Page:Steadfast Heart.djvu/307

 together, dressed himself in something like his old pomposity, and with spurious nonchalance wished Gene Goff the time of day, the while he fumbled in an inner pocket. His actions were those of a man desiring to impress the beholder with the casualness, the unimportance of the thing he did.

Gene coughed. “Judge Crane, Mr. Burke said you was to step in to see him if you come in.”

Crane glared. “He did, did he?… Well, you tell him I’m too busy…. I—”

“He says I wasn’t to do any business with you ’till after he’d seen you,” Gene said.

“What does this mean? The impertinent puppy! I’ll see him. Oh, I’ll see him all right—and when I’m through he’ll have a new set of manners….” He flung himself away from the window and rushed toward Angus’s door, bursting into the room a-tremble with rage.

“Sit down, Judge Crane,” Angus said quietly. There was a tenseness, a decision, a sureness about Angus as he leaned forward in his chair which would have impressed another than his visitor…. He knew he stood on delicate ground, felt a breathlessness, a hollowness at the pit of his stomach—yet was resolved to go through with the matter as he hoped his employer would have gone through with it.

Crane did not sit down. His features worked