. So it is, I daresay,
from a lawyer's point of view.

SIR HOWARD. I hope you're not offended.

LADY CICELY (with the utmost goodhumor). My dear Howard, not a bit. Of
course you're right: you know how these things ought to be done. I'll do
exactly what you tell me, and confirm everything you say.

SIR HOWARD (alarmed by the completeness of his victory). Oh, my dear,
you mustn't act in MY interest. You must give your evidence with
absolute impartiality. (She nods, as if thoroughly impressed and
reproved, and gazes at him with the steadfast candor peculiar to liars
who read novels. His eyes turn to the ground; and his brow clouds
perplexedly. He rises; rubs his chin nervously with his forefinger; and
adds) I think, perhaps, on reflection, that there is something to be
said for your proposal to relieve me of the very painful duty of telling
what has occurred.

LADI CICELY (holding off). But you'd do it so very much better.

SIR HOWARD. For that very reason, perhaps, it had better come from you.

LADY CICELY (reluctantly). Well, if you'd rather.

SIR HOWARD. But mind, Cicely, the exact truth.

LADY CICELY (with conviction). The exact truth. (They shake hands on
it.)

SIR HOWARD (holding her hand). Fiat justitia: ruat coelum!

LADY CICELY. Let Justice be done, though the ceiling fall.

An American bluejacket appears at the door.

BLUEJACKET. Captain Kearney's cawmpliments to Lady Waynflete; and may he
come in?

LADY CICELY. Yes. By all means. Where are the prisoners?

BLUEJACKET. Party gawn to the jail to fetch em, marm.

LADY CICELY. Thank you. I should like to be told when they are coming,
if I might.

BLUEJACKET. You shall so, marm. (He stands aside, saluting, to admit his
captain, and goes out.)

Captain Hamlin Kearney is a robustly built western American, with the
keen, squeezed, wind beaten eyes and obstinately enduring mouth of his
profession. A curious ethnological specimen, with all the nations of
the old world at war in his veins, he is developing artificially in
the direction of sleekness and culture under the restraints of an
overwhelming dread of European criticism, and climatically in the
direction of the indiginous North American, who is already in possession
of his hair, his cheekbones, and the manlier instincts in him, which
the sea has rescued from civilization. The world, pondering on the great
part of its own future which is in his hands, contemplates him with
wonder as to what the d