hich of us," he
demanded, "would not in our souls prefer the latter life to the
former? Which of us did not secretly long for the touch of romance,
of strangeness, of beauty, to put something into our lives which they
lacked? But we have not the moral courage to break our prison doors and
to emerge into the nobler world."

"The dull, the drab, the platter-faced and platter-minded people," he
said, in a passage which Dion was always to remember, "who go forever
bowed down beneath the heavy yoke of convention, are too often apt to
think that everything charming, everything lively, everything unusual,
everything which gives out, like sweet incense, a delicate aroma of
strangeness, must be, somehow, connected with wickedness. Everything
which deviates from their pattern must deviate towards the devil,
according to them; every step taken away from the beaten path must
be taken towards ultimate destruction. They have no conception of
intimacies between women and men cemented not by similar lusts
and similar vices, but by similar intellectual tastes and similar
aspirations towards beauty. In color such people always find blackness,
in gaiety wickedness, in liberty license, in the sacred intimacies
of the soul the hateful vices of the body. But you, gentlemen of the
jury----"

His appeal to the twelve in the box at this moment was, perhaps,
scarcely convincing. He addressed them as if, like Mrs. Clarke and
himself, they were enamored of the unwise life, which is only unwise
because we live in a world of censorious fools, and as if he knew it.
The strange thing was that the jury were evidently impressed if not
carried away, by his appeal. They sat forward, stared at Sir John as
if fascinated, and even began to assume little airs which were
almost devil-may-care. But when, with a precise and deliberately cold
acuteness, Sir John turned to the evidence adverse to his client, and
began to tear it to shreds, they stared less, frowned, and showed by
their expressions their efforts to be legal.

As soon as Sir John had finished his speech, the Court rose for the
luncheon interval.

"Are you going out?" said Mrs. Chetwinde to Dion. "I've brought some
horrible little sandwiches, and I shan't stir."

"I'm not hungry. I'll stay with you."

He sighed.

"What a crowd!" he said, looking over the sea of hot, staring faces.
"How horrid people look sometimes!"

"When they're feeling cruel."

She began to eat her sandwiches, which w