her quickly, not understanding. He saw her amusement, but did not know what caused it.
"Had you been able to go, then I should have had to ask you to repeat it all to me. I have no authority to require it of you. This is far more convenient."
"Oh - I see." His eyes filled with perception and amusement as well. "Yes - well, you had better go, or you might be late and not obtain a satisfactory seat."
"Yes Major. I shall be back when I am quite sure I have observed everything. Molly has your luncheon prepared, and. . ."
"Never mind." He waved his hands impatiently. "Go on, woman."
"Yes Major."
* * * * *
She was early, as she had said; even so the crowds were eager and she only just got a seat from which she could see all the proceedings, and that was because Monk had saved it for her.
The courtroom was smaller than she had expected, and higher-ceilinged, mote like a theater with the public gallery far above the dock, which itself was twelve or fifteen feet above the floor where the barristers and court oflicials had their leather-padded seats at right angles to the dock.
The jury was on two benches, one behind the other, on the left of the gallery, several steps up from the floor, and with a row of windows behind them. On the farther end of the same wall was the witness box, a curious affair up several steps, placing it high above the arena, very exposed.
At the farther wall, opposite the gallery and the dock, was the red-upholstered seat on which the judge sat. To the right was a further gallery for onlookers, newsmen and other interested parties.
There was a great amount of wooden paneling around the dock and witness box, and on the walls behind the jury and above the dock to the gallery rail. It was all very imposing and as little like an ordinary room as possible, and at the present was so crowded with people one was able to move only with the greatest difficulty.
"Where have you been?" Monk demanded furiously. "You're late."
She was torn between snapping back and gratitude to him for thinking of her. The first would be pointless and only precipitate a quarrel when she least wanted one, so she chose the latter, which surprised and amused him.
The Bill of Indictment before the Grand Jury had already been brought at an earlier date, and a true case found and Alexandra charged.
"What about the jury?" she asked him."Have they been chosen?"
"Friday," he answered. "Poor devils."
"Why poor?"
"Because I wouldn't like to have to decide this case," Monk answered. "I don't think the verdict I want to bring in is open tome."
"No," she agreed, more to herself than to him. "What are they like?"
"The jury? Ordinary, worried, taking themselves very seriously," he replied, not looking at her but straight ahead at the judge's bench and the lawyers' tables below.
"All middle-aged, I suppose? And all men of course."
"Not all middle-aged," he contradicted. "One or two are youngish, and one very old. You have to be between twenty-one and sixty, and have a guaranteed income from rents or lands, or live in a house with not less than fifteen windows - "
"What?"
"Not less than fifteen windows," he repeated with a sardonic smile, looking sideways at her. "And of course they are all men. That question is not worthy of you. Women are not considered capable of such decisions, forlieaven's sake. You don't make any legal decisions at all. You don't own property, you don't expect to be able to decide a man's fete before the law, do you?"
"If one is entitled to be tried before a jury of one's peers, I expect to be able to decide a woman's fate," she said sharply. "And rather more to the point, I expect if I come to trial to have women on the jury. How else could I be judged fairly?"
"I don't think you'd do any better with women," he said, pulling his face into a bitter expression and looking at the fat woman in front of them."Not that it would make the slightest difference if you did."
She knew it was irrelevant. They must fight the case with the jury as it was. She turned around to look at others in the crowd. They seemed to be all manner of people, every age and social condition, and nearly as many women as men. The only thing they had in common was a restless