She had forgotten Paul for the time being, and was defending Jack.
“And he was perfectly straight while he was there,—sober, I mean?”
“Perfectly,” Elithe replied, wondering why such questions should be asked her, and, glancing at her aunt, whose glasses had slipped to the end of her nose and who, under her breath, was calling the lawyer a “dum fool,” notwithstanding that he was on Paul’s side, and for his sake trying to confuse Elithe.
“If he were so sober and circumspect in Samona while you were there, why did he change, do you think?” was the next query, to which Elithe’s reply was quick and decisive:
“I supposed I was here to tell what I know, and not what I think.”
Paul’s hands struck each other in a wordless cheer; the boys in the gallery laughed, and the lawyer’s gaze came back from the spider and the fly to this slip of a girl, who had more backbone than he had given her credit for. Her eyes were still upon him,—very tired now and worried and beseeching, as if asking him to let her go and leave Jack Percy in his grave. He had no such intention. If he could prove her prepossession in Jack’s favor he would gain a point, and thus, perhaps, weaken her testimony by showing that her evidence was biased.
“True,” he said, “you are here to tell what you know. You and Mr. Percy were great friends? Isn’t that so?”
“We were good friends. Yes.”
“And you liked him very much?”
“Dum fool!” Miss Hansford said, louder than before, while her glasses dropped from her nose to the floor, where they lay unheeded.