“Do you, though? She’s marvelously intelligent. Perhaps she knows more of men, even of jurymen, than I do.”
At lunch they discussed the case. Daventry had had two or three chances given to him by Sir John Addington, and thought he had done quite well.
“Do you think Mrs. Clarke will win?” said Dion.
“I know she’s innocent, but I can’t tell. She’s so infernally unconventional and a jury’s so infernally conventional that I can’t help being afraid.”
Dion thought of his Rosamund’s tranquil wisdom.
“I think Mrs. Clarke’s very clever,” he said. “But I suppose she isn’t very wise.”
“I’ll tell you what it is, old Dion; she prefers life to wisdom.”
“Well, but——” Dion Began.
But he stopped. Now he knew Mrs. Clarke a little better, from her own evidence, he knew just what Daventry meant. He looked upon the life of unwisdom, and he was able to feel its fascination. There were scents in it that lured, and there were colors that tempted; in its night there was music; about it lay mystery, shadows, and silver beams of the moon shining between cypresses like black towers. It gave out a call to which, perhaps, very few natures of men were wholly deaf. The unwise life! Almost for the first time Dion considered it with a deep curiosity.
He considered it more attentively, more curiously, during the afternoon, when Mrs. Clarke’s cross-examination was continued.