Now Judge Elkhorn was a man head and shoulders above his fellows in much that makes average manhood. He was very wealthy, too; and Reginald thought of both these facts as he watched Ethelbert and the judge; and forty thousand fiends took hold of him within. The judge, intent on the object of his visit, had at first given that casual bow and glance with which one habitually recognizes the presence of a fellow-being; but the look on Reginald’s countenance arrested his notice, so that the two men for a moment faced each other with a well-defined stare; and during this moment Reginald’s countenance perceptibly grew more red, lowering, and akin to the bulldog character of expression, and Judge Elkhorn’s more self-poised. The next moment Reginald arose with an impulse to get away; but as Ethelbert had at the very same moment set forward two cane chairs, he seated himself composedly with a set to his jaw that was not lost to the notice of his hostess. The judge preserved silence with the air of a man who recognizes the fact that it was perfectly in order that the first visitor should take his departure; and an air that reminded one that he was suppressing all knowledge of the fact that this man’s presence was a very questionable advantage to the lady favored with it. Ethelbert, instead of running to the rescue and disguising these men’s characters from one another and herself by a flood of small talk, sat thinking faithfully on Reginald’s very best qualities, and looking at the moss rosebud which he held by the stem in such a way as to conceal from the eye the flower which was under his half-closed hand. And when she seated herself a trifle nearer him than to the judge, Reginald recognized the gentle influence, and with an impulse of some kind, pinned the bud on his coat lapel.