“I’m sure that was like him,” declared her friend.  And for the first time in her life Honora experienced a twinge of that world-old ailment —­jealousy.  How did Ethel know what was like him?  “I made father give him up for a little while after lunch, and he talked about you the whole time.  But he was most interesting at the table,” continued Ethel, sublimely unconscious of the lack of compliment in the comparison; “as Jim would say, he fairly wiped up the ground with father, and it isn’t an easy thing to do.”

“Wiped up the ground with Mr. Wing!” Honora repeated.

“Oh, in a delightfully quiet, humorous way.  That’s what made it so effective.  I couldn’t understand all of it; but I grasped enough to enjoy it hugely.  Father’s so used to bullying people that it’s become second nature with him.  I’ve seen him lay down the law to some of the biggest lawyers in New York, and they took it like little lambs.  He caught a Tartar in Mr. Erwin.  I didn’t dare to laugh, but I wanted to.”

“What was the discussion about?” asked Honora.

“I’m not sure that I can give you a very clear idea of it,” said Ethel.  “Generally speaking, it was about modern trust methods, and what a self-respecting lawyer would do and what he wouldn’t.  Father took the ground that the laws weren’t logical, and that they were different and conflicting, anyway, in different States.  He said they impeded the natural development of business, and that it was justifiable for the great legal brains of the country to devise means by which these laws could be eluded.  He didn’t quite say that, but he meant it, and he honestly believes it.  The manner in which Mr. Erwin refuted it was a revelation to me.  I’ve been thinking about it since.  You see, I’d never heard that side of the argument.  Mr. Erwin said, in the nicest way possible, but very firmly, that a lawyer who hired himself out to enable one man to take advantage of another prostituted his talents:  that the brains of the legal profession were out of politics in these days, and that it was almost impossible for the men in the legislatures to frame laws that couldn’t be evaded by clever and unscrupulous devices.  He cited ever so many cases . . . "

Ethel’s voice became indistinct, as though some one had shut a door in front of it.  Honora was trembling on the brink of a discovery:  holding herself back from it, as one who has climbed a fair mountain recoils from the lip of an unsuspected crater at sight of the lazy, sulphurous fumes.  All the years of her marriage, ever since she had first heard his name, the stature of James Wing had been insensibly growing, and the vastness of his empire gradually disclosed.  She had lived in that empire:  in it his word had stood for authority, his genius had been worshipped, his decrees had been absolute.