herself. She says everybody knows about our—er—relations, anyway; and she doesn't care if they do.”
Zada's character and her career had rendered her as contemptuous of public disapproval as any zealot of a loftier cause than love. There was a kind of barbaric insolence in her passion that Charity could not help admiring a little. She felt a whit ashamed of her own timidities and delicacies. The trouble with these proud defiers of the public, however, is that they do not ask the consent of the babies that are more or less implied in their superb amours.
Cheever was so distracted between the scruples of his lawyer and Zada's lack of them that when Charity confessed how she had set detectives on him and had secured a dictagraphic record of his alliance with Zada he was overcome with gratitude.
So little a shift of circumstances makes all the difference between a spy and a savior. The deed that he would once have cursed his wife for stooping to, perhaps have beaten her for, was now an occasion for overwhelming her with thanks.
He hurried away to his lawyer, and Charity telephoned McNiven for another appointment the next afternoon. Jim Dyckman's appointment was for the next morning.