A Lost Lady (Chap. 2.7) lyrics

One morning in April Niel was alone in the law office. His uncle had been ill with rheumatic fever for a long while, and he had been attending to the routine of business.

The door opened, and a figure stood there, strange and yet familiar, — he had to think a moment before he realized that it was Orville Ogden, who used to come to Sweet Water so often, but who had not been seen there now for several years. He didn’t look a day older; one eye was still direct and clear, the other clouded and oblique. He still wore a stiff imperial and twisted moustache, the grey colour of old beeswax, and his thin hair was brushed heroically up over the bald spot.

“This is Judge Pommeroy’s nephew, isn’t it? I can’t think of your name, my boy, but I remember you. Is the Judge out?”

“Please be seated, Mr. Ogden. My uncle is ill. He hasn’t been at the office for several months. He’s had really a very bad time of it. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that! I’m sorry.” He spoke as if he were. “I guess all we fellows are getting older, whether we like it or not. It made a great difference when Daniel Forrester went.” Mr. Ogden took off his overcoat, put his hat and gloves neatly on the desk, and then seemed somewhat at a loss. “What is your uncle’s trouble?” he asked suddenly.

Niel told him. “I was to have gone back to school this winter, but uncle begged me to stay and look after things for him. There was no one here he wanted to entrust his business to.”

“I see, I see,” said Mr. Ogden thoughtfully. “Then you do attend to his business for the present?” He paused and reflected. “Yes, there was something that I wanted to take up with him. I am stopping off for a few hours only, between trains. I might speak to you about it, and you could consult your uncle and write me in Chicago. It’s a confidential matter, and concerns another person.”

Niel assured him of his discretion, but Mr. Ogden seemed to find the subject difficult to approach. He looked very grave and slowly lit a cigar.

“It is simply,” he said at last, “a rather delicate suggestion I wish to make to your uncle about one of his clients. I have several friends in the Government at Washington just at present, friends who would go out of their way to serve me. I have been thinking that we might manage it to get a special increase of pension for Mrs. Forrester. I am due in Chicago this week, and after my business there is finished, I would be quite willing to go on to Washington to see what can be done; provided, of course, that no one, least of all your uncle’s client, knows of my activity in the matter.”

Niel flushed. “I’m sorry, Mr. Ogden,” he brought out, “but Mrs. Forrester is no longer a client of my uncle’s. After the Captain’s death, she saw fit to take her business away from him.”

Mr. Ogden’s normal eye became as blank as the other.

“What’s that? He isn’t her lawyer? Why, for twenty years — ”

“I know that, sir. She didn’t treat him with much consideration. She transferred her business very abruptly.”