The Girl from Farris's. Edgar Rice Burroughs

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СКАЧАТЬ other witnesses are there?" asked Mr. Smith.

      "Only the girl," replied the assistant State attorney; "but you can see from the officer's testimony that it is scarcely worth our while to hear from the girl. You might as well take a vote, Mr. Foreman," he concluded, turning toward Ogden Secor.

      "All those in favor of a true bill raise their right hands," commanded Mr. Secor.

      "Just a moment, Mr. Foreman," interrupted Mr. Smith.

      The assistant State attorney scowled and sighed, then settled back in his chair in martyrlike resignation. Mr. Smith was a thorn in the flesh.

      "It seems to me, Mr. Foreman," said Mr. Smith, "that until we have heard all the witnesses we are in no position to vote intelligently. I, for one, am in favor of calling in the girl."

      "Yes," " Yes," came from several of the jurors.

      The sergeant-at-arms looked toward the assistant State attorney for authority.

      "Call the next witness," said Ogden Secor.

      The sergeant-at-arms was surprised to receive a command from the foreman of the jury, but the assistant State attorney made no demur, so he opened the door.

      "Next witness!" he called, and the grand jury clerk, whose office is just outside the grand jury-room, beckoned to a girl who sat in a chair in the far corner shielding her face with her arm from the glaring eyes of two press cameras. As she rose two flashlights exploded simultaneously. Then she hurried across the room and passed through the doorway into the presence of the grand jury.

      Ogden Secor had had not the faintest curiosity regarding her. From earliest boyhood he had learned to shudder at the very thought of the hideous, painted creatures who plied their sickening vocation in a part of the town to which neither business, accident, nor inclination, had ever led him. For a city-bred man whose boyhood had been surrounded with every luxury and whose spending allowance had been practically unlimited, he was remarkably clean. His high ideals were still unsullied, and though a man's man mentally and physically, morally he was almost a prude.

      It was with difficulty that he raised his eyes to the girl's face as he administered the oath, and it was with a distinct shock of surprised incredulity that he saw that she was neither painted nor hideous. Her brown eyes fell the moment that they met his--there was no slightest sign of boldness in them, and when she turned to face the jury as the assistant State attorney began questioning her her attitude was merely of quiet self-possession.

      The young foreman could not reconcile the refinement of her appearance and the well-modulated voice with his preconceived ideas concerning her kind. He had been prepared for a sort of coarse, animal beauty, perhaps, and he had fully expected gaudy apparel and quantities of cheap jewelry; but instead he saw a demure, quietly dressed girl who might have stepped fresh from a convent. It was appalling to think that she had been an inmate of Farris's.

      As she answered the often brutal questions of the assistant State attorney Ogden Secor watched her profile. He saw that the girl was actually suffering under the ordeal; and he had thought that she would welcome the notoriety and brazenly flaunt her shame in the faces of the jurymen!

      And he saw, too, as he studied her face, that she was not merely ordinarily good-looking--hers was a face that would have been commented upon anywhere as exceptionally beautiful. He could not believe that the girl before him had voluntarily chosen the career she had been following.

      The assistant State attorney had finished questioning her. He had brought out only the simple story she had told Doarty the night he had discovered her upon the fire-escape. It had not been a part of his plan to bring out much of anything bearing on the case. When he had finished Mr. Smith arose.

      "How did you happen to be at Farris's place at all?" he asked. " Did you go there of your own volition?"

      "Yes," replied the girl.

      "You knew the life that you would have to lead there?"

      " No; I did not know what kind of place it was."

      "Tell us how you came there then," said Mr. Smith.

      "I would rather not," she replied. "It has no bearing upon this case."

      "Would you go back there if Farris would take you?" asked another jury-man.

      "He will not take me."

      "What do you intend doing?"

      "I shall have to go to some other city where I am not known."

      "And there you will continue the--ah--the same vocation?"

      "What else is there for me?" she asked.

      "There are many good men who would help you," said Mr. Smith. She shrugged, and for the first time Secor caught a note of hardness in her voice as she replied.

      "There are no good men," she said.

      There was a finality to her statement that put an end to further questioning.

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