JOE PATRICK ARRIVES
If the young actress and Ten Euyck, now at his best as the coroner, had, as Corey had suggested, any previous knowledge of each other, neither of them stooped to signify it now.
"Your name, if you please?"
"Christina Hope."
"Occupation?"
"Actress."
"May one ask a lady's age?"
"Twenty-two years."
She said she was single, and resided with her mother at No. — West 93rd Street. The girl spoke very low, but clearly, and of these dry preliminaries in her case not a syllable was lost. Her audience, leaning forward with thumbs down, still took eagerly all that she could give them. On being offered a chair, she said that she would stand—"Unless, of course, you would rather I did not."
The coroner replied to this biddable appeal—"I shan't keep you a moment longer than is necessary, Miss Hope. I have only to ask you a very few questions. Believe me, I regret fixing your mind upon a painful subject; and nothing that I have hitherto said has been what I may call personally intended. I question in the interests of justice and I hope you will answer as fully as possible in the same cause."