human
I'll let O'Rane know at once, I said, getting up again and motioning Beresford to do the same.
gpt
It will be an unsavoury case, Grayle.
human
Which is presumably the reason he's so unwilling to go on with it, Grayle sneered.
gpt
But make no mistake who comes out of it worst. _He_ hasn't bothered to think. Your--proposal I reject with thanks, but I'll make another. You're quite right in thinking that I would sooner not be mixed up in these proceedings any more; if O'Rane will give me a written undertaking to drop them _here--and--now_ and never to revive them, we can let it rest at that.
human
Come along, I said to him.
gpt
We're wasting the nation's time; and the nation won't have the benefit of it much longer.
human
So be it! he said.
gpt
Yet mine was a fairer bargain than yours. There was at least a _quid pro quo_.
human
I'm afraid I don't see it.
gpt
Then I'm afraid your principals haven't instructed you very thoroughly, he answered impatiently.
human
From your general tone to me, you evidently think that I've behaved very badly, that it was my fault, that the sympathy of the court will be entirely with O'Rane and his wife. It may be with O'Rane, he added meaningly.
gpt
I'll tell you at once that I propose to defend the action and, though it's only guess-work, I shall be very much surprised if O'Rane gets a decree.... If he _likes_ washing his wife's dirty linen in public, that's his affair, but what seems to have been overlooked is the attitude of Mrs. O'Rane throughout. To begin with, I can call witnesses to prove that O'Rane repeatedly proclaimed that he wouldn't raise a finger to keep his wife, if she preferred to risk her happiness with another man. She used to say _she_ wouldn't stay with him, if she was unhappy; I can produce witnesses who'll testify to that, too. Any pretence, therefore, that I burst in on a happily married couple and forced them apart is historically untrue. And this will come out in court. But what matters more from the point of view of Mrs. O'Rane's reputation is the evidence--I think you were with me, Stornaway, when she rang me up one night at the House. What you've overlooked in your haste to condemn me, what O'Rane's overlooked in his haste to save his wife's reputation is the part played by his wife. I'll accept full responsibility for my share of whatever's happened, but I'm afraid you'll find it won't ease your position. Mrs. O'Rane's letters to me, which will, of course, be read in court, prove that it was she and she alone----