Leroy Scott - Counsel for the Defense

When she reached home she was told by her aunt that a gentleman was waiting to see her. She entered the big, old-fashioned parlour, fresh and tasteful despite the stiff black walnut that, in the days of her mother’s marriage, had been spread throughout the land as beauty by the gentlemen who dealt conjointly in furniture and coffins.

From a chair there rose a youthful and somewhat corpulent presence, with a chubby and very serious pink face that sat in a glossy high collar as in a cup. He smiled with a blushful but ingratiating dignity.

“Don’t you remember me? I’m Charlie Horn.”

“Oh!” And instinctively, as if to identify him by Charlie Horn’s well-remembered strawberry-marks, Katherine glanced at his hands. But they were clean, and the warts were gone. She looked at him in doubt. “You can’t be Nellie Horn’s little brother?”

“I’m not so little,” he said, with some resentment. “Since you knew me,” he added a little grandiloquently, “I’ve graduated from Bloomington.”

“Please pardon me! It was kind of you to call, and so soon.”

“Well, you see I came on business. I suppose you have seen this afternoon’s Express ?”

She instinctively stiffened.

“I have not.”

He drew out a copy of the Express , opened it, and pointed a plump, pinkish forefinger at the beginning of an article on the first page.

“You see the Express says you are going to be your father’s lawyer.”

Katharine read the indicated paragraphs. Her colour heightened. The statement was blunt and bare, but between the lines she read the contemptuous disapproval of the “new woman” that a few hours since Bruce had displayed before her. Again her anger toward Bruce flared up.

“I am a reporter for the Clarion ,” young Charlie Horn announced, striving not to appear too proud. “And I’ve come to interview you.”

“Interview me?” she cried in dismay. “What about?”

“Well, you see,” said he, with his benign smile, “you’re the first woman lawyer that’s ever been in Westville. It’s almost a bigger sensation than your fath – you see, it’s a big story.”

He drew from his pocket a bunch of copy paper. “I want you to tell me about how you are going to handle the case. And about what you think a woman lawyer’s prospects are in Westville. And about what you think will be woman’s status in future society. And you might tell me,” concluded young Charlie Horn, “who your favourite author is, and what you think of golf. That last will interest our readers, for our country club is very popular.”

It had been the experience of Nellie Horn’s brother that the good people of Westville were quite willing – nay, even had a subdued eagerness – to discourse about themselves, and whom they had visited over Sunday, and who was “Sundaying” with them, and what beauties had impressed them most at Niagara Falls; and so that confident young ambassador from the Clarion was somewhat dazed when, a moment later, he found himself standing alone on the West doorstep with a dim sense of having been politely and decisively wished good afternoon.

But behind him amid the stiff, dark, solemn-visaged furniture (Calvinists, every chair of them!) he left a person far more dazed than himself. Charlie Horn’s call had brought sharply home to Katherine a question that, in the press of affairs, she hardly had as yet considered – how was Westville going to take to a woman lawyer being in its midst? She realized, with a chill of apprehension, how profoundly this question concerned her next few months. Dear, bustling, respectable Westville, she well knew, clung to its own idea of woman’s sphere as to a thing divinely ordered, and to seek to leave which was scarcely less than rebellion against high God. In patriarchal days, when heaven’s justice had been prompter, such a disobedient one would suddenly have found herself rebuked into a bit of saline statuary.

Katherine vividly recalled, when she had announced her intention to study law, what a raising of hands there was, what a loud regretting that she had not a mother. But since she had not settled in Westville, and since she had not been actively practising in New York, the town had become partially reconciled. But this step of hers was new, without a precedent. How would Westville take it?

Her brain burned with this and other matters all afternoon, all evening, and till the dawn began to edge in and crowd the shadows from her room. But when she met her father at the breakfast table her face was fresh and smiling.

“Well, how is my client this morning?” she asked gaily. “Do you realize, daddy, that you are my first really, truly client?”

“And I suppose you’ll be charging me something outrageous as a fee!”

“Something like this” – kissing him on the ear. “But how do you feel?”

“Certain that my lawyer will win my case.” He smiled. “And how are you?”

“Brimful of ideas.”

“Yes? About the – ”

“Yes. And about you. First, answer a few of your counsel’s questions. Have you been doing much at your scientific work of late?”

“The last two months, since the water-works has been practically completed, I have spent almost my whole time at it.”

“And your work was interesting?”

“Very. You see, I think I am on the verge of discovering that the typhoid bacillus – ”

“You’ll tell me all about that later. Now the first order of your attorney is, just as soon as you have finished your coffee and folded your napkin, back you go to your laboratory.”

“But, Katherine, with this affair – ”

“This affair, worry and all, has been shifted off upon your eminent counsel. Work will keep you from worry, so back you go to your darling germs.”

“You’re mighty good, dear, but – ”

“No argument! You’ve got to do just what your lawyer tells you. And now,” she added “as I may have to be seeing a lot of people, and as having people about the house may interrupt your work, I’m going to take an office.”

He stared at her.

“Take an office?”

“Yes. Who knows – I may pick up a few other cases. If I do, I know who can use the money.”

“But open an office in Westville! Why, the people – Won’t it be a little more unpleasant – ” He paused doubtfully. “Did you see what the Express had to say about you?”

She flushed, but smiled sweetly.

“What the Express said is one reason why I’m going to open an office.”

“Yes?”

“I’m not going to let fear of that Mr. Bruce dictate my life. And since I’m going to be a lawyer, I’m going to be the whole thing. And what’s more, I’m going to act as though I were doing the most ordinary thing in the world. And if Mr. Bruce and the town want to talk, why, we’ll just let ’em talk!”

“But – but – aren’t you afraid?”

“Of course I’m afraid,” she answered promptly. “But when I realize that I’m afraid to do a thing, I’m certain that that is just exactly the thing for me to do. Oh, don’t look so worried, dear” – she leaned across and kissed him – “for I’m going to be the perfectest, properest, politest lady that ever scuttled a convention. And nothing is going to happen to me – nothing at all.”

Breakfast finished, Katherine despotically led her father up to his laboratory. A little later she set out for downtown, looking very fresh in a blue summer dress that had the rare qualities of simplicity and grace. Her colour was perhaps a little warmer than was usual, but she walked along beneath the maples with tranquil mien, seemingly unconscious of some people she passed, giving others a clear, direct glance, smiling and speaking to friends and acquaintances in her most easy manner.