So sweet the air smelled that it made her ache
with delight to breathe it in. Each leaf that lived out there, each
flower, each blade of grass, were sworn to conspiracy of perfume. And
she thought: 'They MUST all love each other; it all goes together so
beautifully!' Then, mingled with the incense of the night, she caught
the savor of woodsmoke. It seemed to make the whole scent even more
delicious, but she thought, bewildered: 'Smoke! Cruel fire--burning the
wood that once grew leaves like those. Oh! it IS so mixed!' It was a
thought others have had before her.

CHAPTER XXIV

To see for himself how it fared with the big laborer at the hands of
Preliminary Justice, Felix went into Transham with Stanley the following
morning. John having departed early for town, the brothers had not
further exchanged sentiments on the subject of what Stanley called 'the
kick-up at Joyfields.' And just as night will sometimes disperse the
brooding moods of nature, so it had brought to all three the feeling:
'Haven't we made too much of this? Haven't we been a little extravagant,
and aren't we rather bored with the whole subject?' Arson was arson; a
man in prison more or less was a man in prison more or less! This was
especially Stanley's view, and he took the opportunity to say to Felix:
"Look here, old man, the thing is, of course, to see it in proportion."

It was with this intention, therefore, that Felix entered the building
where the justice of that neighborhood was customarily dispensed. It was
a species of small hall, somewhat resembling a chapel, with distempered
walls, a platform, and benches for the public, rather well filled that
morning--testimony to the stir the little affair had made. Felix,
familiar with the appearance of London police courts, noted the efforts
that had been made to create resemblance to those models of
administration. The justices of the peace, hastily convoked and four in
number, sat on the platform, with a semicircular backing of high gray
screens and a green baize barrier in front of them, so that their legs
and feet were quite invisible. In this way had been preserved the really
essential feature of all human justice--at whose feet it is well known
one must not look! Their faces, on the contrary, were entirely exposed
to view, and presented that pleasing variety of type and unanimity of
expression peculiar to men keeping an open mind. Below them, with his
face toward the publ