Page:Henry Northcote (IA henrynorthcote00snairich).pdf/237

 théâtre. The trained perceptions present had an uneasy sense that they had been listening to a masterpiece. Forensically, the means had been entirely adequate to the end; a supremely difficult art had been surmounted by an exquisite skill. Each question had been shaped so naturally, each word was clothed with such true delicacy, that wonderful nuances of feeling were shed by the magic of the living human voice over the sordid and the unclean. Sentence by sentence the fabric of a story that was as old as the world was unrolled until it became a piece of drama. Even professional criticism, which was avowedly hostile, was half-conquered by the infusion of human sympathy into that which could not bear the light. Irrelevant, destitute of real authority as was the whole thing, it was yet allowed to be a performance of rare technical beauty, a pledge of the controlled will-power of its creator. And like all things which are the fruit of an incomparable technique—in itself the reason to be of what is called "art"—it had evoked that subtle emotion which transcends reason and experience. And the least accessible to this malign influence were fain to see that the first nail had been hammered already into the coffin of the prosecution.

The indication of a fight on the part of the defence was extremely distasteful to Mr. Weekes and his junior. Nothing had been farther outside the prediction of these expert practitioners. It had been freely anticipated that by luncheon-time the end would be in view. By then, according to this prolepsis, the defence was to have called its witnesses to testify to the woman's violence when in drink, which would count for little; this youthful