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 he himself had known very well that Assistant State's Attorney Calvin Clarke was different. Had he not even said so to Joan Daisy Royle?

He discerned, however, as he saw his opponent standing quietly, in his refusal to cross-examine, that he had not plumbed quite the full depth of the difference.

His witness looked at him and Elmen arose, smiling as if very well pleased. "Since the State does not venture to cross-question, that is all, Mrs. Folwell," he said. "You may step down," and Elmen advanced with elaborate courtliness, to give his hand to guide her; and immediately, as though it was as he had intended, he sent his chief witness to the stand.

Joan Daisy stepped up, alone, and repeated the oath in a low, excited whisper, and when she turned from the judge and faced the court-room she remained standing.

"You may sit down, Miss Royle," bid Elmen.

She put behind her the hand which she had just raised for the oath and, feeling the back of the chair, she seated herself cautiously.

"What is your name?" Max Elmen propounded in full, resonant voice which seemed visibly to sustain her.

She replied barely audibly; and Elmen repeated her name in sympathetic tones for such of the jury as might not have heard her.

"What is your present age, Joan Daisy?" he inquired.

"I'm twenty."

"She says she is twenty, gentlemen," announced Max, motioning with his hand like a showman in a gesture which irritated Calvin Clarke, but which wholly failed to offend the jury.

"And where have you spent your twenty years, Joan Daisy?" pursued Max pleasantly, indeed almost in jovial curiosity.