MRS. MAXON PROTESTS

CONTENTS


CHAP. PAGE

I. "INKPAT!" 1

II. A CASE OF NECESSITY 10

III. 'IN SOLUTION' 20

IV. KEEPING A PROMISE 31

V. THE GREAT ALLIES 42

VI. FRUIT OF THE TREE 53

VII. A CODE AND A THEORY 64

VIII. SUBVERSIVE 74

IX. NO PROCEEDINGS! 85

X. MAUVE ENVELOPES 96

XI. AN UNMENTIONED NAME 107

XII. CHRISTMAS IN WOBURN SQUARE 119

XIII. CHRISTMAS AT SHAYLOR'S PATCH 131

XIV. A COUNSEL OF PERFECTION 143

XV. MRS. NOBODY 155

XVI. A WORD TAKEN AT PLEASURE 167

XVII. THE TRACK OF THE RAIDER 180

XVIII. NOTHING SERIOUS 193

XIX. A POINT OF HONOUR 206

XX. AN HEROIC OFFER 219

XXI. IS HE A BULLY? 233

XXII. JUDGMENT ACCORDINGLY 247

XXIII. THE REGIMENT 261

XXIV. AN ENLIGHTENMENT 274

XXV. "PERHAPS!" 286

XXVI. A FRIEND DEPARTS 300

XXVII. A PHILOSOPHICAL PROJECT 311

XXVIII. THE VIEW FROM A HOUSE 323

XXIX. IN THE RESULT 337




MRS. MAXON PROTESTS




CHAPTER I

"INKPAT!"


"Inkpat!" She shot out the word in a bitter playfulness, making it serve
for the climax of her complaints.

Hobart Gaynor repeated the word--if it could be called a word--after his
companion in an interrogative tone.

"Yes, just hopeless inkpat, and there's an end of it!"

Mrs. Maxon leant back as far as the unaccommodating angles of the office
chair allowed, looking at her friend and counsellor with a faint yet
rather mischievous smile on her pretty face. In the solicitor's big,
high, bare room she seemed both small and very dainty. Her voice had
trembled a little, but she made a brave effort at gaiety as she
explained her cryptic word.

"When a thing's running in your head day and night, week after week, and
month after month, you can't use that great long word you lawyers use.
Besides, it's so horribly impartial." She pouted over this undesirable
quality.

A light broke on Gaynor, and he smiled.

"Oh, you mean incompatibility?"

"That's it, Hobart. But you must see it's far too long, besides being,
as I say, horribly impartial. So I took to calling it by a pet name of
my own. That makes it come over to my side. Do you see?"

"Not quite." He smiled still. He had once been in love with Winnie
Maxon, and though that state of feeling as regards her was long past,
she still had the power to fascinate and amuse him, even when she was
saying things which he suspected of being unreasonable. Lawyers have
that suspicion very ready for women.