“I’d like to speak to you a minute, Gid,” said the girl timidly. “I’m sorry if I’m breaking in on your work.”
“You ain’t a-breakin’ in on my work,” he protested. “Not a bit of it.”
She closed the door behind her and crossed the floor quickly. She was slender, and the wide girdle of black satin that she wore emphasised her slenderness.
The Judge, smiling bashfully, bowed across his desk with mock ceremony. “Take the prisoner’s chair,” he said.
She sat down, but with no answering smile. Her manner was somewhat nervous and her grey eyes were full of concern.
He took his seat behind the desk and leaned toward her. His eyes were grey like her own, and set in a young face so grave, and so lined by thought and care—as well as by long-continued exposure to wind and sun—that, at first glance, he seemed much older than he was. “I don’t have my little talk with Mrs. Luce an’ Jim till ’leven o’clock,” he explained. “An’ so I’m—I’m glad you dropped in.”
Her cheeks grew pink all at once. “I see you been getting some new books.” She nodded toward the column on his right hand.
“Yas; four or five of these come this last week.”
“They cost, too, don’t they? And if you run for district attorney, that’ll take money.”
He was still leaning forward. And now his look suddenly became all eagerness. “Alicia, I got a secret! An’ I been just a-waitin’ t’ tell it to you. I been promised the nomination.”