“Take a seat, madam.”  The lawyer had risen, and was advancing toward her.  He was a small, sharp-eyed man, whose youthful agility had crystallized into a nervous pomposity.  Suddenly he stopped short; he had passed a broad slant of dusty sunlight which had lain between him and his visitor, and he could see her face plainly.  His own elongated for a second, his under jaw lopped, and his brows contracted.  Then he stepped forward.  “Why, Mrs. Maxwell!” said he; “how do you do?”

“I’m pretty well, thank you,” replied Mrs. Field.  She tried to bow, but her back would not bend.

“I am delighted to see you,” said the lawyer.  “I recognize you perfectly now.  I should have before, if the sun had not been in my eyes.  I never forget a face.”

He took her by the hand, and shook it up and down effusively.  Then he pushed forward the leather easy-chair with gracious insinuation.  Mrs. Field sat down, bolt-upright, on the extreme verge of it.

The lawyer drew a chair to her side, seated himself, leaned forward until his face fronted hers, and talked.  His manner was florid, almost bombastic.  He had a fashion of working his face a good deal when he talked.  He conversed quite rapidly and fluently, but was wont to interlard his conversation with what seemed majestically reflective pauses, during which he leaned back in his chair and tapped the arm slowly.  In fact his flow of ideas failed him for a moment, his mind being so constituted that they came in rapid and temporary bursts, geyser fashion.  He inquired when Mrs. Field arrived, was kindly circumstantial as to her health, touched decorously but not too mournfully upon the late Thomas Maxwell’s illness and decease.  He alluded to the letter which he had written her, mentioning as a singular coincidence that at the moment of her entrance he was engaged in writing another to her, to inquire if the former had been received.

He spoke in terms of congratulation of the property to which she had fallen heir, and intimated that further discussion concerning it, as a matter of business, had better be postponed until morning.  Daniel Tuxbury was very methodical in his care for himself, and was loath to attend to any business after six o’clock.

Mrs. Field sat like a bolt of iron while the lawyer talked to her.  Unless a direct question demanded it, she never spoke herself.  But he did not seem to notice it; he had enough garnered-in complacency to delight himself, as a bee with its own honey.  He rarely realized it when another person did not talk.

After one of his pauses, he sprang up with alacrity.  “Mrs. Maxwell, will you be so kind as to excuse me for a moment?” said he, and went out of the office with a fussy hitch, as if he wore invisible petticoats.  Mrs. Field heard his voice in the yard.

When he returned there was an old lady following in his wake.  Mrs. Field saw her before he did.  She came with a whispering of silk, but his deaf ears did not perceive that.  He did not notice her at all until he had entered the office, then he saw Mrs. Field looking past him at the door, and turned himself.