Page:Resurrection Rock (1920).pdf/129

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LUCAS' TRICK
117

old phrase with slow deliberateness. "Miss Platt's husband?"

He consciously tried to mention Kincheloe with his customary, slighting contempt; but he did not succeed. When he had spoken quickly in the hall, he had referred to Miss Platt's husband as Kincheloe, and this was the first time he had ever done so to Ethel's knowledge; and his tone, when he had said the name suddenly, also had betrayed the effect of an occurrence which had changed the relation of Miss Platt's husband to him since last night.

"Well; well," he demanded. "What's he done that I don't know? Tell me all about it," he invited.

He let go of her arm and stood back, studying her and taking up his position between her and the door; and he scrutinized her, not as Ethel, his granddaughter, but as a girl who bore a danger to him yet indefinite; so she saw him not as her grandfather, but as a huge, old man with strong hands and relentless jaw and with squinting, warmthless eyes who wanted to make her talk. "Tell me all about it," he invited again. "I want to know all about it."

But she faced him silently, not conscious of what processes were controlling her, until she found herself shaking in a spasm of revulsion from him. Perhaps it was his voice or his manner, imitating his invitation of yesterday when he had made her detail to him the affairs which he already knew and pretended that he did not; with this came cumulated recollections of acts for which responsible men had accused him; there came to her, too, Asa Redbird's recent charge. Altogether she suddenly knew that she had nothing to tell her grandfather, and that he knew all that she did and far more. He knew not