"Hush! It's going to begin."
Mr. Waltham, Sir Joseph's junior, opened the pleadings in an undertone, which sent all the picture-hats distracted. They thought they were losing the fun. And then a thrill ran round the Court as Sir Joseph Jalland rose in his might, adjusted his pince-nez, trifled with the leaves of his brief, and then slowly began to unfold his case. The deep, grave voice made all the aigrets shiver, and every lorgnette and binocular was turned to him.
"This greatly injured lady—this lady, whose life of blameless purity, life spent in an exalted sphere—in the sheltered haven of a congenial marriage, this lady whose spotless character should have shielded her from the lightest breath of slander, has been made a target for the salaried traducer of a venomous rag that calls itself a newspaper, and has been allowed to drivel its poisonous paragraphs week after week, secure in its insignificance, and a disgrace to the Press to which it pretends to belong," flinging down the South London Bon Ton on the desk before him, with a movement of unutterable loathing, as if his hand recoiled instinctively from the foul contact. "She has been made the subject of a slander so futile, so preposterous, that one marvels less at the malice of the writer than at his imbecility. A woman of gentle birth and exalted position, hemmed round and protected by all those ceremonial ramparts that are at once the restraint and privilege of wealth and social status, is supposed to have roamed the Continent with her paramour, braving public opinion with the brazen hardihood of the trained courtesan."
This and much more, in its proper place and sequence, did Sir Joseph's deep voice give to the listening ears of the Court, before he summoned his first witness, in the person of the plaintiff, Grace Perivale.
Her evidence was given in a steady voice and with perfect self-control.
"Did you ever travel on the Continent with Colonel Rannock?"
"Never."
"Were you in Corsica in the January of this year?"
"No."
"Or in Algiers in February?"