Page:Resurrection Rock (1920).pdf/218

 he do against you? What would he dare try? Kincheloe! But every one could bluff you! You're afraid—you've been chicken-hearted all your life! You trim and turn. Tell 'em all to go to hell, I say!"

He forgot, in his ferocity, what he had been discussing and required a minute or so before he recalled.

"About Ethel's operations; so you don't know anything?"

"Myra sees her, or attempts to, daily; and Bennet gets in there every day."

"Hump! I'll handle the business of some one knowing what's she's about, if you're so eternally afraid of being held up by anybody." He snapped his chewed cigar into the grate and bit on another. "Quinlan," he said to himself but without taking precaution against his son's hearing. "She knew that the night she got here."

"Bennet said," Luke put in, "that she knew only the name."

"Well, where did she hear that?"

Lucas succeeded in dismissing this problem only by forcing his thought about to the idea which had brought up Jaccard.

"I was down at the public library most of the afternoon, Luke," he announced suddenly.

"Where?"

"Afterwards I dropped in at McClurg's; I bought some of the books. I brought them home." He inclined slightly toward that objectionable, single-bedded room which was his. "Sir Horace Clebourne doesn't seem to be the only idiot who takes to that tomfoolery."

"No," said Luke, "they're all sorts."

"Eh? You've been thinking about it too?"