Page:The Millbank Case - 1905 - Eldridge.djvu/224

 CHAPTER XIV

A Duel

Mrs. Matthewson entered the little parlour, where she had met Trafford, for the purpose of keeping another appointment—one that she had not wanted to make and which she had not yet dared refuse. When she visited her son, she knew the name of the man who, under his direction, was hunting down Theodore Wing's mother, but she did not know the man. Now she was to meet him face to face. She was afraid, and she bore herself with the air of a queen about to grant a favour to her humblest subject.

Cranston felt her imperiousness in the very air as he entered, and rebel as he would, it daunted him and took a share of his bravado from him. She returned his salutation, but with the evident purpose not to aid him in the slightest in the delivery of his errand.