When, in the theatre, a trial scene is depicted, it is necessary to interpose dramatic episodes, but no one misses these adventitious incidents in a real trial for murder, so dramatic is the bare fact that a human being is battling for his life. When the prisoner at the bar is a woman reasonably young and good looking, the interest is so intense and complete that the sudden intrusion of one of the incidents which have become the staples of the theatre, such as the real culprit rushing into the courtroom and confessing himself, a suicide in the witness-box, or dramatic conduct on the part of the defendant, would be resented by the spectators, as an anti-climax. Real drama is too logical and grimly progressive to tolerate the extrinsic.
The three other men who had been at Mr. Cummack's house that night were called, and corroborated his story. They all wore an expression of gentle amusement as if the bare idea of the stately and elegant Mrs. Balfame descending to play even a passive rôle in a domestic row was as unthinkable as that any woman could find aught in David Balfame to rouse her to ire.
"By Jove!" whispered Mr. Broderick to Mr. Wagstaff of the Morning Flag, "just figure to yourself what the line would be if she had been caught red-handed and was putting up a defence of temporary insanity caused by the well-known proclivities of that beast. A good subject for a cartoon would be Dave Balfame in heaven with a tin halo on, whitewashing Mrs. B., weeds and all. The human mind is nothing but a sewer."
The afternoon session was also enlivened by the testimony of several of the ladies who had been members of the bridge party on the day of Mr. Balfame's unseemly conduct at the Club. They testified that although Mrs. Balfame naturally dissolved upon her return to the card-room, there had been nothing whatever in her demeanour to suggest seething passion. Mrs. Battle, who was an imposing figure in the witness chair, her greater bulk being above the waist, tossed her head and asseverated with refined emphasis that Mrs. Balfame was one of those rare and exquisite beings that are temperamentally incapable of passion of any sort. Her immediate return to her home was prompted more by delicacy than even by pain. Miss Crumley's pencil faltered as she listened. She could not give a jeering public even a faithful outline of a woman as devoted to the sacred cause of friendship and Elsinore as Mrs. Battle.
The testimony of none of these ladies was more emphatic than that of Mrs. Bascom, wife of the supplanted justice, and she added unexpectedly that she had been so upset herself that she too had left the clubhouse immediately, and, her swift car passing Dr. Anna Steuer's little runabout, she had seen Mrs. Balfame chatting pleasantly and without a trace of recent emotion.
Mrs. Balfame almost relaxed the set curves of her mouth at this surprising statement. She recalled that a car had passed and that she had wondered at the time if any one had noticed her extreme agitation. She kept her muscles in order, but unconsciously her eyes followed Mrs. Bascom, as she left the witness-chair, with an expression of puzzled gratitude.
The District Attorney turned to the reporters with a short sardonic laugh, and Mr. Broderick shook his head as he murmured to Mr. Wagstaff:
"Can you beat that? And yet they say women don't stand by one another."
"Good for the whole game, I guess," replied the young Flag star, who was enamoured of a very pretty suffragette.
The Judge rose, and the afternoon session was over. The great case of The People vs. Mrs. Balfame rested until the following morning.