We Can't Have Everything Part 101

"I--I--I believe I do. But I didn't see what he wrote."

"You didn't see what he wrote. Exhibit A shows that he wrote '_Mr. and Mrs. James Dysart_.' You heard the handwriting experts testify that the writing was Dyckman's. But you did not see the writing. Did you not, however, hear the waiter speak of you as the defendant's wife?"

"Well--I may have heard him."

"You didn't tell him that you were not the defendant's wife?"

"I didn't speak to the waiter at all. It was a very embarra.s.sing situation."

"It must have been. So you did not deny that you were the defendant's wife?"

"You see, it was like this. When Mr. Dyckman asked me to try his new car--"

"You did not deny that you were the defendant's wife?"

"I hadn't the faintest idea that we could have gone so far--"

"Answer the question!"

"But I'm coming to that--"

The judge: "Witness will answer question."

"But, your Honor, can't I explain? Has he a right to ask these horrible things in that horrible way?"

The lawyer: "We are trying to get at the horrible truth. But if you prefer not to answer I will not press the point. The waiter showed you to the parlor, saying that the rest of the hotel was occupied?"

"Yes."

"He left you there together, you and the defendant?"

"Well, he went away, but--"

"And left you together. He so testified. He also testified that he found you together the next morning. Is that true?"

"Oh, that's outrageous. I refuse to answer."

Jim Dyckman rose from his chair in a frenzy of wrath. His lawyer, McNiven, pressed him back and pleaded with him in a whisper to remember the court. He yielded helplessly, cursing himself for his disgraceful lack of chivalry.

The judge spoke sternly. "Witness will answer questions of counsel or--"

"But, your Honor, he is trying to make me say that I--Oh, it's loathsome. I didn't. I didn't. He has no right!"

When a woman's hair is caught in a traveling belt and she is drawn backward, screaming, into the wheels of a great machinery that will mangle her beauty if it does not helplessly murder her there are not many people whose hearts are hard enough to withhold pity until they learn whether or not her plight was due to carelessness.

There are always a few, however, who will add their blame to her burden, and they usually invoke the name of justice for their lethargy of spirit.

Yet even the cruelty of that severity is a form of self-protection against a shattering grief; and a perfect heart would have pity even for the pitiless, since they, too, are the victims of their own carelessness; they, too, are drawn backward into the soul-crus.h.i.+ng cogs of the world.

Mrs. Charity Coe Cheever, as good a woman as ever was, was being dragged to the meeting-point of great wheels, but she had turned about and was fighting to escape, at least with what was dearer than her life. The pain and the terror were supreme, and even if she wrenched free from destruction it would be at the cost of lasting scars. Yet she fought.

It had been all too easy for the infuriated Kedzie Dyckman to entangle Charity in the machinery. Kedzie was a little terrified at the consequences of her own act, though she would have said that she did it in self-defense and to punish an outrage upon her rights. But when persons set out to punish other persons, it is not often that their own hands are altogether innocent.

If the Christly edict, "Let him that is without sin cast the first stone," had been followed out there would never have been another stone cast. And one might ask if the world would have been, or could have been, the worse for that abstention. For, whatever else may be true, the venerable practices of justice have been false and futile.

And now, nearly two thousand years later, after two thousand years more of heartbreaking history, an increasing few are asking bitterly if punishment has ever paid.

Vaguely imagining on one side the infinite misery and ugliness of the dungeons and tortures, the disgraces and executions of the ages with their counter-punishment on the inquisitors and the executioners, and setting against them that uninterrupted stream of deeds we call crimes, what is the picture but a ghastly vanity--an eternal process of trying to dam the floods of old Nile by flinging in forever poor wretch after poor wretch to drown unredeemed and unavailing?

Charity was the latest sacrifice. If she had been guilty of loving too wildly well, or of drifting unconsciously into a situation where opportunity made temptation irresistible, there would be a certain reaction to pity after she had been definitely condemned. There are at times advantages in weakness, as women well know, though Charity despised them now.

Kedzie's lawyer, however, felt it good tactics to a.s.sume now the pose of benevolent patience with an erring one. Seeing that Charity was in danger of stirring the hearts of the jurors by her suffering, he forestalled their sympathy and murmured:

"I will wait till Mrs. Cheever has regained control of herself."

Instantly Charity's pride quickened in her. She wanted none of that beast's pity. She responded to the strange sense of discipline before fate that makes a man walk soldierly to the electric chair; inspires a caught spy to stand placidly before his own coffin and face the firing-squad; led Joan of Arc after one panic of terror to wait serene among the crackling f.a.gots.

The lawyer was relieved. He had been afraid that Charity would weep. He resumed the probe:

"And now, Mrs. Cheever, if you are quite calm I will proceed. I regret the necessity of asking these questions, but you were not compelled to come into court. You came of your own volition, did you not?"

"Yes."

"Witnesses have testified and you have not denied that you arrived at the Viewcrest Inn late at night; that you saw the defendant register; that you and he went to the only room left; that the waiter left you together and found you together the next morning. You have heard that testimony, have you not?"

"Yes."

"Knowing all this, do you still claim that your conduct was above reproach?"

"For discretion, no. I was foolish and indiscreet."

"And that was all?"

"Yes."

"You are innocent of the charge, then?"

"Yes."

"Do you ask the jury to believe you?"

"I ask them to--yes! Yes! I ask them to."

"Do you expect them to?"

"Oh, they ought to."

"If you had been guilty of misconduct would you admit it?"