He was fitting his key into the lock when she came up.  And though he drew his eyebrows down into a frown as he looked at her, it seemed to be rather in the effort to make out who she was, than from any feeling of hostility.  He asked her with a dry and rather affected judicial courtesy, what he could do for her.

“You can do me a service,” said Rose, “that I don’t think you will mind.  Will you let me come in for about a minute and tell you what it is?”

His manner chilled a little, but his curt nod gave her permission to precede him into his office.

The outer room was bleak enough, furnished with three or four hard chairs, a table and an old black walnut desk with a typewriter on it.  His secretary or stenographer was evidently still at dinner, because the room was empty.

The judge walked straight into an inner room and Rose followed him.

It was a big, rather fine-looking room, or so it looked to Rose after the places she had been seeing lately; evidently, from a beam across the middle of the ceiling, cut out of two.  There was a fireplace with a fire in it, a big oak table and a number of easy chairs.  There were two or three good rugs on the floor, and the walls were completely lined with books; the familiar buckram and leather-bound, red-labeled law-books that gave her memory a pang.

In these surroundings, the judge took on an added impressiveness, and he was not an unimpressive-looking man.  He was not large.  Nose, mouth and chin were small and rather fine, and he had the shape of head that is described as a scholar’s.  One might not have remarked it in the hotel dining-room, but in these surroundings, he looked altogether a judge.

But the effect of this on Rose was only to heighten her confidence.  She hadn’t used the dinner hour to think out what she’d say to him.  She’d been thinking of Rodney again.  Somehow, just the rebirth of a sense of power in her, had brought the image of him back.  She was throbbing with that sense now, and her thoughts of Rodney had given her an exhilarating idea.  This man that she was about to confront was one whom Rodney had often confronted.  It was before this man, on the bench of the Supreme Court, up at Springfield, that Rodney had made uncounted arguments.  She would try to do as well as he did.

The judge was staring at her in growing perplexity.  Who in the world could she be.  What did she want?  His very greatness in this little town made him accessible.  It was so unthinkable a thing that any one should intrude upon his time frivolously.  But this girl!  She didn’t belong in the town.  Hadn’t he seen her about the hotel yesterday, with that shabby theatrical troupe?

“You will please be brief,” he said.  “My time is limited.”

“I’ll be as brief as I can,” said Rose.

He sat down in his desk chair, but she did not avail herself of the permission his half-hearted nod toward another chair accorded her; remained standing across the table from him.