Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/133

 "What?" said Elmen, fingering the plain cloth of her blue jacket. "You dress very properly," he approved. "And you told that very, very well. That will do, certainly. The facts, as you have told them to me, they will do very well, for the present. We will pass them now." He tweaked the plain, approved blue cloth between his fingers and resumed his seat. "Now," he repeated, "I must ask you to be very frank with me. Herman!" he glanced at his son and at the signal Herman quietly departed, carefully closing the door behind him. "Now, you and I," Max Elmen said confidentially to his client, "we can be completely frank. What have been the actual relations between Ketlar and you?"

Joan Daisy caught her breath. "Why, what has he told you?"

"He is very angry at you yet," replied Elmen, "and perhaps not yet frank with me. But he will be, soon. For the present it is not important. It may never be. Probably I will not put him at all on the stand. He will not have to answer questions for two days, maybe for three. Of course you will," continued Elmen coolly. "I expect to keep you on the stand for at least a day; we will be lucky if the State is through with you in two more. One of the first questions I must ask you—and it will be a question upon which you will certainly be cross-examined severely—is, 'What has been the prisoner to your?' I am asking it now. 'You lived with him?

"No!"

"That has been the actual fact or that will be merely your answer? Of course it must be your answer."

"It is the fact, Mr. Elmen."

"He was not your lover?"

"No."

"But you loved him?"

"No. I don't know."