“You were! How interesting! Go where you may, the world’s the same! The charmer spreads her snare even up in the cove! And you and Reuben Lorey fell together in it, two willing victims. And as he got the best of it, as the lady preferred him, it would be natural that you should have some little grudge against him, hey?”
“I dunno how he got the best of it,” said Rood sharply. “I ain’t got no grudge agin him fur that. ’Twar jes’ yestiddy she sent me word by her mother ter kem back; she war jes’ foolin’ Mink.”
He was evidently glad to tell it; he did not care even for the giggle in the crowd.
The lawyer was abashed for a moment, and Mink, so long accustomed to be rated a breaker of hearts, a lady-killer, was grievously cut down. In all the episodes of that day which had so bristled with animosity this was the first moment that his spirit flagged, despite that he had never heretofore cared for Elvira,—did not care for her now.
Rood hardly was aware how the examination was tending; in the interests of self-defense he had overlooked its purpose. He stood staring with blank amaze when the judge’s voice ended the discussion.
“The juror is competent,” he said.
The two remaining talesmen being unchallenged, the jury was duly impaneled and sworn.
The court was adjourned. The sleepy crowd filed out into the streets, the lights in the court-house windows disappeared, and a dark and vacant interval ensued.