The Meridian times. (Meridian, Idaho) 1909-1938, 1917-06-08
the night: she was going to study law
study AZ With oil har t,ai0bf,

without attracting her husbands at
tention and for two hours and half
she listened, with mingled feelings, to,
his argument. There was no use pre-
tending that she could follow her hus-
bands reasoning. Listening to 1t had
something the same effect upon her
as watching some enormous, COM
plicated, smooth-running mass Of ma
chinery. She was conscious of the
power of 1t, though ignorant of what
made 1t go, and of what 1t was ac-
.complishing.
The three stolid figures behind the
high mahogany bench seemed to be
following 1t attentively, though they
irritated her bitterly, sometimes, by in
dulging In whispered conversations.
And, presently, he just stopped talk
ing and began stacking up his notes.
The oldest judge mumbled something,
everybody stood up, and the three stiff,
formidable figures filed out by a side
door. 1t was all over.
But nothing had happened
Rose had expected to leave the
courtroom in the blissfuI knowledge
of Rodney's victory or the acceptance
of his defeat. In her surprise over the
failure of this climax to materialize,
she almost neglected to make her es-
cape before he discovered her there.
One practical advantage she had
gained out of what was, on the whole,
MISUNDERSTANDING afternoon. When
she had gone home and changed into
the sort of frock she thought he'd like
and come downstairs In answer to his
shouted greeting from the lower hall,
she didn't say, as otherwise she would
have done, How did it come out
Roddy? Did you winf"
In the light Of her newly acquired
knowledge she could see how question
of that sort would irritate him. In
stead of that, she said: "You dear old
boy, how dog-tired you must be! How
do you think it went? Do you think
you impressed them? I bet you did"
And, not having been rubbed the
wrong way by foolish question, he
held her off with both hands for a
moment, then Rugged her up and told
her she was trump. II had sort
of uneasy feeling" he confessed, shat
after last night-the way 1 threw you
out of my office, fairly, I'd find you
tragic. / might have known I could
count on you. Is there anywhere
we have got to go? Or can we just
stay homer"
He didn't want to founder through
an emotional morass. And the as
sumption that she couldn't walk beside
him on the main path of his life was
just and sensible. But it wasn't good
enough for Rose.
So the very next morning she strip
ped the cover off the first of the law
books she had bought, and really went
to work. She bit down, angrily, the
yawns that blinded her eyes with tears;
she made desperate efforts to fog her
mind into graphing with the endless
succession of meaningless pages
spread out before her, to find a germ
of meaning somewhere in it that would
bring the dead verbiage to life. She
was very secretive about it; developed
an almost morbid fear that Rodney
would discover what she was doing
and laugh his big laugh at her. She
resisted innumerable questions she
wanted to PROFOUND to him, from a
fear that they'd betray her secret.
She even forbore to ask him about
the case; 1t was The Case in her mind
the one she knew about.
She discovered in the newspaper,
one day, column summary of court
decisions that had been handed down
and though The Case wasn't In it, she
kept, from that day forward, a careful
watch, discovered where the legal news
was printed, and never overlooked
paragraph. And at last she found
it-just the bare statement: "Judg-
ment affirmed" Rodney, she knew,
had represented the appellant. He
was beaten.
For moment the thing had bruised
her like blow. And then, all at once,
in the indrawing of a single breath,
she saw it differently. She saw she
couldn't help him out of his intellec-
tual quandarieS-yet. But under the
discouragement and lassitude of de-
1900 NVuANh ShS nttp ulIu 0Ue re-
membered how many times she had
gone to him for help like that, and,
most notably, during the three or four
days of an acute illness of her moth
er's, when she had been brought face
to face with the monstrous, incredible
possibility of losing her, how she had
chung to him, how his tenderness had
soothed and quieted her.
He had never come to her like that.
She knew now it was thing she had
uliconsciously longed for. And to-
plight she'd have chance! There was
a mounting excitement in her as the
hours pascal thrilling suspense.
For two hours that afternoon, she
listened for his latchkey, and when
at last she heard it, she stole down
the stairs. He didn't shout her name
from the hall, as he often did.
He didn't hear her coming, and she
ernf n III O..