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appearance in her father's parlor. It was only to be expected that she should resist the fate that would fashion her future out of the materials of her past. She would find soon enough that there were no Lancelots. Not for Rosalie Handys anyway!
    He even debated the wisdom of skipping his visit the following Sunday, to make her miss him, perhaps even to make her jealous. But on a careful review of his situation, he decided that he needed no such tricks. And, as soon as he next entered Mr. Handy's parlor, he saw he had done the right thing. Rosalie came across the room to greet him and led him to the potted palm in the conservatory where two chairs, placed conveniently for conversation, invited a tête-à-tête.
    "Jo tells me that you teach a Sunday school for poor boys!" she began enthusiastically. "I had no idea you did that kind of thing."
    "Yes, I've been teaching for six or seven years now."
    "But that's wonderful!"
    "Why wonderful?"
    "Oh, because I was afraid you were concerned only with Wall Street and making money. Like so many of our men friends. With no concern for the less privileged."
    "My boys are certainly among the less privileged. I've learned to take nothing for granted with them. I don't even assume they know about Adam and Eve. Or Noah's Ark."
    "Is that what you teach them? The Bible?"
    "Well, I figure they might as well get something out of the school. Even if they turn out to be atheists, there's always a value in knowing your Bible. Think of all the references..."
    "So you hedge your bets with God!" she interrupted in a sudden change of mood. "If he doesn't exist, there may still be an advantage in knowing his myths? Oh, yes, let's not waste a thing!"
    "What would
you
teach them?"
    "Something about ethics. Whether it's ever justified to tell a lie. Or to steal. How you reconcile the commandment against killing with war.
If
you can. And slavery. What about slavery? Isn't that the great moral issue of our time?"
    "I don't want to get into controversies with them. Who was allowed in the Ark and who wasn't is about as far as I care to go."
    "You're like Pontius Pilate. You ask for a basin and wash your hands!"
    Dexter burst into a cheerful laugh. "Don't you think, Miss Handy, that you're being just a bit rough on the poor Sunday school teacher? Blaming him for the Crucifixion because he teaches the Bible?"
    She became angry with him then, and again on other visits, but it was always evident that she enjoyed being angry with him. Their discussions were vivid, even heated. They argued about the position of women, the return of fugitive slaves, the wisdom of capital punishment, and invariably disagreed. But he was careful not to strike again the sentimental note for which he was reasonably sure she was waiting. There would have to be a concession, however slight, on her part first. Soon enough it came.
    "I want to come to your law office," she told him one afternoon. "I want to consult you as a client. It will be all perfectly formal. I shall expect, of course, to pay your fee."
    Without demurring in the least to her stated expectation, he made an appointment for the following day. When she appeared in his office, punctually on the hour, he enjoyed a novel sense of superiority. From her quick, shy glances at his sets of law reporters and at the sober lithographs of English judges, he took in that she was suddenly ill at ease. She was no longer Miss Handy in her father's formal parlor. She was a girl in a man's office, a seeker of advice, an amateur before a professional. She related her little problem diffidently, almost apologetically; she was embarrassed, she said, to take up his time with so small a matter.
    It was indeed not a great one. She had recently received in the mail a copy of the will of a deceased cousin who had left her a legacy of five hundred dollars. But the estate had turned out to be much smaller than the decedent could possibly have expected. Should she renounce the bequest?
    "What does