Mrs. Balfame by Gertrude Atherton

It was nearly six o'clock. The court-room with its round white ceiling looked like a crypt in the soft glow of the artificial light, and the Judge, in his black silk gown, with his handsome patrician face, clean-cut but rather soft and flushed with good living, might have been an abbot seated aloft in judgment upon a recalcitrant nun. Mrs. Balfame in her crepe completed the delusion -- if the imaginative spectator glanced no further. The district attorney, who was summing up, looked more like a wasp than ever as he darted back and forth in front of the jury-box, shouting and shaking his fists. Occasionally he would hook his fingers in his waistcoat, balance himself on his heels and with a mere moderation of his rasping tones, demonstrate a contemptuous faith in the strength of his case.

It is to be admitted that his arguments and expositions, his denunciations and satirical refutations, were quite as convincing as those of the counsel for the defence had been, such being the elasticity of the law and of the legal mind; but although an able and powerful speaker, he lacked the personal charm and magnetism, the almost tragical enthusiasm and conviction, alternating with cold deliberate logic, that had thrilled all present to the roots of their beings during the long hours of the morning. Rush, whether he lost or won, had made his reputation as one of the greatest pleaders ever heard at the bar of New York State. He had finished at a quarter to one. Immediately after the opening of the afternoon session Gore had darted into the breach, speaking with a dramatic rapidity for four hours.