So the very next morning, she stripped the cover off the first of the books the half-back had picked out for her, and really went to work.  She bit down, angrily, the yawns that blinded her eyes with tears; she made desperate efforts to flog her mind into grappling 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 tried to recall the thrill in Rodney’s voice when he had told her, on that wonderful wind-swept afternoon, that the law was the finest profession in the world.  Also, he had told her, he’d never been bored with it—­it was immoral to be bored.  It was a confession of defeat, anyway, she could see that.  And she wouldn’t—­she absolutely would not be defeated.

In a variety of moods which included everything except real hope and confidence, she kept the thing up for weeks—­didn’t give up indeed, until Fate stepped in, in her ironic way, and took the decision out of her hands.  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 propound to him, from a fear that they’d betray her secret.

She even forbore to ask him about the case—­it was The Case in her mind—­the one she knew about, and as she struggled along with her heavy text-books, and a realization grew in her mind of the countless hours of such struggling on his part which must have lain behind his ability to make that argument that day, the thing accumulated importance to her.  How could he, under the suspense of waiting for that decision, concentrate his mind on anything else?

She discovered in the newspaper one day, a 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 a paragraph.  And at last she found it—­just the bare statement “Judgment affirmed.”  Rodney, she knew, had represented the appellant.  He was beaten.

For a moment the thing bruised her like a blow.  She had never succeeded in entertaining, seriously, the possibility that it could end otherwise than in victory for him.  She read it again and made sure.  She remembered the names of both parties to the suit, and she knew which side Rodney was on.  There couldn’t be any mistake about it.  And the certainty weighed down her spirits with a leaden depression.

And then, all at once, in the indrawing of a single breath, she saw it differently.  Now that it had happened—­and she couldn’t help its happening—­didn’t it give her, after all, the very opportunity she wanted?  She remembered what he had said the night he had turned her out of his office.  He wasn’t sick or discouraged.  He was in an intellectual quandary that couldn’t be solved by having his hand held or his eyes kissed.