A mistake; he'll catch me up on it too. "There is one," said Hunter mildly. "Perhaps I can make it clearer to counsel later on. Miss Blake, you must have believed—did you not?—that something—maybe not your position as an artist if you say it wasn't that—but something excused you, made it appear all right to you to enter blithely on an adulterous relation with James Doherty."
"I did not enter on it blithely, nor make excuses for myself. I was aware that such a relation is contrary to the principles we give lip-service to in this part of the world."
She can't—she mustn't—
"And also contrary to law?"
"Mr. Hunter, I'm afraid I never stopped to find out whether this is one of the states where adultery is listed as a crime."
With deepening terror Warner understood that she was already becoming raw and recklessly angry, though Hunter had scarcely begun. I must be heard.
"I take that to mean that you hold yourself above the law?"
"I object, your Honor. I submit that in his opening Mr. Hunter laid considerable polite stress on the fact that the indictment charges murder and nothing else. If now he has elected himself some kind of guardian of public morals, if Callista Blake is to be tried after all for a violation of sex conventions—"
"Sir, that's uncalled-for and unjust. My question was phrased in general terms. I think nothing could bear more directly on the credibility of the witness than her respect for law, or lack of it."