CHAPTER XIX

The night of Larry's unexpected call upon her at the Grantham, Maggie

had pulled herself together and aided by the imposing Miss Grierson had

done her best as ingenue hostess to her pseudo-cousin, Barney, and her

pseudo-uncle, Old Jimmie, and to their quarry, Dick Sherwood, whom

they were so cautiously stalking. But when Dick had gone, and when Miss

Grierson had withdrawn to permit her charge a little visit with her

relatives, Barney had been prompt with his dissatisfaction.

“What was the matter with you to-night, Maggie?” he demanded. “You

didn't play up to your usual form.”

“If you don't like the way I did it, you may get some one else,” Maggie

snapped back.

“Aw, don't get sore. If I'm stage-managing this show, I guess it's my

business to tell you how to act the part, and to tell you when you're

endangering the success of the piece by giving a poor performance.”

“Maybe you'd better get some one else to take my part right now.”

Maggie's tone and look were implacable. Barney moved uneasily. That was

the worst about Maggie: she wouldn't take advice from any one unless the

advice were a coincidence with or an enlargement of her own wishes, and

she was particularly temperish to-night. He hastened to appease her.

“I guess the best of us have our off days. It's all right

unless”--Barney hesitated, business fear and jealousy suddenly seizing

him--“unless the way you acted tonight means you don't intend to go

through with it?”

“Why shouldn't I go through with it?”

“No reason. Unless you acted as you did to-night because”--again Barney

hesitated; again jealousy prompted him on--“because you've heard in some

way from Larry Brainard. Have you heard from Larry?”

Maggie met his gaze without flinching. She would take the necessary

measures in the morning with Miss Grierson to keep that lady from

indiscreet talking.

“I have not heard from Larry, and if I had, it wouldn't be any of your

business, Barney Palmer!”

He chose to ignore the verbal slap in his face of her last phrase. “No,

I guess you haven't heard from Larry. And I guess none of us will hear

from him--not for a long time. He's certainly fixed himself for fair!”

“He sure has,” agreed Old Jimmie.

Maggie said nothing.

“Seems to me we've got this young Sherwood hooked,” said Old Jimmie, who

had been impatient during this unprofitable bickering. “Seems to me

it's time to settle just how we're going to get his dough. How about it,

Barney?”

“Plenty of time for that, Jimmie. This is a big fish, and we've got to

be absolutely sure we've got him hooked so he can't get off. We've got

to play safe here; it's worth waiting for, believe me. Besides, all the

while Maggie's getting practice.”

“Seems to me we ought to make our clean-up quick. So that--so that--”

“See here--you think you got some other swell game you want to use

Maggie in?”

Old Jimmie's shifty gaze wavered before Barney's glare.

“No. But she's my daughter, ain't she?”

“Yes. But who's running this?” Barney demanded. Thank Heavens, Old

Jimmie was one person he did not have to treat like a prima donna!

“You are.”

“Then shut up, and let me run it!”

“You might at least tell if you've decided how you're going to run it,”

persisted Old Jimmie.

“Will you shut up!” snapped Barney.

Old Jimmie said no more. And having asserted his supremacy over at least

one of the two, Barney relented and condescended to talk, lounging back

in his chair with that self-conscious grace which had helped make him a

figure of increasing note in the gayer restaurants of New York.

It did not enter into Barney's calculations, present or for the future,

to make Maggie the mistress of any man. Not that Barney was restrained

by moral considerations. The thing was just bad business. Such a woman

makes but comparatively little; and what is worse, if she chooses, she

makes it all for herself. And Barney, in his cynical wisdom of his poor

world, further knew that the average man enticed into this poor trap,

after the woman has said yes, and after the first brief freshness has

lost its bloom, becomes a tight-wad and there is little real money to be

got from him for any one.

“It's like this: once we've got this Sherwood bird safely hooked,”

expanded Barney with the air of an authority, flicking off his cigarette

ash with his best restaurant manner, “we can play the game a hundred

ways. But the marriage proposition is the best bet, and there are two

best ways of working that.”

“Which d'you think we ought to use, Barney?” inquired Old Jimmie.

But Barney went on as if the older man had not asked a question. “Both

ways depend upon Sherwood being crazy in love, and upon his coming

across with a proposal and sticking to it. The first way, after being

proposed to, Maggie must break down and confess she's married to a man

she doesn't love and who doesn't love her. This husband would probably

give her a divorce, but he's a cagy guy and is out for the coin, and

if he smelled that she wanted to remarry some one with money he would

demand a large price for her freedom. Maggie must further confess that

she really has no money, and is therefore helpless. Then Sherwood offers

to meet the terms of this brute of a husband. If Sherwood falls for this

we shove in a dummy husband who takes Sherwood's dough--and a big

bank roll it will be!--and that'll be the last Sherwood'll ever see of

Maggie.”

Old Jimmie nodded. “When it's worked right, that always brings home the

kale.”

“The only question is,” continued Barney, “can Maggie put that stuff

over? How about it, Maggie? Think you're good enough to handle a

proposition like that?”

Looking the handsome Barney straight in the eyes, Maggie for the moment

thought only of his desire to manage her and of the challenge in his

tone. Larry and the appeal he had made to her were forgotten, as was

also Dick Sherwood.

“Anything you're good enough to think up, Barney Palmer, I guess I'm

good enough to put over,” she answered coolly.

And then: “What's the other way?” she asked.

“Old stuff. Have to be a sure-enough marriage. Sherwoods are big-time

people, you know; a sister who's a regular somebody. After marriage,

family permitted to learn truth--perhaps something much worse

than truth. Family horrified. They pay Maggie a big wad for

a separation--same as so many horrified families get rid of

daughters-in-law they don't like. Which of the ways suits you best,

Maggie?”

Maggie shrugged her shoulders with indifference. It suited her present

mood to maintain her attitude of being equal to any enterprise.

“Which do you like best, Barney?” Old Jimmie asked.

“The second is safer. But then it's slower; and there would be lawyers'

fees which would eat into our profits; and then because of the publicity

we might have to wait some time before it would be safe to use Maggie

again. The first plan isn't so complicated, it's quick, and at once

we've got Maggie free to use in other operations. The first looks the

best bet to me--but, as I said, we don't have to decide yet. We can let

developments help make the actual decision for us.”

Barney did not add that a further reason for his objecting to the second

plan was that he didn't want Maggie actually tied in marriage to any

man. That was a relationship his hopes were reserving for himself.

Barney's inborn desire for acknowledged chieftainship again craved

assertion and pressed him on to say:

“You see, Maggie, how much depends on you. You've got a whale of a

chance for a beginner. I hope you take a big brace over to-night and

play up to the possibilities of your part.”

“You take care of your end, and I'll take care of mine!” was her sharp

retort.

Barney was flustered for a moment by his second failure to dominate

Maggie. “Oh, well, we'll not row,” he tried to say easily. “We

understand each other, and we're each trying to help the other fellow's

game--that's the main point.”

The two men left, Jimmie without kissing his daughter good-night. This

caused Maggie no surprise. A kiss, not the lack of it, would have been

the thing that would have excited wonder in Maggie.

Barney went away well satisfied on the whole with the manner in which

the affair was progressing, and with his management of it and of Maggie.

Maggie was obstinate, to be sure; but he'd soon work that out of her. He

was now fully convinced of the soundness of his explanation of Maggie's

poor performance of that night: she had just had an off day.

As for Maggie, after they had gone she sat up long, thinking--and

her thoughts reverted irresistibly to Larry. His visit had been most

distracting. But she was not going to let it affect her purpose. If

anything, she was more determined than ever to be what she had told him

she was going to be, to prove to him that he could not influence her.

She tried to keep her mind off Larry, but she could not. He was for her

so many questions. How had he escaped?--thrown off both police and old

friends? Where was he now? What was he doing? And when and how was he

going to reappear and interfere?--for Maggie had no doubt, now that she

knew him to be in New York, that he would come again; and again try to

check her.

And there was a matter which she no more understood than Larry, and this

was another of her questions: Why had she gone into a panic and aided

his escape?

Of course, she now and then thought of Dick Sherwood. She rather liked

Dick. But thus far she regarded him exactly as her scheme of life had

presented him to her: as a pleasant dupe who, in an exciting play in

which she had the thrilling lead, was to be parted from his money. She

was rather sorry for him; but this was business, and her sorrow was not

going to interfere with what she was going to do.

Maggie Cameron, at this period of her life, was not deeply

introspective. She did not realize what, according to other standards,

this thing was which she was doing. She was merely functioning as she

had been taught to function. And if any change was beginning in her, she

was thus far wholly unconscious of it.