Mrs. Maxon Protests

"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.