XXIX
AT SHONOHO INN
Evan Blount's interview with the venerable chief justice was not at all
what he had imagined it would be. To begin with, he found it blankly
impossible to take the attitude he had meant to take--namely, that of a
conscientious member of the bar, rigorously ignoring all the little
cross-currents of human sympathy and the affections.
Almost at once he found himself telling his story incident by incident
to the kindly old man who was figuring rather as a father confessor than
as a judge and a legal superior. When it was done, and the chief justice
had gone thoughtfully over the mass of evidence, Blount saw no
thunder-cloud of righteous indignation gathering upon the judicial brow.
Nor was Judge Hemingway's comment in the least what he had expected it
would be.
"I can not commend too highly your prudence and good judgment in
bringing these papers to me, Mr. Blount," was the form the comment took.
"Your position was a difficult one, and not one young man in a hundred
would have been judicious enough to choose the conservative middle path
you have chosen. The fanatic would have rushed into print, and the vast
majority would have weakly compromised with conscience. It is a source
of the deepest satisfaction to me, as your father's friend, to find that
you have done neither.
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