Mr. Lyons was a large, full-bodied man of thirty-five, with a fat,
cleanly-shaven, cherubic countenance, an aspect of candor, and keen,
solemn eyes. His manner was impressive and slightly pontificial; his
voice resonant and engaging. He knew when to joke and when to be grave
as an owl. He wore in every-day life a shiny, black frock-coat, a
standing collar, which yawned at the throat, and a narrow, black tie.
His general effect was that of a cross between a parson and a shrewd
Yankee--a happy suggestion of righteous, plain, serious-mindedness,
protected against the wiles of human society--and able to protect
others--by a canny intelligence. For a young man he had already a
considerable clientage. A certain class of people, notably the
hard-headed, God-fearing, felt themselves safe in his hands. His
magnetic yet grave manner of conducting business pleased Benham,
attracting also both the distressed and the bilious portions of the
community, and the farmers from the surrounding country. As Mrs. Earle
informed Selma, he was in sympathy with all progressive and stimulating
ideas, and he already figured in the newspapers politically, and before
the courts as a friend of the masses, and a fluent advocate of social
reforms. His method of handling Selma's case was smooth. To begin with,
he was sympathetic within proper limits, giving her tacitly to
understand that, though as a man and brother, he deplored the necessity
of extreme measures, he recognized that she had made up her mind, and
that compromise was out of the question. To put it concisely, his manner
was grieved, but practical. He told her that he would represent to
Babcock the futility of contesting a cause, which, on the evidence, must
be hopeless, and that, in all probability, the matter could be disposed
of easily and without publicity. He seemed to Selma a very sensible and
capable man, and it was agreeable to her to feel that he appreciated
that, though divorce in the abstract was deplorable, her experience