“How... how did she take it?” Virginia Trent asked.
Mason grinned. “Right in her stride. She shot her wheel chair out in front of the jury right after the verdict, thanked them, and then, as cool as a cucumber, reached up on the clerk’s desk, took the knitting out of her bag, and started right on knitting your sweater.”
Virginia Trent grinned wistfully. “She would,” she said. “And, if the verdict had been the other way, she’d have done the same thing.”
“Yes,” Mason observed, thoughtfully, “I believe she would.”
“Now then,” Mason announced, turning to Della Street, “I’m starved. I dashed out here just as soon as I could get away from the courtroom and ditch the people who were hanging around trying to interview me, shake my hand, and take photographs for the newspapers. The questions is, when do we eat, where do we eat, and what do we eat?”
Della Street said, “We eat in the little restaurant across the street, because the hotel dining room is closed. The probabilities are we’ll eat hamburger sandwiches, and we’re going to have them just as soon as Virginia Trent can take a shower, splash some cold water on her eyes, and realize that there’s nothing to cry about any longer.”
Virginia Trent said, “That would take me too long, I’m afraid... Anyway, I’m not hungry... You folks go ahead and eat... I–I want to telephone someone.”
Della Street said, “I’ve been wrestling with this disciple of black despair all afternoon, Chief. Give me fifteen minutes to freshen up. Can you do that?”
“Fine,” he told her, “I’ll meet you in the lobby.”