In fact, under the new condition of the National Guard service, his immediate officers had nothing to do with his resignation.
The probability of a call to arms, not against Mexico, but against the almost almighty German Empire, was so great that it looked like slackery or cowardice to ask to be excused. His next dread was that the regiment would be mustered in before the case was finished, compelling its postponement and leaving Charity to languish unrevenged.
For his inclusive anger at Everywoman soon changed back to deeper affection than ever. The first sight of her on the witness-stand at the mercy of the inquisition of the unscrupulous Beattie brought back all his old emotions for her and unnumbered new.
He had seen a picture of one of the Christian martyrs whose torture was inflicted on her by a man armed with steel pincers to pluck off her flesh from her shuddering soul bit by bit. It seemed to him that his sainted Charity was condemned to like atrocity. Her hands were bound by the thongs of the law, her body was stripped to the eyes of the crowd, and the tormentor went here and there, nipping at the quick with intolerable cruelty.
And Jim must not go to her rescue. He must not protest or lift a hand in her behalf. He must sit and suffer with her while the anguish squeezed the big sweat out of his knotted brows.
It had been hard enough to await the appearance of the case on the docket, to sit through the selection of the jury, and to study the gradual recruitment of that squad of twelve sphinxes, all commonplace, yet mysterious, lacking in all divinity of comprehension and eager to be entertained with an exciting conflict.
The fact that a woman was the plaintiff was a tremendous handicap for Jim, even though a woman was allied with him in the defense. The very name “co-respondent” condemned her in advance in the public mind. And then she was rich and therefore dissipated in the minds of those who cannot imagine wealth as providing other fascinating businesses besides vice. And Jim was wealthy and therefore a proper object for punishment. If he had earned his millions it must have been by tyrannous corruption; if he had only inherited them that was worse yet.
Beattie lost no chance to play on the baser phases of the noble and essential suspicions of the democratic soul and also on Kedzie's humble origin, her child-like prettiness proving absolutely a child-like innocence and trust, and the homely simplicity of her parents, who, being poor and ignorant, were therefore inevitably virtuous and sincere.
Jim had realized from the first what a guilty aspect his unfortunate excursion with Charity must wear in the eyes of any one but her and him. Even the waiter who was on the ground had unwittingly conspired with their delicacy to put them in a most indelicate situation. Skip went on the stand, reveling in his first experience of fame, basking in the spot-light like a cheap actor, and acting very badly, yet well enough for the groundlings he amused.
Jim and Charity underwent a martyrdom of ridicule during his testimony. A man and woman riding backward on a mule through a jeering mob might seem pathetic enough if one had the heart to deny himself the laughter, but Jim and Charity made their grotesque pilgrimage without exciting sympathy.