“No. It is not true.”
Dinny, who knew that it was, looked up. The Judge’s eyes were still fixed above her head, but she saw the slight pouting of his lips. He did not believe the answer.
The slow rich voice was speaking, and she caught in it a peculiar veiled triumph.
“You swear that?”
“Yes.”
“So your husband has gone out of his way to commit perjury in making that statement?”
“It is his word against mine.”
“And I think I know which will be taken. Is it not true that you have made the answer you have in order to save the feelings of the co-respondent?”
“It is not.”
“From first to last, can we attach any more importance to the truth in any of your answers than to the truth in that last?”
“I don’t think that is a fair question, Mr. Brough. The witness does not know what importance we attach.”
“Very good, my Lord. I’ll put it another way. THROUGHOUT have you told the truth, Lady Corven, and nothing but the truth?”
“I have.”
“VERY well. I have no more to ask you.”
During the few questions put to her sister, in a re-examination which carefully avoided the last point, Dinny could think only of young Croom. At heart she felt the case was lost, and longed to take Clare and creep away. If only that man behind with the hooked nose had not tried to blacken Corven and prove too much, this last mine would not have been sprung! And yet—to blacken the other side—what was it but the essence of procedure!
When Clare was back in her seat, white and exhausted, she whispered:
“Would you like to come away, darling?”
Clare shook her head.
“James Bernard Croom.”
For the first time since the case began Dinny had a full view, and hardly knew him. His tanned face was parched and drawn; he looked excessively thin. His grey eyes seemed hiding under their brows, and his lips were bitter and compressed. He looked at least five years older, and she knew at once that Clare’s denial had not deceived him.
“Your name is James Bernard Croom, you live at Bablock Hythe, and are in charge of a horse-breeding establishment there? Have you any private means?”
“None whatever.”
It was not Instone who was examining, but a younger man with a sharper nose, seated just behind him.
“Up to September last year you were superintending a tea plantation in Ceylon? Did you ever meet the respondent in Ceylon?”
“Never.”
“You were never at her house?’
“No.”
“You have heard of a certain polo match in which you played, and after which she entertained the players?”
“Yes, but I didn’t go. I had to get back.”
“Was it on the boat, then, that you first met her?”
“Yes.”
“You make no secret of the fact that you fell in love with her?”
“None.”
“In spite of that, is there any truth in these allegations of misconduct between you?”
“None whatever.”
And as the evidence he gave to the Court went on and on, Dinny’s eyes never left his face, as if fascinated by its constrained but bitter unhappiness.
“Now, Mr. Croom, this is my last question: You are aware that if these allegations of misconduct were true, you would be in the position of a man who has seduced a wife in her husband’s absence. What have you to say to that?”
“I have to say that if Lady Corven had felt for me what I feel for her, I should have written to her husband at once to tell him the state of things.”
“You mean that you would have given him warning before anything took place between you?”
“I don’t say that, but as soon as possible.”
“But she did NOT feel for you what you felt for her?”
“I am sorry to say, no.”
“So that in fact no occasion to inform the husband ever arose?”
“No.”
“Thank you.”
A slight stiffening of young Croom’s figure heralded Brough’s rich slow voice, saying with peculiar deliberation:
“In your experience, sir, are the feelings of lovers towards each other ever the same?”
“I have no experience.”
“No experience? You know the French proverb as to there being always one who kisses and the other who offers the cheek to the kiss?”
“I’ve heard it.”
“Don’t you think it’s true?”
“About as true as any proverb.”
“According to the stories you both tell, you were pursuing in her husband’s absence a married woman who didn’t want you to pursue her? Not a very honourable position—yours—was it? Not exactly what is called ‘playing the game’?”
“I suppose not.”
“But I suggest, Mr. Croom, that your position was not as dishonourable as all that, and that in spite of the French proverb she DID want you to pursue her?”
“She did not.”
“You say that in face of the cabin incident; in face of her getting you in to distemper her walls; in face of the invitation to tea and to spend over half an hour with her at nearly midnight in those convenient rooms of hers; in face of the suggestion that you should spend the night with her in a car, and come to breakfast the morning after? Come, Mr. Croom, isn’t that carrying your chivalry rather far? What you say has to convince men and women of the world, you know.”
“I can only say that, if her feelings for me had been what mine were for her, we should have gone away together at once. The blame is entirely mine, and she has only treated me kindly because she was sorry for me.”
“If what you both say is true, she gave you hell—I beg your pardon, my Lord—in the car, didn’t she? Was that kind?”
“When a person is not in love I don’t think they realise the feelings of one who is.”
“Are you a cold-blooded person?”
“No.”
“But she is?”
“How is the witness to know that, Mr. Brough?”
“My Lord, I should have put it: But you think she is?”
“I do not think so.”
“And yet you would have us think that she was kind in letting you pass the night with her head on your shoulder? Well, well! You say if her feelings had been yours, you would have gone away at once. What would you have gone away on? Had you any money?”
“Two hundred pounds.”
“And she?”
“Two hundred a year, apart from her job.”
“Flown away and lived on air, eh?”
“I should have got some job.”
“Not your present one?”
“Probably not.”
“I suggest that both of you felt it would be mad to fling your caps over the windmill like that?”
“I never felt so.”
“What made you defend this action?”
“I wish we hadn’t.”
“Then why did you?”
“She thought, and her people thought, that as we had done nothing, we ought to defend.”
“But YOU didn’t think so?”
“I didn’t think we should be believed, and I wanted her free.”
“Her honour didn’t occur to you?”
“Of course it did; but I thought for her to stay tied was too heavy a price to pay for it.”
“You say you didn’t think you’d be believed? Altogether too improbable a story?”
“No; but the more one speaks the truth, the less one expects to be believed.”
Dinny saw the Judge turn and look at him.
“Are you speaking generally?”
“No, my Lord, I meant here.”
The Judge’s face came round again and his eyes studied the unseen above Dinny’s head.
“I am considering, you know, whether I should commit you for contempt of Court.”
“I am sorry, my Lord; what I meant was that anything one says is turned against one.”
“You speak out of inexperience. I will let it pass this time, but you mustn’t say things of that sort again. Go on, Mr. Brough.”
“The question of damages, of course, didn’t affect you in making up your mind to defend this action?”
“No.”
“You have said that you have no private means. Is that true?”
“Certainly.”
“Then how do you mean that it didn’t affect you?”