Miss Austin, despairing of colour, made a shift with psychology. "Would you mind telling us, Mrs. Balfame, if you feel a very great dread of the trial? We realise that it must loom a terrible ordeal."
"Oh, of course, the mere thought of all that publicity horrifies me whenever I permit myself to think of it, but it has to be, and that is the end of it, since the real culprit will not come forward. But I feel confident I shall not break down under the strain. I might have done so if the trial had followed immediately upon my arrest, but all these weeks in jail have prepared me for anything."
"But you are not terrified—of—of the outcome? We know and rejoice that the chances are all in your favour, but men are so queer."
"I am not in the least terrified. It is impossible to convict an innocent woman in this country; and then"—inclining her head graciously to the watchful Rush,—"I have the first criminal lawyer in Brabant County to defend me. It is a detestable thought,—to be stared at in the courtroom as if I were an object in a museum,—but I shall keep thinking that in a few days at most it will be over and that I shall then return to the private life I love."
"Yes. And would you mind telling us something of your plans? Shall you continue to live in Elsinore?"
"I shall go far away, to Europe, if possible. I suppose I shall return in time. Of course" (in hasty afterthought) "I should not be contented for very long without my friends; they have grown to be doubly valuable—and valued—during this long term of incarceration. But I must travel for a while."
"That is quite natural. How normal you are, dear Mrs. Balfame!" It was Miss Lauretta Lea who spoke up with enthusiasm. "You are just a sweet, serene, normal woman who couldn't commit a violent act if you tried. Be sure the public shall see you as you are. I don't wonder your friends adore you. Don't mind being stared at. The more people that see you, the more friends you will have."
Her eyes moved to Rush, and she was rewarded by a smile that expressed relief. She was a very experienced reporter and knew exactly how he felt.
"And believe me," she said as they trooped down the stairs, having passed before the Balfame throne and received a limp handshake of dismissal, "that poor man's worried half to death. He'll get about as much help from her on the stand as he would from a tired codfish. But she really is a divinely sweet woman and lovely to look at, and so I'll sob over her for all I'm worth and seclude from the cynical and the sentimental that she has distilled crystal in her veins."
"Did you ever know such a perfectly rotten interview!" Miss Austin was scowling fiercely. "The men did a thousand times better because they took her by surprise, but even they cursed her. I figure out she has made up her Friday Club mind to look the marble goddess minus every female instinct, including a natural desire to shoot a brute of a husband. But I wish she had brain enough to put it over with some pep. She was afraid to be dramatic,—or couldn't be,—and so she was trying to be literary—"