knowledge of the human heart. Do you believe that the pusillanimous
and petty conventions of our artificial social life should stand as an
obstacle in the way of a noble and affectionate heart when it finds
its true mate among the miserable and worthless wretches in the world
that are called men?"

"Madam," said Lawyer Gooch, in the tone that he used in curbing his
female clients, "this is an office for conducting the practice of law.
I am a lawyer, not a philosopher, nor the editor of an 'Answers to the
Lovelorn' column of a newspaper. I have other clients waiting. I
will ask you kindly to come to the point."

"Well, you needn't get so stiff around the gills about it," said the
lady, with a snap of her luminous eyes and a startling gyration of her
umbrella. "Business is what I've come for. I want your opinion in
the matter of a suit for divorce, as the vulgar would call it, but
which is really only the readjustment of the false and ignoble
conditions that the short-sighted laws of man have interposed between
a loving--"

"I beg your pardon, madam," interrupted Lawyer Gooch, with some
impatience, "for reminding you again that this is a law office.
Perhaps Mrs. Wilcox--"

"Mrs. Wilcox is all right," cut in the lady, with a hint of asperity.
"And so are Tolstoi, and Mrs. Gertrude Atherton, and Omar Khayyam, and
Mr. Edward Bok. I've read 'em all. I would like to discuss with you
the divine right of the soul as opposed to the freedom-destroying
restrictions of a bigoted and narrow-minded society. But I will
proceed to business. I would prefer to lay the matter before you in