Page:Frank Owen - Woman Without Love (1949 reprint).djvu/151

 me as an impostor and I will retire ungracefully from the picture. Of course if you have any scruples about participating in such a case, I can get someone else, but you are the logical one to bring the suit because it is your duty to care for the estate."

"I have no scruples," he admitted. "A lawyer ceases to worry much about ethics after his first five years of practice. We all deal in perjury more or less and never are bothered much by conscience or remorse. If your mind is definitely made up, I'll start action against you. It will be easy to prove that you are Madame Leota."

"I of course will apparently fight the case," said she.

"You'd have to. A woman could not relinquish her rights to a share of such a large estate without making some effort to retain it."

"Perhaps you can suggest a lawyer I might hire to defend me. I would rather one who is not your personal friend."

"I'd suggest Phil Gould. I have only a bowing acquaintance with him. His reputation is first rate."

"I don't want too good a lawyer," she chuckled.

"In that I disagree with you. You would in this instance secure the services of as good a lawyer as you can get. Let me warn you though not to hire a defense lawyer until I commence action against you. I'll get the charges ready as quickly as possible. I believe I can hustle the case through because so much money is involved it must be settled quickly so that the assets of the estate will not be squandered by a woman of low character."

"Bravo!" she cried. "When you sock, you sock."

Ten days later, Mary Blaine raised such a commotion in her room that Dorothy ran upstairs to see what it was all about.

"What's the matter?" she asked. "Are you exploding?"

"Worse than that," was the stormy reply. "That damn Clive Reardon has the nerve to suggest that I am not your father's sister. He is bringing suit against me as an impostor."

Mary had expected Dorothy to show surprise. Instead she laughed at the matter as though it were of trifling importance.

"That's foolish," she said. "Of course you are Mary Blaine. Anyway, whether you are or not, you are satisfactory to me."