He considered it more attentively, more curiously, during the afternoon, when Mrs. Clarke’s cross-examination was continued.

It was obvious that during this trial two women were being presented to the judge and jury, the one a greedy and abominably secret and clever sensualist, who hid her mania beneath a cloak of intellectuality, the other a genuine intellectual, whose mental appetites far outweighed the appetites of her body, who was, perhaps, a sensualist, but a sensualist of the spirit and not of the flesh.  Which of these two women was the real Cynthia Clarke?  The jury would eventually give their decision, but it might not be in accordance with fact.  Meanwhile, the horrible unclothing process was ruthlessly proceeded with.  But already Dion was becoming accustomed to it.  Perhaps Mrs. Clarke’s self-possession helped him to assimilate the nauseous food which was offered to him.

Beadon Clarke was in court, and had been pointed out to Dion, an intellectual and refined-looking man, bald, with good features, and a gentle, but now pained, expression; obviously a straight and aristocratic fellow.  Beside him sat his mother, that Lady Ermyntrude who, it was said, had forced on the trial.  She sat upright, her eyes fixed on her daughter-in-law, a rather insignificant small woman, not very well dressed, young looking, with hair done exactly in Queen Alexandra’s way, and crowned with a black toque.

Dion noticed that she had a very firm mouth and chin.  She did not look actively hostile as she gazed at the witness, but merely attentive—­deeply, concentratedly attentive.  Mrs. Clarke never glanced towards her.

Perhaps, whatever Lady Ermyntrude had believed hitherto, she was now beginning to wonder whether her conception of her son’s wife had been a wrong one, was beginning to ask herself whether she had divined the nature of the soul inhabiting the body which now stood up before her.

About an hour before the close of the sitting the heat in the court became almost suffocating, and the Judge told Mrs. Clarke she might continue her evidence sitting down.  She refused this favor.

“I’m not at all tired, my lord,” she said.

“She’s made of iron,” Mrs. Chetwinde murmured to Dion.  “Though she generally looks like a corpse.  She was haggard even as a girl.”

“Did you know her then?” he whispered.

“I’ve known her all my life.”

Daventry wiped his brow with a large pocket-handkerchief, performing the action legally.  One of the jurymen, who was too fat, and had something of the expression of a pug dog, opened his mouth and rolled slightly in his seat.  The cross-examination became with every moment more disagreeable.  Beadon Clarke never lifted his eyes from his knees.  All the women in court, except Mrs. Chetwinde and Mrs. Clarke, were looking strangely alive and conscious.  Dion had forgotten everything except Stamboul and the life of unwisdom.  Suppose Mrs. Clarke had lived the