Mr. Paramor obliterated the face on his blotting-pad.

“Where’s your sense of humour?” he said.

“I see no joke, Paramor.”

Mr. Paramor leaned forward.

“My dear friend,” he said earnestly, “I don’t say for a minute that our system doesn’t cause a great deal of quite unnecessary suffering; I don’t say that it doesn’t need reform.  Most lawyers and almost any thinking man will tell you that it does.  But that’s a wide question which doesn’t help us here.  We’ll manage your business for you, if it can be done.  You’ve made a bad start, that’s all.  The first thing is for us to write to Mrs. Bellew, and ask her to come and see us.  We shall have to get Bellew watched.”

Gregory said: 

“That’s detestable.  Can’t it be done without that?”

Mr. Paramor bit his forefinger.

“Not safe,” he said.  “But don’t bother; we’ll see to all that.”

Gregory rose and went to the window.  He said suddenly: 

“I can’t bear this underhand work.”

Mr. Paramor smiled.

“Every honest man,” he said, “feels as you do.  But, you see, we must think of the law.”

Gregory burst out again: 

“Can no one get a divorce, then, without making beasts or spies of themselves?”

Mr. Paramor said gravely

“It is difficult, perhaps impossible.  You see, the law is based on certain principles.”

“Principles?”

A smile wreathed Mr. Paramor’s mouth, but died instantly.

“Ecclesiastical principles, and according to these a person desiring a divorce ‘ipso facto’ loses caste.  That they should have to make spies or beasts of themselves is not of grave importance.”

Gregory came back to the table, and again buried his head in his hands.

“Don’t joke, please, Paramor,” he said; “it’s all so painful to me.”

Mr. Paramor’s eyes haunted his client’s bowed head.

“I’m not joking,” he said.  “God forbid!  Do you read poetry?” And opening a drawer, he took out a book bound in red leather.  “This is a man I’m fond of: 

        “’Life is mostly froth and bubble;
               Two things stand like stone—­
          kindness in another’s trouble,
               courage in your own.’

“That seems to me the sum of all philosophy.”

“Paramor,” said Gregory, “my ward is very dear to me; she is dearer to me than any woman I know.  I am here in a most dreadful dilemma.  On the one hand there is this horrible underhand business, with all its publicity; and on the other there is her position—­a beautiful woman, fond of gaiety, living alone in this London, where every man’s instincts and every woman’s tongue look upon her as fair game.  It has been brought home to me only too painfully of late.  God forgive me!  I have even advised her to go back to Bellew, but that seems out of the question.  What am I to do?”