with applications to present before the opening of Ellerson v. Ellerson, some mere spectators, pushed their way along the front pews. In the back pews crowded various witnesses, solicitors' clerks, and a favored few among the public who had bluffed or bribed their way in.

Lord Arthur arrived with his solicitor. They stood talking for some moments, and finally sat down. Ronnie, looking up from his brief, could see their two heads, still conferring, below him to his left. The opposing K.C., Sir Martin Duckworth, a smooth-faced, smooth-voiced politician, arrived in a very new silk gown, and asked audibly of his junior if he'd seen the plaintiff. The plaintiff and Sir Peter sidled to their places in front of the clerk's table, turning courteous backs on the defendant. Last of all, five seconds before the opening, Brunton rushed in.

Aliette's husband, looking dignified enough in full legal trappings, nodded at Ronnie; and leaned over to greet his client just as the bewigged clerk announced "Silence"; and Mr. Justice Mallory, a benevolent-looking old image—scarlet baldrick across his wide-sleeved gown, winking spectacles across his creased forehead—appeared through the curtain at the back of his daïs; was risen to by the court; and took his seat.

Various barristers rose up; presented various applications; and sat down again to hear "Ellerson v. Ellerson" or withdrew—according to the degree of busyness they had attained.

For Ellerson v. Ellerson, as "opened" a moment later by Hector Brunton, was more than a cause célèbre: it might, if fought to a decision, go down to legal history as a "test" case, a precedent established for all time. Wherefore the barristers—such as could—stayed.

But the twelve men in the jury-box were not barristers. "His lordship," Brunton told them, "will direct you on the legal questions involved. All I ask you to consider is this. If I prove, as I shall prove to you by the mouths of competent witnesses, that this unhappy, this innocent lady, my client, has been slandered, and vilely slandered—for, mark my words, there is no slander so vile as a slander on a woman's virtue—by the man at whose hands she has the right most to expect protection—by her husband: if I prove to you that, through this slander, she has suffered damage, intellectual damage, social damage, damage to her health and to her reputation: then, gentlemen, I hope you will demonstrate by your verdict that, in England at any rate, a wife is not her husband's property, his chattel to do with as he will, but a free citizeness, as much 

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