on this next witness, as he rose from his seat and with courteous
words of apology to those whom he disturbed in passing made his way to
the centre table.

An absolute embodiment of modern London society, Luke stood there,
facing the crowd, the coroner and jury, as he would have faced friends
and acquaintances in the grand stand at Ascot or in the stalls of a
West End theatre. There are hundreds and thousands of young Englishmen
who look exactly as Luke de Mountford looked that morning: dress is
almost a uniform, in cut, style, and degree of tone; hair and even
features are essentially typical. Luke de Mountford, well-born,
well-bred, behaved just as Eton and Oxford had taught him to behave,
concealing every emotion, raising neither voice nor gesture. An
Englishman of that type has alternately been dubbed hypocritical, and
unemotional. He is neither; he is only conventional. Luke himself,
facing the most abnormal condition of life that could assail any man
of his class, was so absolutely drilled into this semblance of
placidity that it cost him no effort to restrain himself, and none to
face the forest of inquisitive eyes levelled at him from every side.
And since there was no effort, the outward calm appeared perfectly
natural: an actor who has played one part two hundred times and more
does so night after night until the role itself becomes reality, and
he in ordinary every-day life seems even to himself strange and
unnatural.

Now Luke was given the Bible to kiss and told to take the oath. From
where he stood he could see Louisa and a number of faces turned toward
him in undisguised curiosity. Mocking eyes and contemptuous eyes, eyes
of indifference and of horror, met his own as with quick glance they
swept right over the crowd.

I don't think that he really saw any one except Louisa; no living
person existed for him at this moment except Louisa. Hypocritical or
unemotional nature--which? None could say, none would take the trouble
to probe. All that the crowd saw was a man to all intents and purposes
accused of a horrible murder, confronted at every turn with undeniable
proofs of his guilt, and yet standing there just as if he were
witnessing the first act of some rather dull play.

Hypocrisy or effrontery were the two alternatives which the idle and
the curious weighed, whilst anticipating the joy of seeing the mask
torn from this wooden image before them.

The coroner was asking the witness his name, and Luk