James Reid Parker

Mr. Devore stood in front of one of the windows of his office and
gazed out at the heavy fog which encompassed the towers of Pine
Street. He would have denied at any time, but particularly on this
dreary morning, that his professional life was informed with color, and
would have insisted that this was not a matter for regret. The beauty
of the law, Mr. Devore had often remarked to Miss Deevey, as well as
to many lesser employees, was the beauty of its codified orderliness.

Now the fog was blurring the lights across the street and turning
them into sulphur-yellow splotches in the gray waste. Mr. Devore's ofr-
fice, while as orderly as even he could wish, was hardly more cheerful
than the haze beyond. As Miss Fannie Devore must have decided
when she was choosing the fabric for her bachelor brother's window
draperies, anything that bordered on the frivolous would be out of
keeping with the austerity that prevailed throughout the temple of
Forbes, Hathaway, Bryan & Devore, within which the lawyers carefully
prepared Delphic advice for the nervous corporations which ap-
proached them for counsel. Mr. Devore was awaiting a Mme. Liap-
chev, the protéGée of an important client.

The day before, Mrs. Herbert Kraft had talked to him eagerly and
incoherently on the telephone for twenty-three minutes about the diffi-
culties that beset a woman she knew. A charming person, she said, and
one whom Mr. Devore was sure to admire and pity. Mrs. Kraft had

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