Sampson's face brightened. “I know a John Drew,” he said. The lawyer shook his head and smiled. “But he's not in the loan business,” he added.
“Do you know Miss Alexandra Hildebrand, the granddaughter of this defendant? The lady sitting beside him?”
For the first time, Sampson directed his attention to the woman. His glance, instead of being casual and perfunctory, as he had expected it would be, developed into a prolonged stare that left him shy and confused. She was looking into his eyes, calmly, seriously, and, he thought, a bit speculatively, as if she were estimating his mental displacement. As a matter of fact, she was merely detaching him from the others who had gone before. He had the strange, uncomfortable feeling that he was being appraised by a most uncompromising judge. His stare was not due to resentment on his part because of her cool inspection. It was the result of suddenly being confronted by the loveliest girl he had ever seen—unquestionably the loveliest.
It seemed an affront to this beautiful, clear-eyed creature to say that he did not know her. To say it to her face, too—with her eyes upon him—why, it was incomprehensibly rude and ungallant. He ought to have been spared this unnecessary humiliation, he thought. How would she feel when he deliberately, coldly insulted her by uttering a bald, harsh negative to the question that had been asked?
“I—I am afraid not,” he managed to qualify, hoping for a slight smile of acknowledgement.
“Would you be inclined to favour the defendant because of his age, Mr. Sampson?”
Sampson hesitated. Here was his chance. He looked again at Miss Alexandra Hildebrand. She was still regarding him coolly, impersonally. After all, he was nothing to her but a juror—just an ordinary, unwholesome specimen undergoing examination. If he was rejected, he would pass out of her mind on the instant and never again would he be permitted to enter. He felt very small and inconsequential.