Page:The Millbank Case - 1905 - Eldridge.djvu/226

 He looked at her as if he would say that that was a very proper bluff for her to put up, but that he knew the facts and was not to be fooled thereby.

"In doing thoroughly my work," he floundered on; "it has been impossible for me to overlook the remarkable paper left by Judge Parlin."

Even as she caught the full import of his words, she had a consciousness of the hopeless bungling of this man, in comparison with the other man, Trafford. No less surely had Trafford told her that he had learned the history of her early life; but he had, with a natural instinct, taken from the telling every sting that was not ineffaceable. This man was so intent upon the telling as not to have a thought for her.

She made no acknowledgment, save that frigid bend of the head that was less acknowledgment than repulsion, and which he felt as disdain. It stung him to more brutal speech than he had intended:

"You would have me, perhaps, report my discoveries in that connection to your sons."

If he had expected her to shrink or lose self-control, his was the disappointment. She had lived too