The reporter glanced cautiously about. “It’ll help if you can go both ways on four paws; the judge doesn’t like to think that he’s boring any member of the press, and if he sees one of us escaping, he’s liable to call out the machine guns. Take long, deep breaths and pretend that it’s day after tomorrow.”
The red-headed girl gave him a look of dazed scorn and moved toward the left-hand door at a gait that came as close to being on four paws as was compatible with the dignity of the press. The fat officer gave one alarmed look at her small, wan face and hastily opened the door. She crawled through it, discovered the stairs, mounted them obediently and sank somewhat precipitately to rest on the sixth one from the top.
Down below, she could hear the mob outside of the great centre doors, shuffling and grunting and yapping—— Ugh! Ugh! She shuddered and propped up her elbows on her knees and her head on her hands, and closed her eyes and closed her ears and breathed deeply and fervently.
“If ever I go to a murder trial again—— What happens to you when you don’t sleep for a week? . . . If ever—I—go——”
Someone was saying, “Hey!” It was a small, freckled boy in a messenger’s cap, and he had evidently been saying it for some time, as his voice had a distinctly crescendo quality. He extended one of the familiar telegraph blanks and vanished. The red-headed girl read it solemnly, trying to look very wide awake and intelligent, as is the wont of those abruptly wakened.
The telegram said: “Come home. All is forgiven, and he’s through with the evidence. It’s going to the jury in a split second. Hurry!”
She hurried. Quite suddenly she felt extraordinarily wide awake and amazingly alert and frantically excited. She was a reporter—she was at a murder trial—they were going to consider the verdict. She flew down the white marble stairs and around the first corner and through the crack of the door proffered by the startled guard. There were wings at her heels and vine leaves in her hair. She felt like a giant refreshed—that was it, a giant. . . .
The reporter eyed her with his mouth open. “Well, for heaven’s sake, what’s happened to you?”
“Everything’s all right, isn’t it?” she demanded feverishly. “They won’t be out long, will they? There’s nothing——” A familiar voice fell ominously on her ears and she jerked incredulous eyes toward the throne of justice. “Oh, he’s still talking! You said he was through—you did! You said——”
“I said through with the evidence, and so he is. This is just a back fire. If you’ll keep quiet a minute you’ll see.”