The Assistant District Attorney began slowly. Round-shouldered, stooping a bit, in an ill-fitting new coat, with red face and prognathous jaw, he stood for a moment staring at the prisoner. His eyes were burned out as though from lack of sleep. Molineux straightened up in his chair and joined his hands in his lap. Evidently he was summoning all his resolution and all his self-possession. At last he was face to face with the man who for nearly four years had bent every energy of his fierce nature to the task of destroying him; of blackening his home, and branding him with the red mark of murder. And this he knew would be the fiercest assault of all—the final one. He was on guard.
They crossed swords very ceremoniously at first. Beneath all the politeness there was, on one side, a deadly and savage earnestness; on the other was the wariness of the man whose back is to the wall and who fences for his life. And yet how suave they were! They might have been rehearsing the amiable history of Gaston and Alphonse. It was “Mr. Molineux” and “Mr. Osborne.” One almost expected the “My dear Mr. Molineux” and “My dear Mr. Osborne.” And so, with a curious, almost artificial smile on his red and heavy face, the great Apache of the District-Attorney’s office began. He wanted to know about the divorce case.
“How old were you, Mr. Molineux?” he asked.
“Fifteen, Mr. Osborne,” was the answer.
Mr. Osborne looked painfully shocked; just so a man might look should he be arrested as a burglar while making a midnight call upon a friend.
“Fifteen!” he repeated. “And the husband was a dear personal friend of yours, was he not?”
Molineux acknowledged that he knew the husband. The prosecutor nodded significantly to the jurymen. They, being men of the world, and some of them bull-necked men of the world, did not seem to take it very seriously. Molineux seemed rather ashamed of it. Osborne, however, would not let go. Three times he went over it, as a woman wipes a dish, turning it first on this side and then on that. At last the good gray judge wearied of it.
“He’s already answered all that,” he said quietly.
Osborne flashed up like gunpowder. All the savagery in him showed in an instant. It was as though a bulldog had shown his teeth. He took a step forward toward the bench and half snarled, half shouted:
“Your Honor, I can’t cross-examine this witness if you interrupt me like that!”