Culver's dining-room?"
She stopped there and took a good deep breath and waited. There was a
solid minute of silence. The judge got up out of his chair and began
pacing the room with short impatient steps. He stopped with a jerk two
or three times, as if he were about to demolish her with speech, but
always gave up the attempt before a word was spoken.
"Oh, I admit it's a hard case," he said at last. "You've apparently been
a victim of circumstance. The people down in this part of the country
are perhaps narrow. In the main it's a good sort of narrowness. It's
better than the broadness of your cities. But in an isolated case it may
work an injustice." Then he wheeled on her. "But I can't do anything for
you. Can't you see that I can't do anything for you?"
"I don't see," said Rose, "why you can't do what I ask."
"Have it known," shouted the judge, "in this town and all over the
county, and all over the Supreme Court district, as it would be in
another week, that I had gone to John Culver and got a job in his
hotel--the hotel where I go myself, three times a day--for a girl who
got left behind by a stranded comic-opera company? Now can't you see?
I'm coming up for re-election in two years.
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