[Illustration: LYING WITH HIS PALLID FACE TOWARD THE SKY, HE LOOKED
HANDSOME AND BOYISH AND IRRESISTIBLY LIKEABLE (_page 373_)]




  Mary Regan

  By LEROY SCOTT

  AUTHOR OF
  “Partners of the Night,” Etc.

  [Illustration]

  With Frontispiece

  A. L. BURT COMPANY
  Publishers      New York

  Published by arrangement with HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN COMPANY




  COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE METROPOLITAN MAGAZINE COMPANY

  COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY LEROY SCOTT

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  _Published January 1918_




CONTENTS


       I. THE WORLD SITS DOWN TOGETHER          1

      II. THE RETURN OF MARY REGAN             11

     III. PETER LOVEMAN                        20

      IV. AS MARY SEES HERSELF                 34

       V. CLIFFORD HAS A NEW PURPOSE           47

      VI. MARY SHOWS HER HAND                  55

     VII. NINA CORDOVA                         70

    VIII. IN LOVEMAN’S LIBRARY                 87

      IX. THE TEST OF LIFE                    100

       X. THE GOLDEN DOORS                    112

      XI. MARY PLANS ANEW                     124

     XII. A GENTLEMAN OF PLEASURE             136

    XIII. MR. MORTON TAKES A HAND             149

     XIV. MARY FACES A CRISIS                 159

      XV. LOVEMAN SHOWS HIS CLAWS             169

     XVI. THE STRINGS OF HUMAN NATURE         181

    XVII. THE OTHER WOMAN                     193

   XVIII. HOW MAISIE JONES REACTED            206

     XIX. MARY THINKS THINGS OUT              215

      XX. CLIFFORD’S NEW ASSIGNMENT           225

     XXI. AT THE MIDNIGHT CAFÉ                238

    XXII. MARY MAKES AN OFFER                 248

   XXIII. LOVEMAN’S FINAL PLEA                264

    XXIV. TWO PLEASANT GENTLEMEN              275

     XXV. A FATHER’S HOPE                     282

    XXVI. HOW MARY’S DREAM CAME TRUE          295

   XXVII. JACK MAKES A RESOLUTION             315

  XXVIII. THE HOUSE OF MONSIEUR LE BAIN       324

    XXIX. CLIFFORD WAITS ON GUARD             336

     XXX. WHEN WOMEN NEVER TALK               344

    XXXI. WHEN OLD FOES GET TOGETHER          354

   XXXII. PLEASURE PRESENTS ITS BILL          363

  XXXIII. THE STUFF IN MARY REGAN             378




MARY REGAN




CHAPTER I

THE WORLD SITS DOWN TOGETHER


It was opening night of the new bill at the Grand Alcazar; and
Clifford, as he waited alone at a little table for his host, almost
unconsciously searched through the great restaurant of black-and-gold
for Mary Regan--just as, almost unconsciously, he had been seeking
her wherever he had been during the six months of agreed-upon silence
since they had parted. He did not expect to see her here, hence felt
no disappointment when his roving eyes did not come upon her. She had
said she would write when she had thought it all out, and when she
was ready to see him. Six months was a long time, but he believed in
her word--and still waited, not once having sought to penetrate that
utter privacy which she had asserted to be for her, at that time,
life’s prime essential. But though keeping his word, he had often been
impatient, and had often wondered.

Meditatively Clifford glanced over this great crowd of well-dressed
diners. For him they were a vivid concentration, a cross-section,
of life: of life as he, in his philosophy, and in the pursuit of
his profession, had come to see it. Here were millionaires, many of
them having made their easeful fortunes by dubious operations which
shrewd counsel had steered just within the law; here were young men
of moderate means, spending recklessly; here were society women of
the younger and smarter set, with their escorts, sowing the seeds,
though they dreamed it not, of possible scandal and possible blackmail;
here were members of that breed of humans who are known as “sporting
men”; here were the most finished types of professional crooks, many
accompanied by the finished women of their own kind, but here and there
with them a girl who had no idea of the manner of man with whom she ate
and drank, and no idea of the end of this her pleasant adventure; and
here were respectable mothers and their daughters, who were innocent
of what sat at the next table; and here were out-of-town visitors who
were visibly excited and exalted by the thought that they were seeing
life--New York!--the real New York!

Clifford smiled sadly, rather grimly, to himself. These conglomerate
guests were proof of what he had long held: that there was no distinct
underworld, no distinct upperworld; that in ideas and personalities
the two were always merging. This scene summarized what experience
had made the basic idea of Clifford’s working philosophy: the great
interrelation, the great interdependence, the great _oneness_ of all
humanity.

Looking over this mixture of all sorts, in which acquaintance was so
easy to make, Clifford thought of the strange dramas that had their
beginnings in the Grand Alcazar and establishments of its kind. Thus
much had the dancing craze, though now receded from its earliest
frenzy, and the practice of dining and eating midnight suppers in the
showy restaurants, achieved: it had brought all sorts of persons, so
long as they were well dressed, under the same roof and had set them
down at the same or adjoining tables. Hardly since time began had that
important requisite of great drama been so nearly perfect as in these
restaurants--for people of different ideas and interests and moral
standards to meet naturally upon a common ground....

A little man, swart of face, his mustache tightly waxed, and in the
smartest evening dress that convention permits the male, paused and
spoke to Clifford--a gentleman whom most of the patrons of the place
knew, if they knew him at all, as Monsieur Le Bain. Though the master
of this ornate pleasure palace, he spoke obsequiously.

Clifford liked to see the great little man squirm. “Police trouble you
much here?” he asked.

“No, Bob,--I never see a policeman here, except when a captain or an
inspector comes in to eat,” the great restaurateur said nervously.

“Not like the old days downtown--with their raids--eh, Joe?”

“Nothing of that sort--ever!” And with a quick look around that showed
he feared some one might have overheard these sentences and guessed
what lay behind them, he said something about being needed on his
ballroom floor and hurried away.

Clifford watched the famous restaurateur, again smiling grimly. If
these people here--the respectable ones at least--knew the record of
Joe Gordon (which again was not the name given him at birth), knew
from what places and occupations he had made his way to his eminence
of foremost host and impresario of prandial entertainment--what a
panic there would be! (Or would there be a panic?) Life was certainly
strange!--with its emergencies, its juxtapositions, its crossing of
threads--strange at least to him who was always seeing behind the
scenes. Yes, life was certainly strange!...

Clifford’s meditations were interrupted by a hearty, “Hello, Bob,” and
by a large hand gripping one of his.

“Hello, Uncle George. I’d begun to think--”

“Hold on, son,” and Clifford’s host halted the talk by raising one
hand like a traffic policeman and with the other reaching for the
dinner card. While the long order was being dictated, Clifford gazed
impatiently across at his companion, wondering what this appointment
was about. His host was a large man who once might have been bulbous,
but who now had deflated little balloons of skin hanging beneath
eyes and chin and jaws. His few short gray hairs were divided into
two precisely equal portions; his eyebrows were entirely gone,
and of eyelashes he had almost none; his eyes were smallish, gray,
cunning, genial. He made Clifford fancy, with those eyes of his so
good-naturedly cynical, and with his large, outstanding ears, that
here might be a satyr who had forsaken gay forests for city and had at
length grown into grandfatherly days.

“Well, now, Uncle George--what’s all this about?” Clifford demanded
when the order was in.

“Not so fast, son,--not so fast,” slowly remonstrated Uncle George,
who, as far as Broadway’s knowledge went, was no one’s Uncle George,
but who was known by no other name. “Let’s wait until we’ve packed away
some of the freight that waiter’s going to bring us.” He blinked his
lashless lids, and drawled on. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen
you--six months. I just wanted to give you the once over, and ask you
how was trade.”

“Trade’s good--considering.”

The old head nodded. “Yes, considering that you’re a detective who’s on
the square. There’s not much chance for that sort, son,--not in this
here widely advertised Christian civilization of ours. At least, not
much chance to make a large private collection of coin.”

“I’m not in this primarily to make money. I thought you understood
that.”

“You sure are a queer guy, son,” pronounced the old man. “I’ve heard
you spiel off your ideas--you’re not primarily a thief-taker--you’re
in this to help people out of the trouble. A hell of an idea for a
detective!”

“You know as well as I do, Uncle George, that most of the people that
get into trouble, or seem to be bad--well, they personally are not so
much to blame. They’ve been born and raised in bad conditions--they’ve
never had a chance--have never really been able to tell what was right
or wrong, and have never had a chance to choose the right--”

“Come up for air, son,--come up for air,” cut in the old man. “Son,
that’s nice music, but it’s all bunk. You’re an awful example of what
a college education can do to a man. Now you just listen to your Uncle
George. You know me--everybody knows me. I’ve been in about every
crooked game known to the human race and the higher animals, including
managing shows--and I’ve never been pinched because I was too clever
for the coppers, and the coppers know it, too. I tell you I know life
up and down and across the middle--and I tell you that we’ve all got a
streak of crookedness--every damned one of us!”

“If that’s so,” smiled Clifford, “then why are you always helping
crooks?”

“That’s just my human cussedness. I’ve retired from business--I’m one
of these gentlemen farmers that have located on Broadway; but I don’t
like to see any earnest young crook get a raw deal from the coppers,
who are the rawest crooks of all.” The old man waved his left hand as
though brushing such conversation aside. “But let’s get down to brass
tacks--which means you and me. You and Bradley as great friends as
ever?”

Despite himself Clifford flushed with chagrin. “Don’t try to be funny!”

“And, son, don’t be too sore. Bradley was one hell of a guy. He was the
cleverest chief of detectives the Police Department ever had.”

“And the crookedest!”

“Sure, son,--didn’t I tell you us humans were all crooks!” the old man
said appeasingly. “But, sure, there never was a crookeder chief of
detectives than Bradley. You certainly showed nerve when you started
out to get him--and you certainly showed your class when you finally
trapped him, publicly, with the goods on. Only--”

“That’s it--_only_!” Clifford exclaimed sourly. “It’s quite some little
word, that _only_.”

“Sure--_only_. Son,”--and the old man spoke gravely,--“I’m twice as
old as you are, but you should know as well as I know that _you really
can’t get_ a copper. I mean a clever copper. Count the big coppers that
have really been sent away--the smart boys, I mean--and you’ll see you
have several fingers left to check up your laundry on. That was grand
business you pulled on Bradley, and it showed all New York he was a
crook. It was worth doing--God, yes! But I said to myself, as soon as I
heard of the swell arrest you had made of him, that a classy guy like
Bradley would have himself covered and would beat the case when it
came to trial. And he sure did beat it!”

“On a technicality!” Clifford was still bitter at the manner in which
his old enemy and old superior officer had slipped from what had seemed
the sure clutches of the law.

“A technicality, sure. But it got him off, and what more does a crook
ever ask for?”

“But he got reinstated in the Police Department!”

“But didn’t he retire right afterwards, claiming broken health? And
don’t you and I know his real reason was that his old game was done for
and that the public was wise to him? The big trouble with you, son,”
the old man declared severely, “is that you want a one hundred per cent
victory. The best you can hope for with a guy like Bradley is to split
the thing fifty-fifty.”

“You seem to admire Bradley a lot!” half growled Clifford.

“I do. I hand it to the guy with brains wherever I meet him.”

“I don’t see how you can be friends with me, then!”

“You’re clever, too, son. You’re the only one I’ve ever figured
might beat Bradley in a finish fight. And then you’re a queer party,
Bob,--you’re square,” he drawled. “I’ve traveled up and down this
world of he-and-she grafters, shoplifters, safeblowers, and sure-thing
business men, and after it all you know it’s right pleasant to sit down
in the shade of a square guy. And besides, son,” he added, “I said I
admired Bradley because he was clever; I didn’t say I liked him as a
friend. Now, you, Bob, somehow I like you.”

“Thanks, Uncle George.” There was a moment’s silence. “But that’s not
what you got me here to tell me.”

“Perhaps not, son. But what’s the hurry? Queer, ain’t it,” he
meditated, “how all the big cops, when they leave the Police
Department, open a private detective agency? I hear Bradley’s doing
great business since he started out as a private detective.”

“Licensed blackmailer--that’s what he is!”

“Sure, son, that’s what they all are. A client tells a private sleuth
secrets, and retains him to get information about some other party--and
is held up for a big fee. The sleuth gets the information, and then
makes the second party pay by threatening to expose him--second
hold-up; and then makes the first client pay again by threatening
to expose the original secret--third hold-up. Oh, it’s a rich game
Bradley’s switched into!”

“Once more, Uncle George--that’s not what you got me here to tell me.”

“Perhaps it’s not really so much I’ve got to tell you. Mebbe it’s
occurred to you”--meditatively, slowly--“that since the big upset you
gave him, Bradley isn’t exactly what you might call in love with you.”

“Not exactly.”

“Well, I heard it from a friend who’s got a friend who’s got a
mother-in-law who listens to little birds--and the dope runs that
Bradley is out to square matters with you.”

Clifford nodded. He had expected something of the sort.

“Did this little bird relay any information as to just what Bradley was
going to do?”

“None that got to me. But, son, I’d keep my eyes pointed in all
directions, and be careful of the friends I made, and be careful of
the cases I got drawn into. It may be a long time coming, and God only
knows in what direction it’ll come from. Bradley knows how to handle
people so they never know they’re being handled--and he’s likely to hit
you through almost any one. Look out, son. This is serious. There’ll be
big doings.”

Clifford gazed steadily at the old worldling. Indeed, there must be
something--and big!--or else Uncle George, whose general attitude
in matters of morals, police, and criminals was one of genial
_laissez-faire_, would not have brought him this warning. He knew from
experience the craft and power of Bradley--his subtle patience in
working out his designs, his patience in waiting apparently quiescent
for the ripe moment--the swiftness and might with which he struck when
the instant came to strike.

Automatically, swiftly, Clifford’s mind flashed forward in search
of possible weapons, of direct and devious schemes, that the
fertile-brained Bradley might be contriving against him.




CHAPTER II

THE RETURN OF MARY REGAN


Suddenly all conjectures concerning Bradley were swept utterly from
his mind. Down the gilded red-carpeted stairway that led from what the
Grand Alcazar termed its “ballroom de luxe,” there came--though this
was not the figure Clifford first noted--a short, full-bodied, ornately
dressed man, with a bald crown and a smile of engaging amiability.
Beside him, and a half-head taller,--and this is what Clifford first
saw,--walked a slender young woman, in an evening coat of rose velvet,
her rounded throat gleaming a dusky marble from the soft shadows of the
furred collar. Her face was the rose-tan of early autumn leaves, and
her dark eyes gazed straight before her with a composure so complete
that it seemed to announce a haughty indifference to all the world.

“Mary Regan!” ejaculated Clifford, stupefied.

Uncle George seemed not the least startled by Clifford’s exclamation.
He turned--and then there was surprise enough in his voice:--

“Hello--Peter Loveman with her!”

Clifford, recovered from his brief paralysis, arose and hurried between
the tables. But the pair had already turned into the entrance and did
not note him. As Clifford came into the gilded and bepalmed lobby, he
saw her, aided by four eager Grand Alcazar flunkeys and by Loveman,
looking a grotesquely small grand opera impresario in his silk hat
and fur coat, stepping into a closed car. By running Clifford could
have caught her, or by calling he could have gained her attention. But
at that instant he remembered the essence of their bargain, that he
should make no attempt to seek her out until she sent for him. That
remembrance checked him; the door closed upon the rose-velvet figure,
the car slid off through Broadway’s incandescent brilliance, and she
was gone.

Forgetful of where he was, Clifford stood bare-headed and stockstill
in the lobby. Mary Regan’s sudden reappearance out of the silence, the
vacancy, of six months’ absence, sent his mind flashing over the past,
the present, the future, touching in chaotic wonderment the high spots
of his strange relationship with her.... Daughter of that one-time
famous cynic and famous master criminal, “Gentleman Jim” Regan, dead
these five years, she had passed her girlhood in the cynical philosophy
of the little court surrounding her father,--had made that philosophy
her own,--and, grown into young womanhood, she had joined that great
crime _entrepreneur_, her Uncle Joe Russell, in many of his more subtle
enterprises. It was at the beginning of this career that Clifford’s
life had come into contact with hers. Police Commissioner Thorne had
ordered him to “cover” the pair. From the first Clifford had conceived
the idea that her criminal point of view was not an expression of her
true nature, but was a habit of mind developed in her by association:
and he had proceeded upon the theory that a bigger rôle, than merely
to make arrests, would be to arouse the real Mary Regan to her true
self.... The conflicts between the two!--her hostility to him!--his
ultimate success, or seeming success, when he had broken through her
shell of defensive cynicism--and last of all, that parting scene down
in Washington Square in the dusk of the on-coming dawn!...

He lived through that scene for a briefest moment--he was always living
over that scene. He had told her that he loved her; and she, admitting
that she loved him, had said, “But that doesn’t mean I can marry you.”
“Then, what does it mean?” he had demanded. A look of decision had
come into her face--how vividly he recalled every minutia of their one
love-scene!--and she had said:--

“Before we can talk definitely about such things, I want to go off
somewhere, alone, and think over what you have said about me. If I am
not what I used to be--if I am really that different person you say I
am, I want to get acquainted with myself. I seem so strange to myself,
it all seems so strange. I hope you are right--but I must be sure--very
sure--and so I am going away.”

“But when you come back?” he had cried.

“A lot may happen before that,” she had answered gravely. “A lot to
you, and a lot to me.”

“But when you come back?” he had insisted.

“When I come back,” she had breathed quaveringly, “if you still think
the same way about my being that sort of person--and if I find that
it’s really true--”

And then his arms had closed about her and he had kissed her. But even
as she had let him, she had murmured almost fearfully: “Remember--a
lot--may happen--before then....”

Clifford’s mind leaped forward from that long-gone night to the
present. And now she was back--back out of the unknown into which she
had disappeared--and back without having sent him a word of any kind!
What did it mean, this unannounced return? And what did it mean, her
being in company with dapper little Peter Loveman?--man-about-town, and
carrying behind that round, amiable smile the shrewdest legal brain of
its variety in New York.

Clifford had in reality been standing in the gilded lobby for no more
than a minute, though his mind had traversed so wide a space, when a
gray-and-black town-car, with a long hood that suggested power ample
for a racer, slowed down at the curb and a young man stepped out and
hurried into the Grand Alcazar. Fifth Avenue tailors and hatters and
haberdashers had equipped him with their best and costliest.

“Sink my ship if it’s not old Bob Clifford!” he cried, giving Clifford
a slender, soft hand. “How’s the old boy?”

“Same as always. And how’s Jackie Morton? You’ve been missing for
months.”

“I’ve a wonderful tale to unfold--but no time to unfold it now.”

There was that about him which begot an instant liking, though his face
was not as strong as it might have been.

“Say--you won’t believe it--but listen. I’ve been on the wagon for
seventeen weeks!”

“No!”

“Give you my word! Not a drop in seventeen ages! Had to, you know.
My old man--say, he’s one old battleship!--steamed into New York and
shut off supplies, and said unless I cut it all out and took a brace,
there’d be no more shipments of munitions. Get the situation, don’t
you?--case of a sixteen-inch gun shoved into my face and bein’ told it
would go off if I didn’t reform. So look and behold and observe what’s
happened--I’m reformed! Been off where milk’s all they shove ’cross the
bar--isolated, and all that kind of thing--and been behavin’ in a way
to make the Ten Commandments jealous. Honest to God, Clifford--”

Abruptly he checked this effervescence. “Say, seen Peter Loveman about
here?”

“He’s just gone.”

“Alone?”

“I believe there was a young lady with him,” Clifford replied
discreetly--wondering a little what young Morton’s business, if any,
could be with the pair that had left.

Morton hesitated; then again was effervescent. “Was to have met him
here--but there’s no tellin’ where he is. Come on--let’s have a drink.”

“But you are on the wagon.”

“I am. But I want to give you the grand sight of watchin’ me fall off.”

“You sit tight right where you are,” advised Clifford.

“Now, come on, don’t block traffic with a funeral,” pleaded the young
fellow, slipping an arm through Clifford’s. “Just one drink!” Clifford
shock his head; and Morton tried to draw him into the restaurant. “Just
one little drink, Clifford,--one little drink after a Sahara of milk!”

“Mr. Morton!” a deep, brusque voice called from behind them.

They turned. A man, square of shoulders and deep of chest and with
square, forceful face, was advancing toward them.

“Hello, Clifford,” he said.

“Hello, Bradley,” Clifford returned, trying to speak calmly--and for
the briefest space these old enemies, who had so often been at grips,
stared at each other, with hard, masked gazes.

Bradley turned to Clifford’s companion. “So you tried to give me the
slip, Mr. Morton. I heard what you suggested to Clifford. But I guess
you are keeping off the booze to-night.”

“Just look this large person over, Clifford,” mourned the young fellow;
“and honest, ain’t it hell, my father wishing a party like Bradley on
me for a nurse!”

“You need one all right!” Bradley said grimly.

“But even babies get let alone for an hour now and then,” protested the
other.

“You forget that the size of my check from your father depends upon my
keeping you and booze apart.”

Morton sighed. “You’re a sordid person, Bradley.”

“I might mention incidentally,” continued Bradley, “that your father
has just come to town.”

“The devil!” Morton’s face filled with dismay. “I guess, then, it
really is good-night, Clifford.” He took Bradley’s arm. “Come on,
nursie; let’s hail the captain of my perambulator.”

Clifford watched the two go out, and again he had the sense that he was
glimpsing into the complicated maze behind the brilliant surface of
Big Pleasure. The relationship between that pair might be strange for
any other period in the world’s history, but it was a definite, though
small, phase of this great pleasure life--a gay young spender bridled
and the reins put in the hands of a private officer. Clifford felt a
moment’s uneasiness for young Morton: in what ways could Bradley not
twist his client and protégé into predicaments that would bring him
profit?

When Clifford regained his table, Uncle George regarded him with
amazement. “I thought you had gone!”

“Gone where?”

“With or after Miss Regan.”

“Why?”

“I thought you were--well, I guess you get me. That being the case, I
didn’t think you’d pass up the chance to be with her.”

Clifford hesitated, then spoke the truth: “The last time I saw Mary
Regan, I promised not to speak to her until she sent for me.”

“And it was your promise that stopped you?” Uncle George asked
incredulously.

“Yes.”

“You poor simp! I suppose you thought she’d be thinking of you, only
you, with you out of her sight for six months--and that then there’d
come a sweet little message like them they flash on the movie screens!”

Clifford did not reply. Uncle George had very nearly expressed his
thought.

“No woman ever lived that could keep thinking of one man for six
months, and him away!” Uncle George leaned closer, and spoke in a low
voice. “See here, son,--while you’ve been keeping your promise and
remaining strictly off the premises, what do you think the other people
have been doing?”

“What other people?” cried Clifford, in quick alarm.

Uncle George ignored the question. “You think you’ve been an influence
upon her. Mebbe so, son. Mebbe so. But she was twenty, and two or three
more, before you ever saw her. Don’t you think those twenty years might
have some influence with her, too?”

“What other people?” repeated Clifford.

Again Uncle George ignored the question. He looked at Clifford keenly,
and spoke slowly.

“’While ago you asked me why I wanted to meet you here. Well, son, my
chief reason was because I knew Mary Regan was going to be here--and
because I thought, on seeing her, you’d wade right into the situation.”

“See here, George, what do you know?” Clifford cried sharply.

“Mighty little that’s definite,--and telling you that would be giving
people away, and that’s against my principles,--and, besides, the
little I know might only be misleading. But, son,”--the old man’s voice
was grave,--“if you’re at all interested in that girl, you sure ought
to be busy. And that’s all I can say.”

Abruptly Clifford stood up. “Thanks, Uncle George,--good-bye--” And he
was gone.




CHAPTER III

PETER LOVEMAN


Clifford’s first business was to make up for the opportunity he had
just let slip, and find Mary Regan. At once he decided that his best
source of information was her brother, “Slant-Face,” once a pickpocket
of amazing skill, now the manager of a little motion-picture house. He
turned uptown to Slant-Face’s theater.

On the way he was feverishly alive with questions. Clifford’s thoughts
had really not been off Mary Regan from the moment he had seen her come
down the stairway; and now Uncle George’s vague warning--he knew Uncle
George would not have spoken even so indefinitely unless there existed
a very real situation--banished all else from his mind. Why hadn’t Mary
Regan sent him word? What was behind her return in such a manner? What
decision had she come to in regard to herself during these months? What
decision in regard to him?

And this danger that Uncle George had hinted at--did it rise chiefly
from the plans and influence of other persons? And who might these
other persons be? And what might be the danger? Or might the danger
rise partly out of the complexities, the contradictions, of her own
nature?--that nature which had always so baffled and eluded him. But
the doubt which lay behind this last question seemed disloyal, and
he forcibly drove it from his mind. Mary Regan, he emphatically told
himself, was the woman he had believed her to be! She could explain
everything. Whatever might be wrong was due to the unknown other
persons.

Slant-Face’s theater, though the hour was only ten, was dark. He
hurried to Slant-Face’s apartment; but Slant-Face was not there, and
his wife knew nothing of his whereabouts. Downtown again, Clifford
began a tour of Slant-Face’s hang-outs; and at length he found him
standing alone at the end of the Knickerbocker bar, before him a glass
of buttermilk--a slender, smartly dressed person, whose immobile, lean
face was given a saturnine cast by the downward slant of the left
corner of his mouth.

“I saw your theater was closed, Slant-Face,” said Clifford. “What’s the
matter?”

“Bradley.”

“Bradley! How could he have anything to do with closing your theater?”

“Bradley hasn’t forgot my little part in your stunt that got him out
of the Department. He just waited--and laid his plans. While films
were being run off and the house was dark, he had pockets picked in my
place, or had people say their pockets were picked--pulled this three
times. What with my reputation, this was enough for the Commissioner of
Licenses, and he closed my joint.”

“That’s pretty rank. Bradley certainly does have a long memory--and a
long arm!”

“This is a five-reel picture, and it’s not all been run off yet,” half
growled Slant-Face through his thin lips. “In the last reel, some
one is going to get him!” He sipped his buttermilk, then abruptly:
“Clifford, because of what you’ve done for me, I’ve played it straight
for a year. The straight game don’t pay--not for me. So I’m through. I
guess you understand what comes next.”

“See here, Slant-Face, don’t be--”

“I’m through!” There was the snap of absolute finality in the low,
quiet voice.

Clifford knew that mere words could not change the decision made behind
that lean, grim visage; so he turned to the matter that had brought him
there.

“Have you seen your sister to-day?”

“Haven’t seen Mary in six months.”

“You mean you don’t know where she’s staying?” exclaimed Clifford.

“Down South in the woods somewhere,--God knows why,--doing a stretch of
self-imposed solitary.”

The obviously honest answer sharpened Clifford’s already poignant
uneasiness. “Slant-Face, I saw her an hour ago.”

“In New York?”

“At the Grand Alcazar.” And then he added: “She was with Peter Loveman.”

Even the stoic Slant-Face started. “With Peter Loveman!--the lawyer
that beat Bradley’s case for him! What the devil does that mean?”

“Just what I’m wondering myself.”

“You mean you didn’t ask her anything--didn’t speak to her?”

“No.”

Slant-Face looked his bewilderment. He had had his own private guess at
what had been the situation between Clifford and his sister. But he did
not ask the “why” of this to him strange behaviour on Clifford’s part.

“Mary with Peter Loveman!” he repeated. “Either Mary is trying to put
something across--in the old way, you understand; or else she’s--well,
it looks like queer doings to me!”

“That’s why I looked you up. Some one should step in, and stop what’s
under way. I supposed you knew where she was.”

“I’m going to begin to try to find out,” said Slant-Face. “And you?”

“Same here. By the way, would your Uncle Joe know anything?”

“Didn’t you know? He’s sold out everything here and bought himself a
fruit farm in California.”

“Then there’s just one man we’re certain does know. That’s Loveman,
and I’m going after Loveman. Let me know if you get next to anything,
Slant-Face. So-long.”

Clifford and the once master pickpocket clasped hands.

“And Slant-Face,” Clifford added, “about that other matter--getting
money in the old way. Don’t do it.”

“I’m not promising,” said Slant-Face quietly.

Clifford privately asked Police Commissioner Thorne to help in locating
Mary Regan. Also he hunted up little Lieutenant Jimmie Kelly, one
hundred and twenty pounds of grit and daring, head of the Tenderloin
Squad that free-lanced through the hotels, restaurants, and resorts
of Broadway, and of Jimmie he asked the same help. He himself, for
two days and nights, now and then seeing Uncle George and Slant-Face,
trailed Peter Loveman from office to courts and back again--and
particularly about the restaurants and theaters and after-theater
theaters, which comprised Loveman’s especial habitat.

But not again did Clifford see Loveman with Mary Regan. The second
night, however, he did see Loveman with young Morton, and with the two
a middle-aged man with a masterful face. Morton’s father, Clifford
guessed.

And yet, though he saw nothing, all his senses assured him with growing
insistence that great forces were at their hidden work--those subtle,
complex forces that operate indirectly, patiently, with infinite
cunning, behind the alluring and often innocent visage of brilliant Big
Pleasure. And also he had a growing sense that this was not primarily a
detective’s puzzle; but primarily a matter of the eternal human mystery
of how human beings react, and how they may be artfully stimulated. He
felt himself just a human being in the midst of a human problem whose
outlines he could not yet discern.

On the third day of failure it came to Clifford that there was a
chance--a bare chance--that Loveman had no design involving Mary Regan,
and he decided to go openly to him. At Loveman’s lavish downtown
offices he was told Loveman had telephoned he would not appear that
morning. Twenty minutes later Clifford, after having sent in his card
by the Japanese butler-valet, was in Loveman’s study. The room, the
studio of an apartment designed for an artist, was furnished with a
disordered luxury and culture which Clifford knew to be a genuine
characteristic of the strange little notable on whom he waited. Here
were rows and rows of first editions; old Dutch etchings, among them
several original Rembrandts; a helter-skelter gallery of autographed
photographs of favorite actresses. For a score of years, as Clifford
knew, Loveman had not missed an important first night.

Whatever might be the outcome of this interview, Clifford knew that
sometime, somehow, between him and Loveman there would be a conflict
of wits. So he looked swiftly and curiously around the room, for
concerning this room there were current many fables. This study, and
not the downtown office, was said to be Loveman’s real workshop. Here
were created those astute plans, in which the influence of Loveman was
never traceable, that brought to his downtown office those big-fee’d
domestic cases, to be fought brilliantly and sensationally in the
courts or to be settled discreetly in private. He was New York’s ablest
representative of a type of lawyer that modern social conditions have
produced: a specialist in domestic affairs--and one, when profitable
dissension or threatening scandal did not exist, who knew how to create
such. It was gossiped that he kept a careful record of all tangled
relations among the rich, of the details of every delicate situation,
and watched and bided his time until at length the affair threatened to
explode into a scandal--and then he acted. In this study there was a
huge “Scandal File,” so gossip had it; but Clifford, looking about, saw
no such fabled article of furniture.

At that moment Loveman entered, his tonsured head and rope-girdled
dressing-gown giving him the appearance of a somewhat jolly and rakish
monk.

“Good-morning, Clifford,” he exclaimed, cordially holding out his hand.
“Mightily like a Christian of you, looking an old tramp up.”

“They told me at your office that you were sick.”

Loveman waved Clifford into a chair, took one himself and crossed his
small, exquisitely slippered feet. “That’s what I told the office,
but I didn’t tell ’em what sort of sickness it was. My boy,”--with a
frank, engaging grin, which was one of the many qualities that made
this strange man so popular,--“do you perceive any adequate excuse for
a man of my supposedly sensible years starting in at 11.30 P.M. on a
mixed-drink Marathon?”

“I can’t say,” smiled Clifford, “without a knowledge of the prior--”

“Don’t be legally cautious with an incautious lawyer. There was no
excuse.” Loveman shook his round head solemnly. “There was provocation,
though. You bet there was provocation. Were you at the opening last
night of ‘Orange Blossoms’?”

“No.”

“Congratulations. It’s a dam’ rotten show! And Nina Cordova--she’s
all there off the stage, pretty, and clever, and one wise little
girl, don’t you forget it!--but a dam’ rotten star and the voice
of a guinea-hen that’s got the quinsy. And it cost sixty thousand
dollars to get the curtain up last night, and I put up twenty thousand
dollars of that boodle. Tell me, oh, why”--with a quaver of mock
self-sympathy--“am I always going out of my own line and letting myself
be played as a sucker by some manager or actress that wants extra
backing? Twenty thousand honest-to-God dollars! I kissed ’em good-bye
the very minute Nina first opened that dam’ pretty mouth, and her first
note rasped across the footlights! Ain’t I the boob!”

Clifford smiled at the grotesquely disconsolate figure, but did
not answer; he knew no answer was expected. But while he smiled,
waiting, part of his brain was remarking that these seemingly reckless
ventures of Loveman were in truth sound investments on which, by
the devious methods of his art, he later realized sumptuously. That
twenty thousand, which would make the vain Nina regard him as her
disinterested friend and adviser, wasn’t money thrown away--not in view
of the whispered affair between the voiceless prima donna, and--

“Why should I be blowing my roll,” continued Loveman, “on these dam’
musical comedies--_musical_, say there’s some irony for you!--when what
I’d have liked would have been to help back a show like ‘Justice.’
Or the Russian ballet. Nijinsky--there’s some artist for you!” His
last words were vividly sincere; there was nothing more sincere about
the little man than his admiration for the highest endeavors in art.
“And yet my coin goes into ‘Orange Blossoms’! Is there an artistic
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?--there is, and I’m the party--and that’s why
my stomach, esophagus, palate, tongue, mouth, and all appertaining
thereunto, are this A.M. composed of a faded and dusty Brussels carpet.
But, my boy, you didn’t come here to listen to my woes. What can I do
for you?”

His humorously bewailing manner had suddenly dropped from him; he was
brisk and alert, and his over-large eyes were fixed upon Clifford
keenly. Clifford knew that there was little chance of deceiving this
holder of the threads of destiny in a direct encounter.

“I came here, Loveman, to ask you for the address of Mary Regan.”

Loveman looked puzzled. “Mary Regan--do I know her?”

Was there something behind this evasion? “You remember her if you
remember getting Bradley off. She was in that case.”

“Oh, yes, I remember: slender--dark--handsome. But I haven’t seen her
since the trial.”

“I don’t mean to call you anything, Loveman,--but I was told you were
recently seen with her in public.”

“Where?”

“At the Grand Alcazar--for dinner--three nights ago.”

Loveman smiled. “You’ve caught me. I own up. But my fib was a
gentleman’s lie.”

“How so?”

“She didn’t want it known that she was in New York.”

“Why not?”

“Search me. Perhaps just a girl’s whim.”

“Do you know where I can find her?”

“Haven’t the slightest idea. I was with her more or less by accident. I
was taking care of her merely for a couple of hours--substituting for a
friend of hers.”

Clifford felt sure the little man was lying; but he also felt sure he
could get out of Loveman nothing Loveman preferred not to tell. All the
brains of the Bar Association had not been able to do this when Loveman
had been before that body on charges of unprofessional conduct.

“By the by, Clifford, what’s your interest in the young lady?”

“Her family heard she was back, and engaged me to locate her.”

Loveman, looking keenly at Clifford, did not betray whether or not he
recognized this as prevarication. Clifford stood up.

“Well, as you were my only clue, I might as well give the matter up.
Sorry to have bothered you. Good-morning.”

“Oh, you’ll find her--you have the reputation of doing whatever you
start out to do. Don’t hurry away. I’ve got some new first editions
I want to show you. But pardon me for just a moment.” He scratched a
line upon a sheet of paper, rang, and handed the folded sheet to the
Japanese butler, who silently withdrew. “Now!” he cried briskly, and
began to talk enthusiastically over half a dozen stained and musty
volumes.

Half an hour later the noiseless butler appeared, bearing a card.
Loveman begged Clifford to excuse him, and withdrew--to reënter in five
minutes.

“Something rather curious has just happened, Clifford. A gentleman with
whom I’ve had some dealings just called--I had an inspiration--I made a
suggestion, and-- Well, let him speak for himself. Come right in!”

At this, through the door Loveman had left open, stepped the square,
solid figure of Bradley.

“I believe you two are acquainted with each other,” remarked Loveman
with his amiable briskness.

The two men nodded, and for a moment stood silent. Clifford tried to
read Bradley’s purpose, but Bradley’s powerful face, with its small,
brilliant eyes, was as controlled and reticent as in the days, now
over a year gone, when Bradley used to give him orders at Police
Headquarters.

“H’are you, Clifford.” The voice was the same even, heavy bass.

“First-class, Bradley.”

“Chairs, gentlemen,” put in Loveman; and when they were seated: “Shall
I say it, Bradley, or will you?”

“I’ll say it.” Without preface, or reference to the past, Bradley was
in the midst of things. “I’m building up a big business, Clifford.
Another year or so, and it’ll be the biggest private detective agency
in the country. It’s already getting too big for one man to manage;
besides, there are certain kinds of cases that another man can handle
better than I can. I’ve been looking over the field for the right man.
Clifford, I’ve decided you’re this right man, and I want to ask you if
you’d be willing to go into partnership.”

“Don’t speak yet--think it over for a minute,” put in Loveman. “You two
have had your little differences, but it ought to be plain to both of
you that there’s more in it for you two working together than fighting
each other.”

Clifford managed to maintain a composed exterior, but within he was
bewilderment. Certainly Bradley was a most amazing man!

Clifford thought swiftly, if somewhat dazedly. Was this a trap? It
might be--probably was, in view of what had previously passed between
them.

But then again--it might not be a trap. Bradley’s offer, on the face
of it, was a good business proposition, advantageous to both parties.
It was a commonplace of business and politics and police affairs, that
competitors and even deadly enemies may scratch the past off the books
and combine in a common effort when they vision a profit sufficiently
large in such a procedure.

And profit there certainly would be in Bradley’s proposition--big
profit. First, would be the original profit of the large fees which
clients would pay to have information secured for them. And second,--if
the agency were to be run as most other private detective agencies, and
on this Bradley would doubtless insist,--there would be the usual large
profits secured through the pleasant and easy device of blackmailing
clients by threatening to reveal to the public the scandals they
had been paid privately to uncover and corroborate. Beyond a doubt,
tremendous profits!

Yes, it might not be a trap. It might be just a plain business
proposition. It might be--

Another thought: It might be a bribe!

Yes, whatever else it might be, it also was certainly a bribe. But to
buy him away from what?... From what?...

“It’s a good proposition--yes?” prompted Loveman.

Though Clifford had taken time to think, his decision had been made the
very moment he had understood Bradley’s proposition.

“As you say, Bradley, there’s big money in it, and it’s a great chance
for the right party. I want to thank you for considering me and
offering me the chance. But I never expect to build up a big business,
and such cases as I do take on I want to handle personally and in my
own way.”

Bradley’s square face showed not the slightest change. “That’s your
privilege, to do things the way you like. Glad I spoke to you about it,
though.”

“That’s another good inspiration I had that’s gone on the rocks,”
humorously complained Loveman--“as bum a guesser here as when I backed
Nina Cordova in ‘Orange Blossoms.’” He followed Clifford to the door, a
hand upon his arm. “Anyhow, I may want to be shoving some business your
way.”

“Thanks.” Clifford nodded to Bradley, and Bradley nodded back, his face
the same grim mask as ever.




CHAPTER IV

AS MARY SEES HERSELF


As Clifford went out it seemed to him, for the moment, that his efforts
thus far had resulted only in bringing him into contact with affairs
far removed from his main business. But the next moment experience
reminded him that nothing in life was irrelevant. Might not these
seemingly unrelated fragments be revealed as closely articulated parts
of a great drama of life whose working-out lay in the unvisioned future?

Anyhow, he had new questions to put to himself. What was behind
Loveman’s suave statement that he knew nothing of Mary Regan? And what
behind Bradley’s offer of partnership? They meant something: and the
more Clifford thought, the more was he convinced that Loveman was in
whatever business might be brewing; and since Loveman was in it, it was
safely and adroitly based upon the weakness, vanity, or ambition of our
common human nature.

The sense, though he had little definite basis for it, that Mary was
vitally concerned in this impenetrable business, that she was perhaps
the chief victim of its hidden workings and of its dangers, grew in
Clifford with every moment. He simply had to find her!

Hoping against hope, Clifford daily expected a note from Mary
Regan--for he could not wholly discount her promise--but no note came.
And though Uncle George, Slant-Face, and Lieutenant Jimmie Kelly,
in their divers manners, were all looking for Mary, none during the
next four days reported a trace of her. Nor did Commissioner Thorne,
with his larger resources, turn up a single clue. She seemed to have
vanished utterly.

All these days Clifford himself kept doggedly to the tedious routine
of centering his personal endeavors upon Peter Loveman--following that
dapper gentleman from home to office, to court-rooms, to restaurants
on Broadway or the Avenue for his substitute for afternoon tea, to
his home again to dress, then to the long evening’s schedule of
pleasures--taking rest only during the periods when Loveman was held in
court, or during the five hours between three and 8 A.M. that Loveman
allowed himself for sleep.

On the seventh afternoon, while Loveman was tied up in court, and while
Clifford was spending an hour at home, a note was delivered him by
messenger. It read:--

  See me at headquarters at your earliest convenience.

                                               THORNE.

Clifford considered. Then he sent back the message, “Will try to come
at five.” It was now three o’clock; Loveman would be out of court at
half-past three or four. He had decided that the best procedure was to
follow Loveman from court to club or restaurant, and then if the lawyer
seemed settled, as usually was the case, he could safely slip down to
Police Headquarters.

At four o’clock Clifford saw Loveman leave the Criminal Courts Building
and step into the closed car he had seen Loveman and Mary Regan enter
seven nights earlier in front of the Grand Alcazar. Clifford, at a
discreet distance, followed in a taxi. The big car, after twisting
about through the region of clubs and restaurants, deposited Loveman
before a great hotel on Fifth Avenue, The Grantham. Clifford, following
him in, saw Loveman address the perfect young blonde who sat at a
switchboard within a grilled enclosure, wait while the blonde announced
his name through the telephone, then saw him make for the elevators.

Clifford waited several minutes, then himself approached the deity of
the switchboard. “I want to get in touch with Mr. Loveman at once, and
I believe he’s calling here.”

“Yes, on Mrs. Gardner--twelfth floor, Apartment M. Shall I ’phone up
you’re here?”

“I guess I’ll not interrupt him. I’ll catch him when he comes down.”
The blonde, Clifford had at once divined, was the sort not averse to
talk. “I wonder if this is the Mrs. Gardner I know,” he said easily.
“What’s she like?”

“Never really seen her,” returned the blonde. “Has all her meals in
her suite. Goes out only at night--about nine, when everything’s dead
here--just for an hour’s motor ride. She’s always in black, and veiled.
Guess she’s a widow.”

A little more chat and Clifford drifted into the hotel bar, from which
he could watch the elevators. He sipped his Vichy with a casual,
lounging air that required his best acting. Could that Mrs. Gardner be
Mary Regan? And if she was Mary Regan, was she also truly Mrs. Gardner?

Half an hour passed; then Loveman came out of one of the elevators.
Clifford had a moment’s fear that the blonde would tell him that a
caller had made inquiry for him; but the blonde was answering the
questions of a guest and did not see Loveman go out. Clifford allowed a
few more minutes to pass, then he approached the blonde’s cage with a
brisk air.

“There’s something Mr. Loveman forgot to say to Mrs. Gardner, and he
asked me to come back and tell her. Just say it’s Mr. Loveman calling
again.”

The girl spoke through the telephone as directed; then, “You’re to go
right up.”

Tingling with suspense, Clifford shot up to the twelfth floor and rang
the bell of Apartment M. The door was promptly opened, and without
waiting for the maid to cry a warning because of this suddenly altered
Mr. Loveman, Clifford walked quickly past her through a little hallway
into a sitting-room. At a window, looking down into the Avenue stood a
slender figure in a gown of gold-brown chiffon velvet, softly touched
with fur. She was Mary Regan.

“Sit down, Mr. Loveman,” she said, not turning. And then after a pause
she added a bit impatiently, but in that distant, composed tone she
had so often used toward him in other days: “Well, what else is there?
Haven’t I already promised to follow your instructions in every detail?”

Clifford did not reply, and his silence caused her to turn. At sight of
him the tint of autumn rose left her dark face.

“Mr. Clifford!” she breathed.

“Good-afternoon--” He hesitated; the last time he had spoken to her,
six months before, he had called her Mary. “Good-afternoon, Miss Regan.”

And then the fear that was in him caused him quickly to add, “Or should
I say Mrs. Gardner?”

“I am still Mary Regan.” She moved nearer. “You here! The name you sent
up was Mr. Loveman.”

“I used Mr. Loveman’s name because I thought if I sent my own you would
refuse to see me.”

“Why?”

He had searched her out primarily to learn the danger she was in and
to save her from it, but here he was in the first moment speaking of
himself. “I reasoned that you did not want to see me from the fact that
you have been in town a week and have sent me no word. And I thought,
after your promise--”

He could not finish. She motioned him to be seated, herself took a
chair, and there was a moment’s pause. Pale, a strained composure in
her face, she was wondrously striking in the gold-brown velvet with its
margin of fur; she seemed to have matured, yet to have grown no older;
and never before had she seemed more poignantly desirable to him. The
old questions that had haunted him for six months, surged up and he was
almost choked with the immanence of the answer to them. Had there come
the change that they had talked about? Had she reached the decision
that he had so long been waiting for?

At length she spoke, and the contralto warmth and color of her voice
were subdued to a neutral monotone. “I could have sent you word,” she
said. “But I have no excuse to offer, and prefer not to explain.”

“You know what I’ve been hoping for--and waiting for,” he said with
difficulty. “You have not forgotten that last night in Washington
Square?”

“No. And you have not forgotten the point I then insisted upon--that I
wanted to go off, alone, to examine myself and try to learn whether I
was really the sort of woman you declared me to be.”

“I remember. And now that you have been away, and come back?”

Her voice was steady. “I have learned I am not that kind of woman.”

“No?”

“I have learned that I do not look upon life--that is life for
myself--in the way you thought I would.”

“Just what do you mean?”

“I know now that I am by nature more worldly than you believed me.”

He grew suddenly sick at her even words. “I was hoping that you would
have decided that you cared for me.”

“I am and always shall be grateful to you for the things you did for
me, and I shall always appreciate your high opinion of the qualities
you believed to exist in me. You were kind and generous--and I shall
never forget.”

“But you have no other feeling--toward me?”

She shook her head.

“Then this is final--as far as my hopes are concerned,” he whispered
dryly. He was dazed; too dazed to note that she had grown even more
pale than a few moments before and that her hands were gripping folds
of the velvet gown.

Presently he tried to pull himself together. He remembered the main
purpose of his presence here.

“But at least you will let me help you?”

“Certainly--if I need you.”

He leaned closer. “You never needed me more than now!”

“For what reason?”

“You are in danger--great danger!”

She started, and gazed at him with a sharp penetration which even at
that moment struck him as peculiar. “In what danger?”

Her question took him back. In his intensity he had forgotten that he
knew so little that was definite.

“I thought you would know,” he confessed. And then, with a ring of
certainty, “If you do not know yourself to be in danger, then why are
you in hiding?”

She ignored his last sentence. “I am in no danger of which I am
conscious.”

He seized upon the one point he was certain of. “But you have been
seeing Peter Loveman. I hope you are not letting him get control of
your affairs.”

“Mr. Loveman has merely been giving me some friendly advice. He is a
very able lawyer.”

“There is no abler lawyer in New York than Peter Loveman. But Peter
Loveman cannot be trusted.”

“I am not trusting him--very far.” She spoke with that supreme
self-confidence that had always characterized her. “And I believe I can
take care of myself.” This last she added coldly, yet not unkindly.

Clifford felt himself baffled. And then, suddenly, he remembered
another possible source of danger to her--or at least of danger to that
Mary Regan he had believed her to be. Could she, as the worldly-wise
old Uncle George had suggested, have felt the pull of old associations,
old points of view, and have reverted--

But even as he was thinking of this, she with her remarkable keenness
had read his mind. “Don’t worry about that. I have no intention of
going back to the sort of things I once tried to do, and you stopped me
from doing.”

“I’m glad of that,” he said simply. And then he added, “But still I
feel you are in some great vague danger.”

“What?” she queried as before. “I am here of my own choice. I go and
come as I please. Whatever I may now be doing I do of my own free will.”

“Then you have a plan?”

She was silent a long moment, all the while gazing at him steadily.
Then she replied, “I have.”

“May I ask what it is?”

“You have earned the right. As Robert Clifford, the man, you might not
approve of it. As Robert Clifford, detective, you can find nothing
wrong. Beyond this I can tell you nothing--now.”

He felt shut out--placed at a far distance--and felt the dizzy sickness
once more come on him. He had met her again, after long waiting, after
long search--and this was the poor ending of it all!

He saw her glance furtively at a gilded clock. Awkwardly he arose.

“I’ve kept you too long,” he mumbled.

She made no polite denial, but also stood up. He started out--and found
he could not go.

He turned. “Please tell me two other things. First, why are you in
hiding?”

“That I must be excused from answering.”

“Is it part of your plan?”

She hesitated, then nodded.

“And your calling yourself Mrs. Gardner--is that, too, a part of your
plan?”

“Yes--to the extent that I am temporarily using it to hide behind. Now
you must go--please!”

“Good-bye--I won’t bother you any further.”

Sick, bewildered, and with as great a fear as when he entered, Clifford
started out. But at that moment there was a ring at the doorbell.

“Why didn’t you go before!” cried Mary; and then, seizing his arm,
“Wait, you mustn’t go now!”

“Why?”

“It would be misunderstood.”

“Then you know who that is?”

“Yes.”

“Is it Peter Loveman?”

“No.” Her dark eyes gazed at him very straight; she spoke rapidly.
“You are an old acquaintance--you met me in Paris before the war broke
out--that’s all you really know about me. Except that my name is Mary
Regan.”

“I’ll play the part,” said Clifford.

“Sit there by the window.”

Clifford obeyed, more dazed than ever, and wonderingly watched Mary.
She stood in the middle of the room, tensely composed. The maid had
answered the bell, and Clifford now heard a man’s voice in the hall--a
familiar voice. The next moment the visitor was through the doorway,
and Clifford beheld that likable young man-about-town, Jack Morton.

But Jack Morton saw only Mary, and his face flushed with delight.
“Mary!” he cried and crossed to her with open arms. Without hesitation
she stepped forward and her lips met his.

Clifford experienced such a swift onrush of dizziness and sickness that
he barely kept his seat.

After a moment Mary drew away from Morton. “Jack, I want to introduce
an old acquaintance to you--Mr. Clifford.”

“Bob Clifford--you here!” cried Morton. “You know Miss Regan?”

Clifford remembered his lines. “I met Miss Regan in Paris before the
outbreak of the war.”

Mary held her pale face steadily upon Clifford. “I suppose, Jack, Mr.
Clifford might as well know the truth.”

“After what he’s seen I guess he knows it.” Young Morton, a glowing
smile on his pleasant face, held out his hand. “Congratulate me, Bob!”

Clifford took the hand. “You--you are married?”

“We are going to be--as soon as it’s safe.”

“Safe?”

“You see my--”

“Mr. Clifford does not need to know that,” Mary quickly interrupted.

“Why--” Clifford stared; gulped. “I did not even know you were
acquainted.”

“We were not, till three months ago.” Morton grinned happily. He
slipped his arm about Mary and Mary allowed it to remain. “Remember my
telling you the other night about my being away, far from the madding
crowd?--in a place where they don’t raise a thing but isolation? Well,
that’s where I met Mary--at Pine Mountain Lodge. Wasn’t that some
coincidence, Bob?”

Clifford agreed that it was. He looked searchingly at Mary; but her
pale, proud face met his eyes with a steadfast gaze that was blank of
any offer to apologize or explain.

“Here’s wishing you luck, Morton,” Clifford said with a control that
surprised himself. He gave Mary Regan a look that was quite as composed
as her own. “And you, Miss Regan, I hope that all your best dreams come
true.”

He maintained his control until he had managed a very decent exit. But
out in the corridor, he leaned against the wall, a very sick man, with
ejaculations and questions stabbing him through and through. This,
then, was what his long waiting had come to, his hopes and his dreams
of a different Mary Regan! This affair with Jack Morton, a good enough
fellow of his sort, that was her plan!... Yes, but what lay behind
that plan?... And did she care for Morton?... And why had she not
frankly written him of her purpose?... And Peter Loveman, where did
Loveman come in?... And Bradley, guide and protector of young Morton,
what might be Bradley’s part?... And what kind of person, after these
months, was really behind that exterior which Mary Regan had presented
him?...

In bitter revulsion Clifford straightened up and walked away. What she
was, and what she was doing, and what she had got herself in for, these
matters were now none of his affairs. For him Mary Regan was a closed
incident.




CHAPTER V

CLIFFORD HAS A NEW PURPOSE


Half an hour later Clifford entered the octagonal reception room at
Police Headquarters and sent his name in to Commissioner Thorne. Word
came back that Thorne was engaged and would be so for half an hour; but
in the meantime wouldn’t Clifford visit about the building.

Clifford descended to the great corridor on the main floor. Here he
met captains and lieutenants and first-grade detectives--old friends,
with whom, until the events that had sent him out of the Department,
he had worked for close upon a decade. They treated him with a respect
that, coming after his scene with Mary Regan, was soothing to his
rasped spirit. The very surroundings, too, affected him--begot in him a
formless longing; in a way it was like coming back to one’s home town.

Here, too, he ran into little Jimmie Kelly. With Jimmie he descended to
the pistol range in the subcellar, and for half an hour they practiced
with the regulation police revolvers, which recoil like ancient
shotguns--their targets those little posters seen everywhere, headed
“Wanted for Murder,” over the heart of the pictured fugitive an inch
circle of white paper to serve as bull’s-eye. And then they practiced
with Jimmie’s pistol, a .25 automatic so tiny that it could lie in a
closed hand and not be seen.

“Wish you were back here with us, Bob,” remarked Jimmie when Clifford
announced that he was due up in the Chief’s office. “It would be great
stuff--working with you again!”

There was hearty sincerity in Jimmie’s voice; and the vague longing
begot by it was still upon Clifford when at length he was seated beside
Commissioner Thorne’s desk.

“Clifford,” said the Commissioner briskly, his lean, Scotch-Irish face
alive with purpose, “I’m going to lay all my cards, face up, on the
table. I asked you to meet me down here, instead of uptown, for the
sake of the effect on you. That’s why I made you wait, and asked you to
visit about. I wanted you to feel the old tug of Headquarters.”

“I guess I’ve felt it all right, Chief.”

“That’s good. Clifford, six months ago I asked you to become Second
Deputy Commissioner. For your own reasons you refused. I hope you’ve
changed your mind, for I’m now again asking you to take the place.”

To be Second Deputy Chief of New York’s Detective Bureau!--Clifford
felt a leaping thrill--a swift reaction from the heaviness and
bitterness which had been upon him since his scene with Mary Regan.
He considered for a moment. The controlling reason for his previous
declination, his knowledge that Mary Regan would refuse him if he
continued official police work because she believed she would interfere
with his career--this reason Mary Regan herself had just wiped out. He
had lost enough because of her. Here was big work to do. Here was a big
career.

Clifford looked up. “I accept, Chief,” he said with an energy almost
fierce. “And I’m glad and proud to accept. And I’ll give the job the
best that’s in me.”

“Bully for you!” cried Thorne, seizing his hand.

There was a minute’s further exchange of thanks and congratulations.
Then Thorne continued:

“There’s a particular situation I want you to take care of. I believe
in the need of pleasure as much as any man. But the providing of
pleasure in this city has become a vast business. I’m not referring
to the theaters; I’m thinking of the restaurants, roof-gardens,
dancing places, things like that--high and low. And I’m thinking
especially of the swellest places, and of some of the presumably most
respectable places. These establishments have bred a new variety of
specialists, astute men, astute women, who entangle and victimize the
pleasure-seekers. Especially since women began to go about so freely to
the dancing places, and it became so easy to make acquaintances, there
have developed such opportunities--God, if the public only guessed a
tenth of what is dribbling in to us!--and even we never get rumors of
a tenth of what actually happens. But you know this situation better
than I do.”

“I’ve had to learn something about it,” said Clifford.

“I want the facts. I want the situation cleaned out. You’ve got a free
hand--use as many men as you like--follow your own plans.”

“I’ll be on the job at once,” said Clifford.

“Good stuff!” cried Thome enthusiastically. “And if you succeed--and I
know you will--it will be a big thing for the Department, a big thing
for me, and we’ll try to make it a big thing for you!”

This new interest so promptly and exactly fitted the sudden emptiness
in Clifford’s life that almost without thinking he was impelled to ask,
“Has anything happened, Chief, to cause you to make me this offer just
now?”

Thorne regarded Clifford with a curious, thoughtful air. “I wonder
if I should tell you,” he said slowly; and then: “Well, the fact is,
Clifford, I have been holding a little something back from you.”

“Something about what, Chief?”

“About you--and a woman.”

“Yes--go on!”

“Six months ago a young woman called on me at my hotel, and asked me if
I had offered you the position of Chief of the Detective Bureau. I said
that I had, and that you had declined. She then asked me if I still
wanted you. I said yes, if I could get you. That was all that passed
between us. She thanked me and went away.”

“She was Mary Regan,” said Clifford.

“She was.”

“And is that all that has happened?”

“To-day I had a note from her, without date or address, advising me to
offer you the position again, and to keep on offering it to you until
you accepted.”

Something was happening within Clifford, though he did not know what it
was--something that set brain whirling and heart beating at a swifter
tempo. “I just left her,” he said with mechanical calm. “She’s going to
marry a man named Jack Morton.”

“So I have just learned.”

“How?”

“Some of my men have been covering Bradley and Loveman. Loveman’s house
telephone is tapped, and a few threads have been picked up. Miss Regan
believes she is doing what she is doing because she wants to, and from
her own motives. But Bradley and Loveman are behind it.”

“In what way?” cried Clifford.

“Bradley, as you know, is a sort of private watchman over young Morton.
Loveman has handled a lot of delicate matters for the father. The elder
Morton is a ruthless egoist, an able man of big affairs, but remarkable
for neither business nor personal morality. The son you are acquainted
with. You can see the opportunities here for such a combination as
Bradley and Loveman.”

“Yes. But where does Mary Regan come in?”

“Bradley and Loveman are using her now, and expect to use her in the
future.”

“Does she know she is being used?”

“I’m certain she does not even guess it.”

“Then how did they ever get her into it this far?”

“I do not know.”

“But surely,” cried Clifford, “You must have some idea of what their
plan is?”

“Only that I surmise that it is one individual case of the general
situation concerning which I just spoke to you--about how very clever
persons have made a subtle business out of the manner in which the
city’s Big Pleasure reacts upon human ambitions and human frailties.
Any information more definite than this it will be part of your job to
get.”

Abruptly Clifford stood up and strode to a window and stood gazing
vacantly at a huge candy factory across Broome Street--his whole being
now wildly athrob, his brain working swiftly though incoherently. What
might it not mean, Mary Regan’s showing this concern to see that he
accepted the position he had once refused because of her?... And how
much did she really care for Morton?... And might there not be motives,
deeper and other than he had guessed, that had caused her to treat him
so cavalierly?... And the menace of Loveman and of Bradley--

Abruptly Clifford turned about on Thorne. “Chief, I’m sorry to take
back my word--but I cannot accept that job as Chief of Detectives.”

“Why not?” cried the astounded Thorne.

“That I can’t explain just now. But though I can’t take the job, I’ll
do all I can in a personal way to help handle that condition you were
speaking about. You’ll excuse me, Chief, but I’ve got to do a lot of
quick thinking.”

Leaving Thorne fairly gasping at this swift transition, Clifford strode
out of the office and out of Police Headquarters. Two minutes later he
was in a telephone booth in a saloon across the way and was asking the
Grantham Hotel, in which he had left Mary Regan an hour before, for
“Mrs. Gardner.” Soon Mary’s cool, even voice sounded over the wire.

“This is Robert Clifford,” he said. “May I see you again--for just a
few minutes?”

There was a long silence; then the cool voice queried: “Alone?”

“If you please.”

Another silence. He was beginning to fear that she had hung up, when
the cool voice spoke again.

“Very well”--and this time he heard the receiver click upon its hook.

He hurried for the Subway. He was athrill with a grim elation. He
felt that all that had thus far passed between him and Mary Regan was
no more than a prelude--a long prelude, to be sure--and that the big
action of their drama lay still before them. He would fight on, still,
for Mary Regan--to save her from herself, to protect her from others!

But in this, his high moment, he had no prevision of the vagaries of a
woman’s nature he was to encounter--of a willful, many-elemented woman
who had not yet found herself, and who had a long road yet to travel
before she reached that self-knowledge; and he had no prevision of the
strange places behind the scenes of pleasure that his new purpose was
to cause him to penetrate, and no prevision of the strange motives, the
strange mixtures of human nature, that he was to meet.




CHAPTER VI

MARY SHOWS HER HAND


Mary Regan stood in the dusk of her sitting-room, holding apart the
velvet hangings of a window, and gazing far down at the quadruple line
of motorcars which at this twilight winter hour moves in slow lockstep
between Thirty-third and Fifty-ninth Streets; and as she vacantly gazed
upon the world’s greatest parade of pleasure vehicles, part of her
mind was wondering about her approaching interview with Clifford--and
part of her mind, in subconscious preparation for this meeting, was
automatically reviewing, and checking-up, and reswearing allegiance
to some of the decisions she had reached concerning herself and the
course she had chosen. She was somewhat excited; but she felt sure of
herself--very sure!

During the six months she had been away, she had studied, or believed
she had, her own nature most carefully, and also her immediate
interests, and also the bolder reachings of her ambition. She had
considered these matters, not sentimentally,--she hated sentiment,
she told herself,--but with cool brain, and with no fear to admit the
truth. To be sure there had been a swift seizure and possession of her
by emotion when she and Clifford had kissed that summer dawn long ago
in Washington Square; and now and again this emotional element had
arisen in her with appealing energy, but her cool intelligence had
always controlled such impulses. What did life offer with a police
official who was on the square? Nothing! At least nothing that she
cared for or dreamed of. Honest police officials never got anywhere.
And as for Clifford, marriage with him would ruin such career for him
as might be possible. It would never do--not for either of them.

What she wanted was altogether different. She _knew_, for she had
analyzed herself with the apartness of a scientist. Her former attitude
toward crime, acquired through a girlhood spent with those cynical
gentlemen of the world, her father and her Uncle Joe,--that attitude
to be sure was now changed; at least such intentions as formerly she
had had she now knew to be quiescent; Clifford had influenced her
to this extent. But though the criminal impulses given her by her
training were gone, the worldly attitude and instincts begotten by that
training still remained. She believed herself a worldling; and more,
she believed herself a competent worldling. She believed she had no
illusions about herself. The things in life that were worth while--so
in her confident youthfulness she decided--were luxury, admiration, the
pleasures that money could buy. And these things she believed she could
win.

This much, in her retreat, she had already decided before Jack Morton
had appeared in the quiet countryside. The coming of Jack, with the
opportunities represented by his amiable person, had made her even more
decided.

And so, as she now gazed down through the winter dusk upon the shifting
motor-tops, she was very certain of herself despite her palpitant
expectation over Clifford’s coming--very confident of herself, and what
she was, and what she was going to do, and what she was going to be:
just as many another young woman, of a perhaps more careful rearing,
was preeningly confident of herself, in those limousines far below her.
For this was the time of all times, and the place of all places, that
young women were trained to dream of themselves; and here, also, often
the dreams came gorgeously true--for a time!...

The ring of her apartment bell brought Mary sharply from her thoughts.
Switching on the lights, she opened the door and admitted Clifford into
her sitting-room. She spoke first, with a formality that held him at a
distance.

“I consented to see you because an hour or two ago you discovered a
private matter of mine, and I neglected to ask you to keep it silent.”

“You refer to your engagement to Jack Morton?”

“I do. Of course you will say nothing about it.”

“That you must leave to my discretion.”

“You mean you are going to tell?” she demanded.

He tried to keep his business here to the front of his mind, but now,
as he sat face to face with her, the old question recurred for which
he seemed able to reach no final answer: what was she really like
beneath this exterior she showed him?--what might she be beneath and
within the self she supposed herself to be?

“I mean that I am reserving the right to do exactly what I please,”
he replied, looking at her squarely. “This business of your secret
engagement is also what made me want to see you--but it is only one of
many things. I have done a lot of thinking since I left you two hours
ago. Also I have just seen Police Commissioner Thorne.”

“Yes?”

“Mr. Thorne honored me by offering me the position of Chief of the
Detective Bureau. I accepted the position--”

“Then I suppose I should address you as-- By the way, just how should
one address you?”

“But I immediately withdrew my acceptance,” he continued, ignoring the
cool irony which seemed to come automatically into her voice whenever
they met. “I refused because of certain things I learned from Thorne
about you.”

“About me? What are they?”

“That’s what I want to learn more about--and from you.”

“Ah--then you still are a detective?”

“I suppose I am,” still ignoring the irony of her tone. “But just now I
primarily am a person who is interested in his own affairs as a man.”

“Your affairs?” she questioned.

“Just now your affairs have become my affairs. And I’m hoping that
you’ll help me by frankly answering my questions.”

“Questions about what?”

“About yourself.”

“Such as?”

“Instead of leaving it for me to discover by accident, why did you not
frankly tell me of your intention to marry some one else?--when you
knew what for six months I had been hoping for. How much do you care
for Jack Morton?”

His determined face, and the flashing memories of what he had tried
to do for her, checked the sharp replies that instinctively started
for her lips. The steady gaze of his intense eyes sent a warm
tremor through her, gave her a swift, tingling pleasure. But that
very pleasure was a warning to her: such feeling in her was only
aberration--the life signs of some of her less important elements,
which she had adjudged to be a menace to her success and which she
must therefore suppress. The next moment she had full control of
herself--and she had decided on what should be her course with him.

“You seem to regard me as a mystery,” she remarked with tantalizing
coolness.

“You are one--in a degree. And I want it solved.”

“There is nothing in the least mysterious about me,” she said in her
even tone. “I’ll tell you all you need to know. You may be seated if
you like.” And after they were both in chairs: “First about Mr. Morton.
He is a pleasant, agreeable gentleman. He has money and position.”

“You love him?”

“I like him.”

“You are marrying him, then, because it is a good business
proposition--to put it brutally.”

She met his flushed face calmly. “That is not putting it brutally.
Rather, it is merely putting it honestly.” This she had decided
must be made the final interview between them. “I told you, when
you were here two hours ago, that I had discovered that I am not at
all the woman you believed lay undeveloped in me. You may call me
worldly--selfish--ambitious. And you will be tremendously right.”

He looked at her hard, and was silent a moment. “But that isn’t
answering my first question and all it implied: why didn’t you write me
before you returned to New York? Why didn’t you frankly tell me of your
intended marriage?”

She lifted her shoulders ever so slightly. “It must have been because I
never thought of it.”

He flushed, but she met his look with unabashed composure. She
had lied, but she had lied easily, for the lie had been carefully
premeditated. When, during her absence, her mind’s decision had gone
against Clifford, she had considered what would be the most effective
method of giving undebatable conclusion to the affair; and had decided
upon this course that she had followed. No need for letters--no chance
for sentimental pleading to alter her mind; it would be all over, and
ended, before he knew a thing. Further, since the break had to come, it
appealed to her pride to seem superior and indifferent.

Clifford was angry, but he contained himself. “To go on: was your
meeting with Mr. Morton in that out-of-the-way spot, Pine Mountain
Lodge, pure coincidence as he said?--or did cunning brains bring it
about?”

“You mean, my cunning brains?” Two spots of conscious color appeared in
her cheeks.

“I do not mean you. Did some one else, perhaps without your knowledge
at the time, plan that you should meet?”

“What are you driving at?” she demanded sharply.

“I don’t know myself yet--exactly.”

“Who could have planned our meeting? As you know, I went to Pine
Mountain Lodge to be alone. Mr. Morton, not knowing of my presence
there or even of my existence, came to Pine Mountain to rest up. We
couldn’t help meeting, since the lodge is the only place at which one
can stay. That’s all there is to this amazing mystery.”

“Undoubtedly all you see. But the coincidence explanation doesn’t
explain everything. Some one may have been behind Jack Morton’s going.”

“Who? In what way? And for what reason?”

“Those are things to be found out.” He looked at her steadily for a
moment. “I asked you this before, but I am going to ask it again: why
are you here in hiding?”

“After all, I guess I don’t mind telling you in the least,” she
returned coolly, with a sudden perverse gratification in revealing
what she knew he could not like in her. Also she felt that here was
another detail by which she could make Clifford feel the utter finality
of the break between them. “Jack and I came to New York intending to
be married the next day. But the very evening of the day we arrived,
Jack’s father unexpectedly came to town and appeared at the Biltmore
where Jack is staying.”

“Was that before or after the evening I saw you at the Grand Alcazar
with Mr. Loveman?”

“You saw me there the evening of the day of my return. Jack was to have
had dinner with me that night,” she added, “and had reserved the table
and had asked his friend, Mr. Loveman, and then he got tangled up with
a friend and could not come. It was that same evening that his father
arrived in town. I believe this is simple and clear.”

“As far as it goes. But why did you go into hiding?”

“Isn’t that rather obvious?” she returned with her cool frankness.
“Jack and I were going to keep our marriage secret--perhaps for a long
time. The appearance of his father, with the announcement that he was
going to stay with Jack, naturally delayed our marriage. I insisted
that it be postponed until his father was away and there was no danger
of immediate discovery.”

“And Jack?”

“Jack was reckless. He was all for getting married right away. But I
refused to take the risk. Also, under the circumstances, it didn’t seem
particularly wise to give the father a chance to find out about me by
our appearing openly together.”

“But you yourself could have gone out openly alone, or with friends.”

“Oh, of course,” she said dryly--“and have run the risk of Jack and
his father seeing me in public, and learning all about me. No, thank
you--the only way for me has been to keep under cover for the present.”

Clifford had felt a great start, but he had suppressed it; and he
managed to say quite casually: “Of course Jack Morton doesn’t know who
you really are?”

“Of course not. Oh, I don’t mind so much what he might learn about me,”
she added, a bit defiantly. “You police have nothing on me--not in the
way of a conviction, anyhow. But it would not help particularly if he
learned who my father had been, and that Joe Russell is my uncle, and
that my brother is Slant-Face Regan.”

“But he’ll be sure to learn some day.”

“By that time he’ll have become so attached to me that it’ll not make
much difference.”

“But there’s his father. What about what’ll happen when he finds out?
All Jack’s money comes through his father.”

“Oh, his father will come around in the end. You see he’s not to know
till we get ready.”

Clifford looked at her for a long moment of silence.

“I know what you’re thinking; you’re thinking I’m just another
adventuress,” she said with a shrug. “But what of that? Every woman is
an adventuress who is trying to better her position and who is using
her head to do it. And that’s just what every woman is doing!”

“I was not thinking chiefly of that; I was thinking of Peter Loveman.
Did he suggest that you go into hiding?”

“When Jack told him of our engagement, he said he didn’t want to know
anything about it, he wanted to keep out of any such affair. But when
he learned Jack’s father was in town, he telephoned me to keep out of
the way.”

“You’ve known Loveman some time?”

“Since I came back to America. He’s been Uncle Joe’s lawyer; and
naturally they’re friends.”

“And he could have known you were in Pine Mountain Lodge?”

“Of course Uncle Joe might have told him.”

Clifford considered a moment. “Tell me, just what has Mr. Loveman had
to do with this affair?”

“I have already told you everything I know.”

Clifford was convinced that in this she was telling him the truth. But
all his senses informed him that somewhere, working in some manner,
behind this affair was Peter Loveman, playing with his master’s
subtlety upon human frailties, passions, and ambitions. Undoubtedly
Mary Regan was being used. Undoubtedly also Commissioner Thorne had
been right when he had declared that Mary Regan had no suspicion that
she was being used, that she believed that whatever she was doing she
was doing of her own free will.

He had put to her all the questions he had intended; and as for a
moment he sat gazing at her--so composed, so worldly-looking, and so
very young to be saying such things as she had just said--the more
personal questions, which had shaken him so often, throbbed through
him like so many gigantic and fiery pulse-beats: Was she through and
through and unchangeably this worldly, calculating Mary Regan that she
had so carefully depicted for him--or was it all just a pose? Or might
she believe herself sincere in this sophistication--and yet deep down
in her might there be the living essence of a very different Mary Regan
that she tried to deny and ignore? He could not forget that moment
in Washington Square when her soul had seemed unlocked; he could not
forget her kiss....

Clifford stood up as though his intention was to leave. She also rose.
His trifling strategy achieved its end--physical proximity and the
chance which sitting at formal distance in chairs did not permit.
Suddenly he gripped her two shoulder; and the energy and purpose and
feeling which he had kept in restraint during the past minutes now
burst forth.

“Listen to me, Mary Regan,” he declared tensely. “You are not going to
marry Jack Morton! You hear me!”

She was so startled at the change in him that she was hardly aware of
the hands clutching her shoulders. “Why not?”

His words rushed out. “I’m not going to say anything about it’s not
being square. He’s not good enough for you! Oh, I don’t mean to run
down a man I’ve called my friend. Jack Morton is pleasant enough in
his way. And you’ve seen him at his best--away from the lights and Big
Pleasure, when he was on his good behavior--and there are few men who
can be more agreeable than Jack Morton. But Broadway is likely to get
hold of him again! And girls!--no girl is pretty to him for more than
six months, and every pretty girl is prettier than the last pretty
girl! It’s just the way Jack is made--or the way this town has made
him. I tell you it’s an awful mistake!”

“It’s my own mistake I’m making!” Her dark eyes flashed at him. “Take
off your hands!”

Instead he clutched her all the tighter. “There’s a bigger reason than
the mistake. Mary, you love me!”

“Love you!” she ejaculated.

“Yes, you love me, and you know you love me!” he declared masterfully.
The impulse was upon him to sweep her from her announced determination
by dominating her with a swift power comprised of his own longing for
her and her reawakened liking for him. “You know you love me, or why
did you see Commissioner Thorne about me six months ago, and why did
you to-day suggest to him that he again offer me the place of Chief of
the Detective Bureau? You love me, and you thought your marriage to me
might injure my public career. You don’t care how much marriage to Jack
Morton may injure him. Don’t you think I see through you? Don’t you
think I understand? You’re not going to marry Jack Morton! You’re going
to marry me!”

She had paled--and her dark eyes, of a brown that was almost a
black, were fixed upon him widely, in what might have been fear, or
bewilderment, or fascination, or all of these--and he felt a trembling
go through her body. For a long moment they stood tensely thus: he
hoping that he had carried the day--and at the same time poignantly
wondering what she was about to say or do.

“You are going to marry me! You are going to marry me!” he repeated
after the manner of those who seek to work miracles by the power of a
forcefully iterated idea.

He felt her body grow taut; and the startled look of her face gave
place to composed decision. That moment he knew that he had lost--for
this day at least.

“Please remove your hands!” she commanded in a quiet, edged voice.

He did not at once obey; his faculties were still so engaged with his
struggle to turn her aside, and with his failure, that he scarcely
heard her.

“Please remove your hands!” she repeated, her voice not going up by so
much as a semi-tone.

His hands fell to his sides.

“Despite what you say, Mr. Clifford,” she continued in the same even
voice of calm decision, “I am not going to marry you, and I am going to
marry Mr. Morton.”

He was composed again. “Perhaps you may never marry me,” he returned
grimly. “But you certainly will never marry Jack Morton.”

“And why not?”

“Because I shall prevent it.”

“How?”

“By any and whatever means seem most effective.”

Her gaze sharpened. Then the red of anger faintly tinted the tawny
satin of her cheek.

“You mean to say you would be low enough to tell Jack or his father
about me and my family?”

He looked her straight in the face. “You have admitted that that
procedure might be effective.”

“You wouldn’t dare do that!” And she seized his arm with a grasp no
less intense than his of a minute before, and glared at him.

“I’ll do exactly what may be necessary, Miss Regan.”

“You--you--” she gasped. “You have no right to interfere in my affairs!”

“There is far more to this affair than just _You_, Miss Regan.” With an
almost impersonal movement he removed her hand from his arm and let it
fall. “I must be going. But do not forget for a moment that I am going
to prevent your marriage, and prevent it in whatever way will be most
effective.”

He bowed slightly. Standing just where he had left her, she watched
him go out, within her a dazed commotion of surprise, consternation,
suspense--and, strangely, not quite so high an anger toward Clifford as
she had felt two moments before.




CHAPTER VII

NINA CORDOVA


Yes, he must prevent this marriage, he must block Loveman, he must
find out Loveman’s plan, and he must do all quickly--but how? To warn
the Mortons would achieve some of these ends; but he had a strong
repugnance to this procedure. He would only play this as his last card.

Clifford thought of Slant-Face; but he realized that Slant-Face
would probably have no influence with his sister, and possibly the
ex-pickpocket might even regard the affair from Mary’s viewpoint. Also
he thought of her Uncle Joe; but the same objection held true regarding
him, and also the width of the continent made him unavailable. As for
Commissioner Thorne, he could not be of service in the present stage of
affairs. And then Clifford thought of Uncle George. Uncle George might
possibly give suggestions, for Uncle George knew as much about the
pleasure life (and what lay beneath it) of Broadway and of Broadway’s
closest territorial relative, Fifth Avenue between the Waldorf and St.
Patrick’s Cathedral, as any other hundred men in New York put together.

An hour after leaving Mary, Clifford sat in the Grand Alcazar
restaurant, looking into the bland, genial, cunning, loose-skinned old
face. He had just finished telling Uncle George of his discovery of the
whereabouts of Mary Regan and the other events of the day.

The old man regarded Clifford with meditative, puckered gaze--a gaze
of somewhat peculiar effect, begotten by his lack of eyebrows and
eyelashes. “Son,” he began slowly, “the thing that stands out in this
chunk of _vers libre_ you’ve been handing me, is the fact that you’re
so stuck on that little dame Mary Regan--”

“Let’s leave me, and what I may think of her, out of it,” put in
Clifford.

“Don’t interrupt, son. You ask me a thing and you’ve got to let me
spiel along in my own way”--which, indeed, was one of the difficulties
not to be avoided in consulting Uncle George. “Now, you listen to me,
son, and you’ll hear something out of the original book out of which
old Solomon and those other wise guys that have been playing big time
steady for three or four thousand years swiped all their good gags.
Son, you’re too damned monogamous! You’re insulting God: what the hell
d’you suppose he made so many pretty girls for?--and let the others get
wise on how to make themselves pretty? Now, I like Mary Regan as well
as any male person can who’s not her relative and who’s not trying to
be--but if she tried any of that beautiful female cussedness on me,
I’d throw her one smiling kiss, mail her a picture post-card of the
jumping-off place, and proceed to admire some of the other works of
God.”

Uncle George nodded, and started to sip his white wine thinned with
sparkling water.

“Thanks, Uncle George. But let’s get back--”

“Hold on, son. That was just my first sentence. Supposing Mary Regan
is trying to put something across by holding back a little of the
truth--sort of saving it up for a rainy day. Well, what of that? Ain’t
we all liars? You take it from your Uncle George, a superannuated
old burglar, president emeritus of that grand old _alma mater_, the
University of Broadway, who’s played every kind of game with every kind
of male and female now decorating this earth--take it from me, son,
I’ve never seen the strait and narrow road of truth congested with the
traffic. That’s one road you can speed on, and not even see a cop.
So, son, if Mary Regan has been like the rest of us, don’t hold it
especially against her. And her marrying Jack Morton by holding back a
bit of the evidence, it’s not going to hurt him such a lot.”

“I’m thinking of what it may do to her.”

“Why, now, son, a marriage now and then seems to improve a lot of
women. And the only time a few marriages seem to be a handicap to some
women is when they undertake to sign their names in full.”

“You’re in very good voice this evening, Uncle George. But, if you
don’t mind, let’s talk about how to stop that marriage, and how to find
out Loveman’s game.”

“All right--all right. Now, let’s see. You know Nina Cordova, star of
that new musical show that’s a sure-fire frost--what is it?”

“‘Orange Blossoms.’ Yes, I know of her.”

“Then you’ll remember that in young Morton’s previous Broadway
incarnation he had an affair with her--which little Nina broke off
sharp and sudden when she got the chance a year ago at the star’s part
in ‘The Bridal Wreath’? She’s a live proposition: why not inject her
into the affair?”

“I’ve thought of that,” said Clifford.

“H’m. Well, then,” Uncle George meditated, “you remember how Jack
Morton, when he was along here before, used to like his little quart
or two or three of champagne?--and how he behaved when he was all lit
up? Why not kidnap him from Bradley, give him a chance to be his real
self again, and then ship him to Mary? This different Jack Morton might
make her stop and think. Or send him along to his old man--and when
his old man saw how the kid had broken training he might do what he’s
threatened, stop Jack’s dough; and this might be enough of a jolt to
make Mary call the thing off.”

“I’ve thought of those things, too.”

“You seem to have thought of everything,” half grumbled Uncle George.
“Well, what’s the matter with these ways?”

“For one thing, it would take time to put them across. I’ve got to act
quickly, for there’s no telling what she’ll do. Besides, before I take
any action, I’d like to learn how she got into this matter; I’d like to
learn just what Loveman’s and Bradley’s part in the game has been, just
what they plan to make of it in the future.”

“I get you,” nodded Uncle George. “So that you can plan your action
accordingly. But that’s some job, son,--getting in on the inside of the
game of such a pair as Bradley and Loveman.”

“I know it. It can only be done indirectly.” Clifford regarded Uncle
George thoughtfully for a moment, then suddenly asked: “Do you know
Jack Morton’s father?”

“I’ve met him.”

“Know him well enough to get into a friendly talk with him?”

“Son,” demanded Uncle George in an aggrieved tone, “you mean to insult
me by asking if I need even to have seen a man before to be his best
friend inside of thirty minutes--me that could go out now and sell
old Andy Carnegie’s pig-iron billets back to him as gold-bricks!”
Uncle George looked at his watch. “Father Morton is staying at the
Biltmore. It’s now six-twenty. I’ve noticed that he leads himself into
the smoking-room at six-thirty for a cocktail. I feel a craving for a
Biltmore cocktail. Son, just where is that building lot in North River
located that you want me to sell him?”

“Could you steer the talk around to his son--make him doubt Bradley a
bit--say something good about me--and implant in him the idea that he
ought to consult me?”

“Could I? Why don’t you write me an act that’d bring out my talents?
It’s already done--what you going to do next?”

“That depends on whether Mr. Morton comes to see me, and whether I get
anything out of him.”

Uncle George heaved himself to his feet. “Come on, son, see me safe
aboard a taxi.” Outside, in the cab, he reached forth and laid a hand
on Clifford’s shoulder. “Remember, son, there’s just as good mermaids
in the sea as have ever been caught.”

“_Bon voyage_,” said Clifford as the car started.

The old man, winking a genial, satyr-like wink, blew Clifford a kiss
through the open window.

At half-past ten that night Clifford sat at a little table in the Gold
Room at the Grantham. There had come a message from Uncle George that
he should be in this room at this hour. Beyond this the message had
said nothing.

Clifford had wandered through the score of big public rooms that
comprised the first two floors of the Grantham--the lounges, the
parlors, the half-dozen restaurants--with the feverish hope that he
might glimpse Mary Regan (so little effect had Uncle George’s wisdom
had upon him!), but with no idea of what he should do or say should
he see her. He had had an impulse to call again at her suite, but had
restrained himself from that folly. He now glanced through the slowly
filling Gold Room, but he did not sight her. He wondered just where
she was--what she was thinking of--what she was planning. Should he,
if all other methods failed, block her worldly plans and the as yet
unpenetrated scheme of Loveman and Bradley by telling the Mortons who
she was? He felt himself a cad whenever he thought of it; but, yes, if
he had to, he would do it!...

A hand fell upon his shoulder. “Wake up there, you old crystal-gazer!”
called a cheerful voice.

Clifford looked up. Smiling down on him was a cherubic face: a somewhat
elderly cherub, to be sure, since where usually there is the adornment
of divine curls there was the glaze of baldness.

“Sit down, Loveman, and join me in a drink.”

“I’m afraid of you, my boy,” answered the famous little lawyer. “You
might put poison in my cup.”

“Why?”

“Because I lied to you--you see, I’m not waiting to be accused,” the
other smiled affably. “I told you I didn’t know where Mary Regan
was, and after that you followed me and I led you right to her. She
telephoned me about your finding her. You sure caught me dead to
rights.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do anything with you, Loveman,--though that was the
second fib you told me about her.”

“Both gentleman’s lies--told for a lady’s sake,” amiably explained
Loveman. “She didn’t want her whereabouts known. But now that you’ve
found her, what’re you going to do?”

“I don’t know that I can do anything.” And then Clifford chanced a
shot. “You see, I learned that she is secretly engaged to Jack Morton.”

“You don’t say!” exclaimed the little man. “That is astounding! Well,
well--I’ll have a look into that and see what’s to be done.”

He rubbed his shining crown in bewildered thoughtfulness,--Clifford had
to admire his art as an actor,--then again was smiling.

“Wish you’d join me after a while at supper, Clifford. Little party
I’m giving Nina Cordova--got to cheer her up a bit, you understand.
You know ‘Orange Blossoms’ is one God-awful flivver, and Nina, poor
orphan-child, don’t know what to do. Gee, but it’s a rotten show, and
what it didn’t do to kill itself Nina did for it: she sure is one
musical-comedy prima donna that ought to be seen and not heard! And
even at that, seen too oft, familiar with her face--oh, go ask the
box-office man to finish the quotation. So I’m giving her this little
party to boost her spirits--though why shouldn’t somebody be giving me
a party to cheer me up for the twenty thousand United States of America
dollars that dropped through the bottom of that show?” He gave a moan
of mock self-sympathy. “Well, you’ll join us when the crowd blows in?”

“Thanks, but I’m waiting for a friend.”

“Break away if you can; be glad to have you.”

Clifford watched the strange little notable, behind whose light chatter
he knew to be the cleverest legal brain of its sort in New York,
cross to a small corner table, which was reserved for him every night
and was known to the waiters here as “Mr. Loveman’s table.” He saw
Loveman converse in turn with various people, and in a general way he
understood; for at this table, during the play hours of the night,
Loveman transacted many of the affairs too delicate to be brought to
his office or his apartment. And he saw Loveman, while he chatted, gaze
about upon those gathering for supper and dancing. There were people
here whose family names were daily in the society and Wall Street
columns--most of them here with no intent more reprehensible than the
restless search for pleasure, which in this our present day has become
public pleasure. Loveman smiled on them most kindly: as why shouldn’t
he, thought Clifford, since many of them were working for him, though
they guessed it not?

Loveman’s party now arrived and were seating themselves at a large
table directly beside the dancing-floor. There were Jack Morton, his
father, Nina Cordova, two other actresses, and half a dozen men and
women of the smart young society set. Loveman was at his best, keeping
his party in highest spirits: no man in New York was his superior as
midnight host.

As Clifford watched the gay supper progress, he wondered what other of
these guests the gay Loveman might be deftly drawing into some distant
entanglement.

Presently some one took the chair opposite Clifford. It was Uncle
George; and Uncle George gave him a slight wink of a lashless eye.

“While we’re on the subject, son,” the old man began, “I might remark
that I put a bee in little Nina’s bonnet.”

“Just what have you got me here for?” demanded Clifford.

“It’s always worth while, son, to watch Loveman improve each midnight
hour. See how he smiles and talks--and yet, God, how he’s working!
But you’re here, son, because of Father Morton; and also, perhaps, to
see if Nina’s bee buzzes. How about splitting fifty-fifty on a ham
sandwich?”

As the two ate the best supper Uncle George could order, Clifford kept
his eyes on Loveman’s party. They were now leaving the table in couples
to dance. Nina Cordova, a slender blonde with a soft, appealing face
and quick, bright eye, was with Jack Morton; dancing was something they
both did well; and it was easy to see that the slender prima donna had
more than a dancing interest in her partner. Then Loveman danced with
her; and in the middle of the dance they halted beside Clifford’s table.

“Finish this with me, Uncle George,” coaxed the little star.

“My dear child,” returned the old man, “if you’d spoken to me a little
earlier, say bout 1871, I’d have danced with you till that orchestra
dropped dead. But now, why, I’d just fall apart on the floor. Ask
Clifford there.”

She smiled at Clifford and the next moment he was fox-trotting with
her. She was certainly a marvel of a dancer; also, beneath her
_ingénue_ surface, she had a keen brain of her own sort; and in her
light chatter as they swung about he sensed that she was trying to
search his mind--and he sensed also that she was doing this at the
instigation of Loveman. But he parried so well that he believed she did
not even know he was fencing.

“Clever girl, Uncle George,” he said when he was back at his table.

“Son, you said something then,” affirmed the old man. “Unless my hunch
works wrong you’ll some day find her mixed up in this affair; and when
you do meet up with her, son, you’d better forget that, according to
the date written down in her press-agent’s Bible, that dear little
child is only twenty-one.”

Clifford looked over at her thoughtfully. She danced half a dozen
dances with Jack Morton; and Clifford, watching everything, guessed
that the elder Morton was none too pleased. And then she danced again
with Loveman; and he saw that she was talking imperiously to the little
lawyer; and if only he could have overheard he might have given more
weight to Uncle George’s prediction that Nina Cordova was to play some
considerable part before the final curtain fell.

“Peter,” she was saying, “since ‘Orange Blossoms’ is such a fizzle, I’m
going to quit the show business, and marry some nice young man.”

“But, my child, your art!” protested Loveman.

“My art be damned!” replied the pretty one. “And, Peter, I’ve decided
that the nice young man will be Jack Morton.”

Loveman gave her a sharp look. But if he felt any alarm, his voice gave
no evidence of it.

“Better think again, dearie. He’ll not have forgotten the way you threw
him down.”

“Give me a week and I’ll make him forget it,” she returned confidently.

“If you are set on getting married, Nina dear, I’ll help you find
another candidate,” said Loveman in his soft, advisory tone. “This
town’s full of rich young fellows. Just look ’em over, make your
choice, and I’ll help you out with the rest.”

“I don’t want any other!”

“I don’t think Jack Morton will do, my dear.”

“Why not?”

“I think, dearie, that there are other arrangements--”

“You mean that you have other arrangements!” she said sharply.

“There now, dearie, don’t get excited. This town’s full of nice men--”

“You can’t bluff me, Peter! I see through you--you don’t want me to
marry Jack.” The little _ingénue_ was suddenly a little fury--but a
composed fury. “Peter, I know a lot,” she said quietly, “and unless you
behave about the way I want you to, I may do something that won’t make
you awfully happy.”

There was no mistaking the threat in that voice, and that threat
was not to be underrated. Loveman had no intention of yielding; the
situation required careful handling and perhaps quick action elsewhere;
in the meantime the thing to do was to temporize.

“All right, dearie,--we’ll fix it up,” he said soothingly. “There’s
Jack Morton waiting for us; I’ll turn you right over to him.”

As Clifford saw Nina and young Morton begin a fox-trot, a passing
waiter handed Clifford a card. On it was engraved, “_Mr. James
Morton_,” and around the name was scribbled, “Wait for me in the lounge
just off the bar.”

Clifford descended to the Grantham’s lounge, which was fitted in the
manner of the smartest and most exclusive of men’s clubs. Five minutes
later Mr. Morton entered and came straight to him. Clifford had already
made his private estimate of this man with the graying hair and
distinguished face: a man whose habit it was to buy men,--and women,
too,--use them, and when finished with them, throw them aside without a
thought and go on his way.

“I’ve heard of you, Mr. Clifford,” he began, when they were seated in
deep chairs beside a little table. “They say you are a detective who’s
absolutely on the square.”

“Thank you,” said Clifford.

“I didn’t call you down to pay you compliments,” the other said
incisively, eyeing him keenly, “so I’ll go right to the point. You know
my son?”

“Yes.”

“It’s about Jack I want to see you.” Mr. Morton spoke in the compact
sentences of a master of affairs. “I guess you know he’s been some
trouble. I’m certain something’s in the air now. I don’t know whether
it’s that Miss Cordova or something else. I can’t get anything out of
Jack. I’ve been having him looked over by a private detective; you know
him--Bradley; but Bradley doesn’t seem to be able to learn anything
either. I’m not one hundred per cent trustful of Bradley: set a
detective to catch a detective--that might prove a good idea. Will you
undertake the job?--finding out about Bradley, and finding out about my
son?”

“I can’t say until I know the situation.” Here was opening before him
the chance he had been working for, but Clifford managed to speak
composedly. “If you don’t mind telling me, just how do things stand?”

“If you know Jack, you know what his idea of living in New York was a
year or six months ago. I couldn’t leave my affairs and come here to
look after him. I ordered my lawyer, Mr. Loveman, to take whatever
steps were necessary. It was absolutely essential that Jack should take
a brace--”

“Pardon me. Aside from the moral reasons, were there any other reasons
for your wanting Jack to change his habits?”

“There was, and still is, an engagement with a young woman back in
Chicago. Not exactly an engagement, rather an understanding between the
families. The match could not be more desirable; the young lady has
everything.”

“Pardon me--do I know the young lady you refer to?”

“You may have heard of her. Her father is Sherwood Jones. She is Miss
Maisie Jones.”

“I have seen her picture in the illustrated Sunday supplements--among
prominent young society girls.”

“Then you can partially understand why I consider the match
so desirable. But the family at that time objected, and still
objects--until Jack proves that he has settled down. Three months ago I
came East and delivered an ultimatum.”

“In the presence of Jack alone?” Clifford put in gently.

“No. Mr. Loveman had been doing his best to control the boy. Naturally
he was present.”

“And the ultimatum?”

“I said that he either had to take a brace or I was through with him.”

“Let’s see whether I get the general idea.” Clifford was moving forward
carefully. “If Jack didn’t brace up, he’d have to earn his own money.
On the other hand, if he did brace up, the idea was that he was to quit
New York and marry the young lady you have referred to.”

“That’s it exactly.”

“Did you suggest any particular plan for his bracing up?”

“I said he had to spend a period at some quiet place far away from New
York.”

“And what did Mr. Loveman think of this idea?”

“He thought it was just the plan. In fact he said he knew the very
place for Jack to go to--Pine Mountain Lodge.”

“Then he suggested Pine Mountain Lodge?”

“Yes.”

Clifford was silent a moment.

“You have told Mr. Loveman and Mr. Bradley of your intention to consult
me?”

“No.”

“I suggest that you do not. Is there any other information you can give
me?”

“Nothing else that’s definite. But I suspect a lot, and I want to find
out what’s doing. Will you take the case?”

Clifford spoke guardedly, masking his dislike for the ruthless man
before him. “I prefer not to consider myself retained by you until I am
certain I can serve you. I’ll have to think the situation over, and
let you know later.”

It was little that Mr. Morton had told Clifford, yet, after Morton had
left him, that little set Clifford’s mind going like a racer. He sat
thinking--thinking; and after a time he began to perceive dim outlines
of what Loveman’s plan might be. And as with growing excitement he
began to see, he began also to consider what his own course should
be....

He looked at his watch. It was half-past three. He started back for the
Gold Room, but on the way up he saw Loveman and his party leaving. He
quickly secured his coat and hat and followed them out just in time to
see Loveman go off in a taxi with Nina Cordova. He was after them in
another taxi, a discreet block behind. Five minutes later Loveman set
Miss Cordova down at her hotel, and went on to his own home.

Clifford dismissed his taxi, waited ten minutes, then crossed and
entered Loveman’s apartment house.




CHAPTER VIII

IN LOVEMAN’S LIBRARY


The drowsy elevator boy carried Clifford to the eleventh floor, and
Clifford rang Loveman’s bell. After a moment the door was opened by
Loveman’s Japanese butler, to whom Clifford, after stepping in, gave
his card. The little Oriental, showing no slightest surprise at a call
at such an hour, disappeared noiselessly through a door; and reappeared
after a brief delay and held the door open as a sign that Clifford was
to enter.

Clifford stepped through the doorway and found himself in the large
richly furnished library of Peter Loveman. Loveman, in a rope-girdled
dressing-gown and with his tonsured head looking very much a jolly
little monk, crossed the room with smiling hospitality. In a deep,
tapestried chair, wearing a dinner jacket, sat the square figure of
Bradley.

“This is a surprise, Clifford!” cried Loveman, taking his hand. “And
a pleasure, too,--also a relief: dropping in on a pair of grouches,
just as they were getting ready to murder each other to drive dull care
away. You there, you other grouch,”--to Bradley,--“say good-evening to
our relief expedition.”

Bradley, without rising, nodded curtly. Clifford gave back a similar
greeting.

“Off with your overcoat, Clifford,” the little man said briskly, “and
make yourself comfortable.”

“I’ll keep it on, Loveman. I can only stay a few minutes.”

“Well, anyhow, sit down,” and Loveman pushed him into a chair and
gestured toward a little table on which stood bottles and glasses and
siphons. “All the ingredients here of the Fountain of Perpetual Youth:
what’ll you have--high-ball, cocktail, liqueur--or shall I have Oni
bring you a split of champagne?”

“Thanks, I’m not drinking to-night.”

“Smoke, then?” offering cigars and cigarettes.

“No, thank you.”

“Say, you’re making a host look dam’ inhospitable,” humorously
complained the little man. “How about a little whist? I’ll run the
dummy. Bradley there loves it: he’s acting vice-chairman of the
Daughters of Brooklyn Memorial and Bridge Associ--”

“Cut it out!” growled Bradley. “Ask him what he wants.”

“Pardon him, Clifford: Bradley’s a gentleman of no social parts. But
since he has mentioned the point--is there anything special you came
for?”

“I came to talk,” said Clifford.

“Talk--good! Talking’s my trade!” Loveman drew up a chair, so that the
three of them formed a square, the table of bottles filling the fourth
side. “Let ’er go--guest has the opening speech.”

“I suppose, Clifford, that this is where you’d like to have me make a
quick exit,” said Bradley--and he crossed his legs, folded his arms,
bit upon his invariable big cigar, and gave Clifford a challenging look.

“On the other hand, Bradley,” Clifford returned, “I count it luck
that I found you here, and I beg you as a favor to remain. Bradley,
Loveman,” he said sharply, “I’ve come here for a show-down--to tell you
that I’m on to your little game!”

“Our game?” queried Loveman, with puzzled blandness.

“Your game with Mary Regan and the Mortons.”

“Indeed!” Loveman said softly. “Now, I wonder if you’d mind giving a
little information to an ignorant man?”

Bradley’s face had suddenly become hard; his little eyes were gleaming.
But though Loveman’s manner was blandly puzzled, Clifford knew the
little lawyer was as alertly watchful of him as was Bradley--and was as
much to be watched.

“I’ll put all my cards on the table, Loveman,” he said with
deliberation. “I’ll tell you exactly what I know--which is also exactly
what you know. There’s nothing at all extraordinary about it; it’s just
the sort of thing that with a few variations you’re doing over and
over.”

“Oh, I say, am I really so monotonous!” protested Loveman.

“You said you were going to put your cards on the table,” cut in
Bradley. “Come on, let’s see your two-spots.”

“We’ll go back a bit, Loveman,” said Clifford. “Morton, senior, had
entrusted you with the legal end of some of his New York affairs; and
when Jack Morton came to New York, and began to get himself tangled up
through having too much money, the father put it up to you to extricate
his son. Good profit in handling such affairs, Loveman: nice fee for
legal services rendered; a private split of the sums for which the
matters were settled; and an unobtrusive arrangement whereby the son
could be drawn into further profitable predicaments. A big-paying
business, Loveman.”

“Go on,” said the little lawyer pleasantly.

“Three or four months ago the father descended upon New York in a fury.
He declared he was through settling for Jack’s troubles. He was going
to send Jack somewhere far away from New York--and Jack had to take a
brace, or the father would drop him. Also there was a marriage with a
rich girl that the father wanted to put across--and there’d be nothing
doing unless Jack straightened up. So Jack simply had to be braced up.
Right there, Loveman, was where you saw yourself losing a big piece
of your income. But you did some quick thinking, and you fell in with
the father’s idea that Jack should be sent into retirement to reform.
In fact, you knew the very place, Pine Mountain Lodge. And on your
suggestion Jack was sent there.”

“And if I did mention Pine Mountain Lodge, what of that?” Loveman
mildly inquired.

“You knew Mary Regan was there, and knew she was the only attractive
woman staying at the hotel. And you knew that Jack Morton fell
for about every pretty woman that he met. Thrown together in that
isolation, you hadn’t a doubt of what he would do. It was only a
chance--but it was _your only chance_; and if it worked out the way you
thought it might, there would be rich possibilities in the situation
for you--without your seeming to have been mixed in the affair. Well,
it worked out just as you thought it might--and the possibilities lie
ready to your hand.”

“In case I’m overlooking anything good,” Loveman remarked in the same
gentle voice, “would you mind telling me just what these possibilities
are?”

“Of course the marriage had to be secret; otherwise the possibilities
would have been cut down by two thirds. First item, after the marriage
had taken place, there was the possibility of getting hush money out of
Mary Regan by threatening to expose her. You would never have appeared
in this; Bradley would have attended to this detail--perhaps through
one of his men. Second, after you had exhausted the possibilities of
blackmail, the next step would have been to inform the father that you
suspected something was wrong with Jack. The father would order the
matter looked into; you would engage Bradley for the job, and after a
lengthy examination Bradley would report a secret marriage--a big bill
for detective services. Third, you would then be retained to annul
the marriage--and a big fee there. Well, Loveman, Bradley,” he ended
grimly, “I believe that’s just about the outline of this particular
sweet little game!”

Bradley was glaring at him, his square jaws clamped upon his cigar.
Little Loveman, still with his affable look, was twirling the tasseled
end of his girdle around a chubby forefinger.

“You’re very ingenious, very imaginative, Clifford. But granting for
the moment that you are correct, what next?”

Clifford leaned sharply forward. “You are not going through with it!
I’m going to stop you!”

Clifford gazed tensely at the two men. A slight quivering ran through
Bradley’s frame; his cigar fell, bitten through; his small, brilliant
eyes were points of vicious flame. Loveman still twirled the end of his
girdle, but now a bit more slowly. And thus the three sat for several
moments.

Then suddenly, without warning of word, seemingly without any
preliminary motion, Bradley’s powerful body launched itself from a
sitting posture straight at Clifford. Clifford started to rise, and
instinctively threw up his arms; but to no avail, for Bradley’s big
hands broke past his weak defense and gripped his throat. His chair
went toppling over, the table with its cargo of liquors went crashing
to the floor, and Clifford was carried resistlessly backward by the
force of Bradley’s lunge, until he came up against the great library
table. Over this he toppled, his spine against the table’s edge, and
Bradley drove his head down upon the wood with a terrific thump.

“You’ll stop nothing!” grated Bradley. “You’ve butted into my affairs
for the last time!”

Clifford tried to struggle free, but he was caught at too hopeless a
disadvantage--his spine upon the edge of the table, Bradley’s weight
crushing upon him, and that pair of hands clutching his throat. He
could move only his arms, and those to no purpose; he could not cry
out; he could not breathe. As his chest heaved for lack of air, he
read his doom in the deadly fury of Bradley’s face. And he realized,
even could he call for help, the futility of such an outcry in this
apartment at the top of a lofty building, at this heavily slumbrous
hour of four.

He had been faintly conscious of hurried fumblings about the desk--of
the snap of a lock--of the whine of a sliding drawer. Now, suddenly,
as his wide eyes were growing bleared, he saw a dark something appear
between his face and the face of Bradley a bare two feet away. And then
he saw the something was a short, black pistol, and that the pistol
was flush against Bradley’s jaw, and that the pistol was gripped in a
soft, round hand that was indubitably Loveman’s. And he heard Loveman’s
voice, no longer velvety, snap out:--

“Damn you, Bradley,--that rough stuff don’t go with me! Let loose of
him, or, by God, I’ll blow your dam’ face off!”

Clifford saw Bradley’s flaming little eyes shift toward the speaker.
Then he saw the monk-like figure shift the pistol from jaw to Bradley’s
shoulder.

“No, I’ll not kill you; I’ll splinter your dam’ bones,” the sharp voice
cried with fierce decision. “Get off that man before I count three, or
your left arm’ll be the first bone to go. One--two--”

The hands left Clifford’s throat, and the heavy figure lifted itself
from his body; and, thus freed, Clifford slumped to the floor where he
sat limply, pantingly, against the table. Loveman had stepped around
the table, and Clifford now saw that he was looking up at Bradley, and
he saw that the cherubic, large-eyed face of the lawyer was grim with
an awful wrath.

“You dam’ big boob!” cried the little man. “You’d let yourself--and
me!--in for a criminal charge! And people have always said you have a
brain!”

“I’ve taken all I can from him!” Bradley said thickly.

“Either you control your temper and cut out the rough stuff,” snapped
Loveman, “or you and I are through!”

The pair gazed fixedly at each other. Neither spoke. While they stood
silent, Clifford became aware of the Japanese butler, his back toward
the three of them and seemingly unaware of their doings, on his knees
picking up bottles and broken glass and toweling up the spilled liquor
from the rug.

Without replying, Bradley put his hands in his trousers’ pockets,
resumed his chair, and crossed his legs. With an easy motion Loveman
dropped the pistol into a pocket of his dressing-gown, and stepped
to Clifford’s side. He was again the agreeable man-about-town that
Broadway liked so well.

“Too bad--but natural--the way men will lose their tempers,” he said,
as he helped Clifford to his feet and into a chair. “How’re you
feeling?”

“I’ll be all right in a breath or two.”

“Better let me give you a brandy?”

“No, thanks.”

“Aw, it’s nothing!” cut in Bradley. “Let him finish saying how he was
going to stop us!”

“Do you feel like that--yet?” Loveman queried solicitously.

Clifford was still dazed, but he was no less set in his purpose.
“Bradley’s right--a little scuffle like that is nothing.”

“Good; a great thing to be in training!” Loveman sank into his chair,
smiling urbanely. “We’ve forgotten what’s happened”; and he brushed the
matter into oblivion with a pleasant wave of the hand that two minutes
before had gripped the pistol. “As I was about to remark--granting that
you are right, how are you going to stop it?”

“Of course I could stop it,” said Clifford, “by telling Jack and Mr.
Morton about Mary Regan and her father and her uncle and her brother.
At any rate, that would smash your game.”

“As you say, provided, of course, there is a contemplated marriage,
that would stop it,” Loveman agreed pleasantly. “Why don’t you do that?”

“Considering the character of the Mortons and the fact that she’s more
worth while than they are, telling on her seems to me a pretty raw deal
to give Mary Regan: to show her up to them, and give the father, who’s
as sympathetic as a shark, a chance to take the lead, break it off,
make a scandal out of it, and to humiliate her in public.”

“That’s dam’ delicate of you, Clifford,” said Loveman, “and I approve
of your sentiments as a gentleman. But if you don’t do that, how else
are you going to stop it?”

Clifford spoke calmly. “I’m going to stop it through you.”

“Through me! Well, well! Do you mind telling me, Clifford, just how I
am going to do it?”

“You have some influence over Mary Regan; I don’t pretend to know
what it is. You go to her to-morrow and you tell her, saying whatever
is necessary to bring her around, that she can’t go through with the
marriage. Then she breaks it off--and not the Mortons, and they’ll not
be any the wiser about her.”

“Well, well, you certainly do seem to think I have a very strong
influence with the ladies,” Loveman said blandly. “Very flattering,
I assure you. But supposing--all we’ve been talking about is mere
supposition, you know--supposing I have a mild disinclination to do
what you propose?”

“Supposing that,” Clifford returned grimly, “then I go to Mr. Morton,
tell him about Mary Regan, and tell him the whole thing was your plan.
And he’ll believe what I say about you, Loveman; I’ve merely got to
remind him that you suggested Pine Mountain Lodge, prove to him that
you knew Mary Regan was there, prove to him that you’ve been seeing
Mary Regan in New York, and he’ll swallow everything else. Result, the
present scheme of you and Bradley goes smash, and, further, you lose
all future business with your best-paying client.”

“Supposing, on the other hand,” Loveman remarked in his same bland
voice, “that I have no disinclination to do what you suggest?”

“In that case, you only lose out on your present plan. I’m not
interested in Morton. You keep his business. You see, Loveman, I’ve got
you: and what I’m offering is the best proposition for you.”

Loveman gently stroked his crown. “Clifford, do you believe in fairies?”

“Where does that come in?”

“You ought to believe in fairies, Clifford. You really ought. With
that imagination of yours, you’d coin money, writing fairy-stories for
children--simply coin money.” He turned to Bradley. “What do you say to
Clifford’s proposition?”

“Tell him to go to hell!” said Bradley, his old hatred flaring out.

“You’ll excuse Fido’s behavior, Clifford,” Loveman said apologetically.
“He hasn’t had a biscuit all day.”

“The real question is,” returned Clifford, “what does Peter Loveman say
to the proposition?”

“What do I say? Well, now, well,” Loveman said pleasantly, “you know
I never did believe in fairies and so I can’t be expected to gulp
down this remarkable little story you’ve told me. But since you are
interested in Miss Regan, and are concerned that nothing goes wrong
with her--why, for your sake, of course I’ll do it--I’ll do anything
you say.”

Clifford stared penetratingly at the round face, which never before
looked more like the face of an amiable monk. Behind that amiable face
was a swift thought that, after all, he might slip Nina Cordova into
this situation and that he’d square matters with Nina the first thing
in the morning.

“You’ll do it to-morrow?” demanded Clifford.

“To-morrow--sometime before noon.” And as Clifford continued his
keen glance: “You doubt me? All right.” He walked to a section of
his bookshelves and came back with a large, dingy volume. “Here’s a
Bible--a Gutenberg, 1455. There can’t be a holier Bible than this; just
think, man, what it cost. Go ahead--swear me.”

“I guess you’ll do it,” said Clifford. He rose. “I believe that’s all,
gentlemen. Good-night.”

As he started away Bradley glowered at him; but Loveman, slipping an
arm through his, escorted him to the door. There Loveman held him for a
moment.

“That was one grand fairy-tale, Clifford, you dreamed about me,” he
said with a smile through which (perhaps purposely) there glinted ever
so little of mockery. “But supposing I do have any little plan under
way, I wonder how close you’ve come to guessing it? Now, I wonder?”

Down in the quiet street, Clifford found himself wondering too.




CHAPTER IX

THE TEST OF LIFE


Now that he had won, now that the marriage and Loveman’s plans were
potentially blocked, there should have been a let-down from Clifford’s
long strain. But there was not. The settling of this affair seemed
only to give mind-room to other concerns. He tossed about restlessly
during the few hours that remained of the night; and he realized that
his restlessness was not due wholly to the suspense of waiting for the
finality that would come with Loveman’s completed promise.

In the slow hours before the coming of the slate-colored dawn a vague,
disturbing doubt crept in upon him. He had interfered with events, he
had tried to shape life upon his ideas: was his course right?--that
seemed to be something of the impalpable substance of his doubt. But
what this new doubt was, strive as he would he could not evoke it from
its vagueness into definite shape.

He had breakfast; and then, obeying an impulse which seemed to emerge
from this new, obscure maze of his mind, he suddenly decided to see
Mary Regan again--for what purpose he had no idea. Arrived at the
Grantham he had his name ’phoned up to “Mrs. Gardner,” and was informed
that Mrs. Gardner would see him.

Mary herself admitted him, and, not even replying to his
“good-morning,” she led him into the sitting-room. There she faced him,
proud and coldly defiant.

“I suppose you have come to inform me you have told the Mortons all
about me?”

“No,” he replied.

“Then, to threaten me again that you will tell?”

“No.”

“Then, what have you come for?”

He knew now--at least partly. During the moment he had been in the room
and had gazed upon her, there had emerged from the maze of his thoughts
and feelings, a sharply defined repugnance to what within the next hour
or two was to happen between her and Loveman: a repugnance, felt in her
behalf, that she should be made to yield to whatever influences that
cunning little lawyer would be able to exert.

“I have come to ask you,” he said, trying to speak composedly, but with
all his being vibrant beneath that composure, “to break off this affair
with Jack Morton of your own free will. You know you don’t care for
him. You know what you are planning to do isn’t square. Why don’t you
be true to the best self that is in you and end it all yourself?--and
end it now? There’s the telephone,” he urged--remembering that Loveman
might any moment appear--“call Jack Morton up and tell him you’ve
decided not to do it!”

As he spoke, her face had grown sharp with decision. “Mr. Clifford,”
she exclaimed in a low, cutting voice, “I’m tired of your presumption,
your interference! I’m tired of your trying to make me be what you
think I ought to be! As if it mattered to me what you thought!”

She took a step nearer, her straight, young figure stiffened, and her
dark eyes flashed at him. “Understand this, Mr. Clifford,--I’ve made up
my mind, and made it up definitely, finally. I am going to do exactly
what I want to do, and it is not in your power to stop me or divert me.
You may tell either of the Mortons if you like--my real course will not
be changed--that will merely mean that I’ll do what I want to do in
some other way!”

Clifford did not attempt to answer. Her defiant words, her young figure
so rigid with its determined spirit of worldliness, had set some
strange force working in him; a vague power seemed to be at conflict
with the purpose he had held to for so long; a strange revulsion seized
him, a revolution was under way which was compelling in its sweeping
drive, but whose intent and direction for a moment he could not
perceive.

He stood still, and stared at her. And then out of the inner turmoil
came a clear, bright order; and then he realized that the restlessness,
the formless doubts of the night before, had been the first faint
stirrings of this which was grown and clarified into a new purpose and
a new vision--a purpose and vision that astonished him. For they had
come at the very time when his old purpose was the same as achieved.

She could but notice the remarkable change in his appearance. “Well,
what is it now?” she demanded.

He drew a deep, quivering breath. A recklessness, a defiance--but
behind which his new purpose remained cool--now possessed him. He was
aware that he had to act quickly, for any instant Peter Loveman might
be here.

“What is it now?” he repeated, with a provoking smile. If he did not
have power to stir her to love, he knew that he had the power to stir
her to anger. “I was just recalling what you said a moment ago: to the
effect that you were going to do what you pleased and do it when you
pleased. Pardon me for smiling--but when a woman boasts, it sometimes
is amusing and a bit absurd.”

“What do you mean?” she said sharply.

“Oh, I’m smiling at myself, too, for I’ve just realized what a fool
I’ve made of myself in trying to stop you--an entirely unnecessary
effort. What I mean, Miss Regan, is that I do not believe you could do
it.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, I suppose you’d go through with your part of it. But if put to the
test of marrying at once, Jack Morton would never go through with his
part. He may be a bit infatuated; but he’s too wise to marry a woman
without money--without knowing more about who she is--and without his
father’s approval. No wonder Jack has been putting this off!”

She flushed hotly. “I have been the one to put it off!” she cried.

“Indeed,” he exclaimed with unbelief none too polite. “From the way
he was dancing last night with Miss Cordova--you know, that pretty
musical-comedy star--I have an idea she’s had a lot to do with the
delay. And I imagine she’ll have a lot more to do with further
delay. Why, you poor thing,”--he smiled irritatingly,--“to think you
could hold a man like Jack Morton--you having to remain inactive,
under cover--he free to roam about with all sorts of charming
women--particularly with Miss Cordova!”

She did not speak for a moment. She was choked with that anger on which
he had so carefully counted: no person, he knew, would be so likely to
act upon impulse as a proud and angered woman, before the man who has
insulted her.

“So you think I can’t do it!” she exclaimed. “So he’s the one who is
holding back! Well, I’ll just show you! Anyhow, this thing might as
well come to a head right now. And I’ll give you your chance to tell
all you know about me.”

She turned and took up the telephone from the writing-desk and asked
for the Biltmore. Fortune favored her purpose, for in a minute she had
Jack Morton on the wire.

“Can you come right over, Jack,--with your car?... No, don’t bring
your chauffeur; drive yourself.... Why? I’ll tell you that when you
come--only bring plenty of wraps.... All right, I’ll be ready; come
right up.”

“He’ll be over in fifteen minutes,” she said to Clifford. “You may wait
if you like. But you’ll excuse me.”

She passed into her bedroom. Clifford sank rather limply into a
chair. He had come to what just then seemed the supreme crisis of his
life, and he was still dazed at the way he had willed that crisis to
eventuate. He sat thinking--thinking; the minutes she was out were long
minutes to him.

Presently she reëntered. She had changed to a black velvet suit trimmed
with black fur; a small fur hat sat snugly down upon her thick, dark
hair; and she carried a fur motor-coat. She was an unforgettable
picture for him: the high color of her dark face against the background
of soft and sheeny blacks.

She did not address Clifford; but there was little time for their
silence to become awkward, for almost at once the bell of the
suite rang. Mary went to the door, and admitted Jack Morton. The
pleasant-faced young fellow looked most comfortably handsome in his
great motoring-coat of raccoon.

“I say, Mary, this is certainly fine!” he cried, after he had kissed
her. “And, hello--there’s Bob Clifford. How’s the old boy?” He shook
Clifford’s hand warmly. “But say, Mary, what’s doing?”

Mary looked at Morton when she replied, but her voice was directed
at Clifford: “I’ve decided, Jack, to give in to you. I’m ready to be
married at once--to-day.”

“Hurrah!” cried young Morton, seizing both her hands. “But we’ll have
to keep it quiet--same as we planned. You’re ready now?”

She did not answer. Clifford noted that her body tautened and her
breath was held--as one who waits for a blow; and he understood that
she was waiting for, and expecting him to speak the truth about her.

She slowly turned and looked at Clifford. Surprise that he had said
nothing was in her face. Then she turned back to Morton.

“I’m all ready,” she said distinctly, so that Clifford might not miss
a word. “We’ll do as you suggested: motor away back into the country
to some small place--get married--and a little money spent judiciously
there will keep our marriage quiet as long as we like.” She turned
again to Clifford. “I’m sure we have the best wishes of Mr. Clifford.”

He knew that her words, and her straight look, were not now so much
challenge or defiance as the bold offering him a second time the chance
to speak, and to speak at the most effective moment imaginable. She
might be perverse--but of a certainty she had nerve!

“You surely have my wishes that it will all turn out for the very
best,” said Clifford; and again he saw surprise in her gaze.

He rode down the elevator with them and walked out to the curb where
stood Morton’s machine, a black, closed car with a long hood that
bespoke the engine-power of a racer. Morton was swinging open the door
when Clifford, trying to keep down the choke that sought to rise in his
throat, remarked with attempted good-fellowship:--

“If you don’t mind, Morton, I wish you’d wire me as soon as it’s over.
Here at the Grantham.”

“Sure, old man. Step in, Mary.”

Mary started to obey, then checked herself. “May I speak to you a
moment, Mr. Clifford?”

They moved a few paces away. She looked at him penetratingly.

“Why have you done this?” she abruptly whispered.

“Done what?” he parried.

“Don’t you think that I see now that you have forced my hand? That I am
down here now, about to do this, because you wanted me to do it? Why
are you doing it--when you could stop everything, this moment, with
just a few words?”

He gave her back a straight look and spoke deliberately. “I have
tried for a long time to do with you what I saw as best--to pull the
strings--and I have failed, over and over. When you declared a little
while ago that I or nothing else could change your purpose, I suddenly
had a new vision. I realized that if you were poor material I could
not save you, and that you would not be worth saving. And I realized
that if you were good material, only some way that I had not tried
could affect you; and it came to me,” he went on grimly, “that bitter
experience might do for you what I had not done. And it also came
to me that if anything could arouse you to the human realities, no
experiences might be so effective as what might lie before you in this
very marriage you had planned.”

“And that is why you said nothing?” she breathed.

He nodded. “I have taken my hands off, to give life its chance to pull
the strings.”

She gazed at him a moment longer. Then she returned to the car. But as
she stepped in, she paused and glanced back once more. Her face was
very pale and dazed--it held the look of one who wondered, but could
not understand.

       *       *       *       *       *

Restlessly, but with a heavy heart within him, Clifford wandered about
the great lobby of the Grantham. A slow hour passed--then another. Then
he saw Peter Loveman, on his plump face an expression which for Loveman
was very serious, come up the broad stairway and go straight for the
desk at which visitors sent up their names to guests of the house.
Loveman spoke to the blonde within the grilled enclosure--waited--then
walked away with a sober, puzzled look. He sighted Clifford in a deep
lounging-chair, and his face on the instant grown genial, he crossed
and dropped into a chair beside him.

“Needn’t explain, Clifford,” he said pleasantly, offering a cigarette
from a lacquered case which Clifford refused. “Sure, I understand what
you showed up here for: to see if I went through with what I promised.
Well, I just asked for her, and was told she’d gone out. I’m going to
wait for her--and I suppose you’ll wait too.”

Clifford nodded.

Loveman tried to draw Clifford into conversation, but his light remarks
failing to evoke a response, he looked through first the “Wall Street
Journal,” and then the “Morning Telegraph,” that organ of the theater
and the other diversions close to Broadway’s life. Thus the two sat for
over an hour, neither speaking; then a page came by, calling in the
impersonal voice of hotel pages, “Telegram Mr. Clifford--Telegram Mr.
Clifford.”

Clifford took the yellow missive with a hand that he tried to keep from
shaking. He was quite certain what was in it--the end of things, just
as he had suddenly planned them in his new vision of some three or
four hours earlier. Yet, none the less, he had a moment of supreme and
sickening suspense as he opened the envelope.

Yes, it was just what he had expected. He gazed fixedly at the
typewritten lines before him--lines which were like heavy doors
swinging to and locked between him and that of which he had dreamed.
Then he became conscious that the big round eyes of little Peter
Loveman were gazing at him curiously. Silently he handed the telegram
to the lawyer.

Loveman glanced the telegram through. “The devil!” he cried. Then he
read it again, this time aloud:--

  Married quiet place ten miles from here. Everybody will keep it
  secret. Happy you bet.
                                                               J.

Loveman stared at Clifford. “And it’s addressed to you!” he exclaimed.
“Say, this means you’ve crossed yourself! What the devil are you up to?”

Clifford did not answer.

There was a moment of silence, then Loveman whispered to himself: “And
I just promised Nina Cordova!”

Again Clifford did not answer; he did not hear Loveman. Such of his
senses as were not numbed by the finality of which that telegram was
the token were directed into that unfinal future which human vision
could not penetrate. How was it all going to work out for Mary Regan?
Was experience going to do for her what he had failed to do, or was
experience going to stimulate to complete and final dominance her
worldliness? And had he played into Peter Loveman’s hands? And what
would Loveman do?

But these were questions only Life could answer. He had stepped aside
to give Life full play, to let human impulses move unhindered by him
toward their destiny; and he must wait until Life was ready to speak.

He was subconsciously aware that Loveman’s round eyes were fixed upon
him sharply, and he was subconsciously aware that the keen brain behind
that round face was working swiftly, ranging in every direction. But
without looking at Loveman again, or speaking to him, he rose heavily
and went down the broad marble stairway, muted with rugs, out into the
winter twilight. These questions that engaged his mind were none of his
affair. Mary Regan, as far as she touched his personal life, was now
become an episode that was closed. He had other affairs to fill his
life; he must turn himself to them.

And yet, as he walked away ... he wondered....




CHAPTER X

THE GOLDEN DOORS


The hour was eleven-thirty of that same night. Clifford sat in the
Gold Room at the Grantham, and kept a careful eye upon the proceedings
across the great room at the little corner table known among the
waiters as “Mr. Loveman’s table.”

Clifford watched many persons speak briefly to Loveman. He tried to
guess what the shrewd little lawyer might now be up to. Among those
who came to Loveman’s table he particularly noted a dark, perfectly
tailored young man, of perhaps thirty, with the lithe slenderness of
the expert dancing male. Clifford knew him by name and reputation, and
already he had set him down as one he must watch, together with Loveman
and Bradley.

But for all his efforts to concentrate upon his present business,
Clifford’s mind kept shifting back to Mary Regan. It was a most
difficult situation which she had taken upon herself: the daughter of
one famous criminal, the niece of another, the sister of another, and
herself a former participant in criminal acts--secretly married to a
rich young man who knew nothing of her past, and who was dependent
upon the approval of an autocratic father. To succeed in the soaring
worldly plans she had admitted to him with such cold frankness would
require marvelous skill, marvelous daring, marvelous self-control.
Well--skill, daring, control, she had them!

But there was Loveman to be considered. Clifford asked himself if he
had deduced aright Loveman’s plans concerning her? Loveman’s words,
spoken in the early hours of that morning, and spoken with mockery
glinting through his habitual amiability of manner, came back to him:
“Just supposing I do have any little plan under way, Clifford, I wonder
how close you’ve come to guessing it? Now, I wonder?”

Looking over at the cherubic face of the shrewd little lawyer, Clifford
felt for the moment all the doubt that these words had been intended to
arouse. Had he, perhaps, guessed only a part of Loveman’s plan?--or was
he altogether wrong?

And Clifford’s restless mind flashed to his last act in the destiny of
Mary Regan: the extreme measure he had resorted to in taunting her into
that impulsive marriage with Jack Morton; and then his telling her with
almost brutal directness, during the brief moment just before she and
Jack had motored off, that he had come to realize that only going her
own worldly way, only the experience of life, could avail to awaken the
real woman that was in her.

He wondered. But only time, as it unrolled its film of unborn events,
could answer these questions. He could now do no more than hope the
best results for Mary Regan--wherever she might be.

With an effort Clifford brought himself back to his present business,
and again gave sharp attention to that darkly handsome figure of the
dancing man. And then--his heart skipped a beat or two. Across the
line of his vision, coming from the main entrance of the Gold Room,
and convoyed by a suave captain of waiters, walked Mary Regan and
Jack Morton. They were ushered to a side table, and at once fell into
intimate talk.

Clifford, after his first surprise, watched them closely; and he
quickly perceived that, though she smiled and chatted, not more than
the surface of Mary’s attention was given to her husband of a dozen
hours. He tried to look beneath, to what was going on in the hidden
deeps of her mind....

That mind was teeming. For her this was a moment of triumph, of
exultation. As she had told Clifford, with her cool directness, she
had analyzed herself, and had decided that she was a worldling, and,
moreover, she knew herself a competent worldling. The things in life
that to her were worth while were luxury, admiration, the pleasures
that money could buy. She had dreamed this dream--and here was her
dream come true!

Her quickened eyes, with a new sense, swiftly took in this great room,
decorated in gold and black and with hangings of a kingly blue brocade,
and with smartly dressed people at the tables or swinging in alluring
rhythm in the latest dances. After the studied maneuvers, and sometimes
necessary seclusion of life with her uncle, all this gayety, and
richness, and freedom, warmed the heart of her desire. All this was now
hers!--hers whenever she wished it!

It was as if golden doors had swung open. From her subconscious mind
these two magic words had emerged to the very forefront of her thought,
had become a mental figure of speech which she concretely visualized as
a glorious structure which almost existed--Golden Doors!...

Clifford, watching that rapt face, hardly noted that Jack had sighted
him and was bearing down upon him until Jack seized him by the shoulder
and dragged him over to where Mary sat.

“Look who’s here, Mary,--almost my bridesmaid!” Jack cried gayly. “Sit
down, Clifford,” pressing Clifford into a chair and reseating himself.
“Now, come across with congratulations!”

Clifford tried to restrain all personal feeling from his tone, and to
speak lightly. “I can’t do better than to say what’s always said--that
I hope marriage is going to make a real man out of you.”

“Oh, you do! And I suppose”--with joyous acerbity--“that that’s what
you’re wishing for Mary--that it’ll make a real woman out of her!”

Clifford still tried to speak easily. “Honestly, now, could one make a
better wish for a woman than that she should never be anybody else but
her best self?”

Mary met his gaze steadily. On his side he tried to look, and feel,
the part of one who is no more than a casual friend--but, despite his
effort at this detached rôle, he could not help guessing at just what
was going on behind that calm face.

“You’ve got a thought on your chest,” remarked Jack. “Better cough it
up.”

“I am merely feeling a bit surprised at seeing you back again.”

“Surprised? Why?”

“I imagined you’d stay away for a while.”

“I’ve had enough of the St. Helena life--and so has Mary. New York’s
the only place!”

“Where are you going to live?”

“Right here at the Grantham. That is, till we like something better.”

“Then you are registered here?” pursued Clifford.

“Not I. Mary is, since she’s been living here. I was just going to
have my things sent over from the Biltmore, and then register with the
special hotel pen, which has two ink drops that flow as one.”

Clifford was silent for a moment. He had noted that Peter Loveman was
watching them from his corner, and that the lithe, dark gentleman he
had been closely observing during the evening--his name was Hilton--was
now seated at the table adjoining them and was covertly watching Mary.

“Don’t register here together,” he said abruptly.

“Why not?” exclaimed Jack.

“Would you mind explaining?” Mary asked quietly.

Clifford remembered himself. Only that very morning he had told Mary
that he would no longer try to help shape the course of her life--that
he would keep his hands off--that hereafter he would let Life pull the
strings of her destiny. And here he was interfering again.

“I guess I wasn’t thinking,” he said, trying to be casual. “Anyhow,
it’s really none of my business.”

Mary gazed at him sharply. She surmised that some idea had been behind
his remark; but she did not speak. Jack, whose gaze had wandered, gave
a start and cried out:--

“Hello, there’s dad! And he’s spotted us--look, he’s coming this way!”

Clifford glanced at Jack’s father, an erect man of fifty, with
unchallengeable dominance in his manner which the lordship of large
affairs had developed from his native self-confidence. Then quickly
Clifford glanced back, and managed to comprehend with his gaze both
Mary and the dark man at the next table. Mary, grown tense as crisis
approached in the form of the elder Morton, said quickly to Jack in a
low voice:--

“Introduce me by another name: Gilmore--anything!”

At the same moment Clifford saw her hands beneath the table swiftly
remove engagement and wedding rings and thrust them into a white glove
which lay in her lap. Also he noted that the dark gentleman had caught
this action; and he noted that the black eyes glinted with a sudden
light.

The next moment he heard Mary being introduced as Miss Gilmore.
Clifford watched the meeting keenly.

“I’m very glad to meet Miss Gilmore,” the elder Morton said, bowing
over her hand and taking her in with a swift, appraising eye. He had a
reputation of a sort as a connoisseur of femininity, and what he saw
was evidently pleasing to him.

“And I am glad to meet you,” Mary returned.

Clifford knew her self-control, but he was freshly amazed at the
composed agreeability with which she met her unsuspecting father-in-law.

“Of course, you know Mr. Clifford,” Jack went on nervously. “Sit down,
dad. We were just finishing a little supper. Can’t I order something
for you?”

“Nothing for me, son. But I’ll sit with Miss Gilmore and you for a
minute.”

He took a chair, and fixed his gray eyes, trained to penetrate and read
what others would hide from him, upon Mary. Clifford tautened with
suspense as these two sat face to face. And out of the tail of his eye
he saw that the dark man was covertly watching and listening.

“I don’t get to New York very often, Miss Gilmore,” Mr. Morton
continued, “but this time I’m making it an old man’s business and
pleasure to try to recapture some of my own youth by getting acquainted
with Jack’s friends. I suppose he’s known you a long time?”

“On the other hand, we first met quite recently.”

“If I knew how to be gallant in your Eastern fashion, I might remark
that Jack has lost a lot, then. I wonder if you’re one of our leading
actresses? Jack seems to know so many stage people.”

“I’m not even the greatest motion-picture star yet discovered; and you
know there are thousands of her. I’m just an ordinary woman.”

“Not ordinary!” protested Mr. Morton. “I suppose-- But, of course, this
curiosity of a provincial must be offensive to you?”

“I did not know that a Chicagoan ever admitted himself a provincial.”

“Call it the prying curiosity of an old father. That’s just as bad.”

“A father should be curious,” Mary said evenly.

“I was about to say that I suppose you are a native New Yorker?”

“Not in the sense that you probably mean--that I am of an old family
here, and have a lot of relations.”

“But you are a New Yorker?”

“I was born here. But a large part of my life I spent in
France--where,” she added, “both my parents died.”

“An orphan--and no relations! Perhaps you are one of those independent
New York bachelor girls we read about?”

“I live with an aunt. We have an apartment--just a little box of a
thing.”

“Indeed. Would it be presuming too much on Jack’s friendship if I might
call upon you and your aunt?”

“Aunt Isabel and I will be pleased to have you,” she returned evenly.

“Thank you. If you will find out just when it will be most convenient
for her, and let me know through Jack, I’ll be there.”

Clifford had to admire the composure with which she carried herself
through this polite but dangerous inquisition--every instant of which,
he saw, was an almost unbearable strain upon the suspense-ridden
Jack. But by her invention of an aunt, which had opened the way for a
proposal to call, he felt that she might have made a fatal slip. But
there was no telling: it looked bad, yes,--but she had a faculty, a
gift, for smoothly extricating herself from the worst of situations.

Before this cross-examination could proceed further, little Peter
Loveman appeared at the table. Clifford instantly surmised the shrewd
little lawyer’s motive: he had witnessed the scene, and, knowing its
dangers to himself, sought to intervene before there could be exposure
and explosion.

“Pardon me for breaking in on your party, Mr. Morton,” he said, with
his glib amiability. “But some facts just came to my knowledge which,
as your lawyer, I feel you ought to know at once.”

“All right; I was just leaving, anyhow. Jack, I’ve been wanting to see
you all day--it’s really very important. I wonder if Miss Gilmore would
forgive you, and us, if we left her with Mr. Clifford?”

It had been a scene that had almost crumpled Jack. Mary saved the
situation for him by speaking promptly but with composure.

“It will be quite all right, Mr. Morton.”

“To pay the check with,” Jack mumbled huskily, pushing a bank-note
beside Clifford’s plate.

The next moment Clifford and Mary were alone. She gazed across at him
very steadily, not speaking. Her breath came with a slight, fluttering
irregularity, and her face had taken on a slight pallor; he could guess
how much the stress of the last few minutes had taxed her. She glanced
about the tables for a brief space, then her eyes came back to him.

“I’d like to go up to my apartment,” she said quietly.

Clifford paid the bill and escorted her out of the great, glittering
room. Near the row of elevators she halted and faced him.

“What was in your mind a while ago when you started to tell Jack and me
not to register here together?”

He tried to speak coldly. “Please overlook that. I forgot for the
moment that I had promised you I would not again interfere in your
affairs.”

“Please tell me what was in your mind,” she quietly insisted.

“First of all, I was surprised that you and Jack should return to New
York--so soon.”

“Why?”

“Something similar to what has just happened was bound to happen if you
appeared in New York openly together--only it might have been a great
deal worse. And that worse thing would inevitably have happened if you
two had registered. I thought you would have considered this danger.”

“I had thought of it, yes,--that is, before to-day. But to-day so much
was happening to me--it was all so sudden--that all day I was thinking
of other things.”

He looked at her sharply, a sudden leaping at his heart. Was he in any
way concerned in those other things? But he put the question from him.

Abruptly he obeyed an impulse that had been growing in him. “May I
break my promise to the extent of telling you of a few matters?”

“Please do.”

“You have chosen your own way,” he said, in even tones, looking very
straight into her dark eyes, “but--well, after all, I want you to make
the best of it for yourself. These few facts--perhaps you know them
already--may help you. First, and I say this without any personal
prejudice to Jack, Jack has the reputation of caring for many women
often rather than for one woman long. Second, largely for business
reasons, Mr. Morton desires to have Jack marry a girl from Chicago.
Third, this girl’s parents will not consider such a marriage until Jack
has proved that he has settled down; therefore, it naturally is Mr.
Morton’s dominating desire at present that Jack should become a steady
business man. He’d like to have Jack enter the New York offices of his
firm. That is all. If you think these matters over, perhaps you will
see a way in which they may serve you.”

“Perhaps I shall. Thank you.” She moved to the elevators, and stood
silent until a car opened. “Good-night,” she said, and stepped inside.

“Good-night,” he returned.

He stood an instant after her car had shot upward. She had chosen her
own course. And this was only the beginning of the consequences. What
might the ending be?




CHAPTER XI

MARY PLANS ANEW


The following morning Clifford called at the Grantham and asked if Mrs.
Morton was in.

The clerk examined the hotel’s file of guests. “There is no Mrs. Morton
staying here.”

So, after all, they had not registered. He recalled that Mary had
formerly been known here as Mrs. Gardner.

“May I see Mrs. Gardner, then?” he asked.

“Mrs. Gardner moved from the Grantham early this morning,” replied the
clerk. “I’d just come on duty when she left.”

“Was there a--was her brother with her?”

“She was alone.”

“If you will kindly give me her new address--”

“She left no address.”

Clifford walked out of the Grantham in deep thought. Mary had realized
her situation, she had acted promptly. But what was her plan?--for
undoubtedly she had evolved a plan during the night. And where had she
gone?

And how was it all going to work out? To be sure, the penetration
of the designs of Loveman and Bradley was his real business; but he
could not help himself, he was vastly more interested in what Mary
might be doing, and in what was to be the end of it all for her. He
called on Slant-Face; but her brother still had not seen or heard
from her directly since her return to New York. He kept Loveman under
surveillance, and also Bradley; the maneuvers of either might lead him
to her. And also he kept watch upon Hilton, whose eyes had suddenly
lighted when he had seen Mary quickly thrust her rings into her gloves.
But he picked up nothing.

Clifford might have been greatly helped in his search for Mary by
Commissioner Thorne: a general alarm might quickly have located her.
But he did not want Mary brought before the general attention of the
police. However questionable the ethics of the course her ambition had
planned, there was in it nothing that was legally criminal.

For a week he kept close surveillance upon Loveman, Bradley, and the
dark young man; and learned not a thing about Mary and not a thing
about the plans of the others. Then one day he ran across the elder
Morton, who had just returned to the city after a trip to Chicago.

“You won’t believe it when I tell you,” said the older man, “but Jack’s
gone to work.”

“Where?”

“In my New York offices. Been working there a week--and they tell me
he’s been as regular as a clock. Remarkable change!” His voice lowered.
“But here’s a point that seems odd: though he’s kept his rooms at the
Biltmore, the people there have hardly seen him.”

The finding of Mary now seemed simple enough. But Clifford realized
that mere knowledge of her whereabouts would not satisfy him. Clifford
considered rapidly how he might achieve a private meeting with her.
Half an hour later he was sitting with Uncle George in Monsieur Le
Bain’s Grand Alcazar, and was telling this wise old man of Broadway all
that had happened.

“Certainly some little situation for Mary Regan!” Uncle George looked
at Clifford with his shrewd old lashless eyes. “But, son, I hope your
motor’s not missing fire over her--and her a married woman?”

“I’m concerned because I’m certain Loveman is planning to use her. I
can protect her better, and I stand a better chance to land Loveman, if
I know where she is.”

“H’m. And is that the three-mile limit of your interest?”

“I’m human enough to want to know what she’s done and how she’s planned
to meet the future. Knowing that will help me against Loveman.”

“Well, son, be sure you’re not passing phony money off on
yourself--which is what the average citizen does when he thinks he has
one of these here righteous thoughts. I suppose you’ve got me fitted
into some nice little idea?”

“You’re going to help me meet her.”

“Oh, that’s all, is it!” the old man said dryly. “All I’ve got to
do is to step out on Broadway, touch her on the sleeve, and say,
‘Good-afternoon, Mary; Bob Clifford wants to one-step with you to a bit
of nice chin-music’--and in she’ll come wearing a smile on all four
sides, you being so popular with her!”

“All you’ve got to do, Uncle George, is something else. Jack likes you;
Mary considers you one of her best friends. You go into that telephone
booth, call up Jack at his father’s office, and learn where she is--and
after you’ve learned that we’ll dope out the rest.”

“I didn’t think that in my old age I’d sink to be a stool for a
copper,” sighed Uncle George, with mock mournfulness.

He heaved his big body up and crossed to a booth. Five minutes later he
swayed back to Clifford’s side.

“I got a line on her. But it’s up to me to do some of this here
super-delicate detective work. Sit where you are--though it’s an awful
risk to leave you alone and unprotected right over a wine cellar. I may
be back in an hour. So-long.”

He was back in half an hour. “She’s having tea over at the Ritz. Come
on. I got a taxi waiting outside.”

He led the way out and across the sidewalk, bulking large before
Clifford. “May God pity an old sinner for what’ll be comin’ to him for
this!” he murmured. At the door of the taxi he stepped aside. “Get in
first,” he said to Clifford; and, as Clifford obeyed, he smartly closed
the door on Clifford’s back. “All right,” he called to the chauffeur.

As the taxi moved away, a startled voice within the car exclaimed:
“You!”

Clifford then saw that he was sitting beside Mary. “Miss Regan!” he
ejaculated, forgetting her new name.

“Uncle George told me we were to pick up Jack.”

“I hope you’ll forgive the deception. Don’t blame Uncle George. Blame
me.”

“What does this mean?” she demanded.

“I felt I had to see you at once.”

“Why?”

“You see, I could hardly help wanting to know what you had done.”

He had thought it more than likely that she would be angry. Her dark
eyes did flash at him; but when she spoke she spoke very calmly.

“There’s no reason why you should not know; and I have no objections to
telling you everything. What do you wish to know first?”

“What you did first.”

She considered, then spoke with a cold frankness that was in keeping
with her recent attitude toward him--to show him her calculating
worldliness, stark, unexcused.

“I thought I had passed through the Golden Doors,--that’s a phrase of
mine,--but after that night at the Grantham when I saw you, I realized
that I still stood far without them. I saw that I had either to
vanish--or be willing to wait my time, perhaps a long time, if I would
see it through. I decided on the latter.”

“Yes,” Clifford prompted.

“That meant,” the unsparing voice went on, “that for a long time Jack
and I would hardly dare be seen openly together, that we had to live
in seclusion. I made Jack see things as I saw them, so we sublet an
apartment on Riverside Drive, and we’re known there as Mr. and Mrs.
Grayson.”

“And what about Jack’s going to work?”

“I thought that if through my influence Jack should settle down, it
would help when his father finds out.”

“I see.”

“I realize perfectly,” the cold voice continued, “another problem that
I have to face. Jack likes gay company; further, you said it is not his
nature to care for one woman long. Well, I must make Jack like me for a
long time, and make him like me despite the solitude. I shall do it.”
She paused, then added: “I believe that is everything.”

They rode on in silence, Clifford covertly eyeing the erect, contained
figure beside him--guessing at what it must have cost her to give up
her dreamed-of pleasure, to be forced into seclusion, to be forced to
undertake the responsibility of sobering down a joyous spendthrift.
Life certainly had not given her what she had expected in her bargain.

Again the question rose: how was it all coming out?

The next afternoon Clifford, following Hilton, saw his quarry enter
the Mordona, the great apartment house on the Drive before which he
had left Mary the night before. He followed into the lobby just as his
man disappeared into an elevator. He had no doubt on whom the dark
gentleman was calling, or for what reason he called.

Opening into the elaborate lobby, for whose gilded ostentation the
tenants were assessed a goodly portion of their rent, was a florist’s
shop. Into the comparative privacy of this Clifford stepped to wait
until his man came down: a move that was just in time, for from a
descended elevator, which must have passed the one bearing Hilton
aloft, stepped the square, solid figure of Bradley. Again Clifford had
no doubt on whom the call had been made, or why.

At last he had picked up a warm and very busy trail. Under pretense
of an indecision over the flowers he should purchase, he waited for
his man to come down, trying to reproduce the scene that was now going
on in the “Graysons’” apartment, and the scene prior to it in which
Bradley had figured. A quarter of an hour passed, then the debonair
Hilton emerged from an elevator and strode out with a jaunty, smiling
air.

The next moment Clifford was in an elevator, shooting upward, and two
minutes later Mary’s maid was bearing his card through a curtained
doorway. He caught Mary’s voice sounding as though it were two rooms
away, finishing what was obviously a telephone conversation: “You’ll
come as soon as you can get here? That’s most kind of you. Good-bye.”

There was a delay; he guessed that Mary was surprised at this third
successive call; then he was shown through the curtained doorway into
the drawing-room. His swift impression of the room was that it was
large for a New York apartment, and that its prodigal furnishings
bespoke wealth rather than taste on the part of its absent lessee.
The next moment Mary came in through a door which he judged led
from the library. There was now in her bearing nothing of the cold
frankness which she had shown him the day before. She was taut with
controlled excitement, which he knew to be the product of the so recent
interviews. Her manner was challenging.

“What do _you_ want?”

He tried to speak in a steady, impersonal tone. “Mr. Bradley was here a
few minutes ago. I’d be obliged if you’d tell me what he came for.”

“Pardon me for not obliging you--but that is my own affair. Is this
all?”

“Another gentleman just called on you. Would you tell me what he
wanted?”

“That also is my own affair.”

“It might help me greatly if I knew exactly what he asked for,”
Clifford urged.

“Perhaps. But that cannot concern me.”

“Then you will not tell?”

“No.”

“Are you aware who this man is?”

“He’s a friend of Jack’s.”

“Not much of a friend, I hope.” Clifford still spoke in his steady,
impersonal tone. “Mr. Hilton is one of several men that I am
after--and he’s one of the cleverest and most dangerous of the lot.
It is the easiest thing in the world for a crook who is well-dressed,
well-mannered, and who can dance, to make acquaintances wherever he
likes. The regular game of these crooks is to pick out a woman with
money, or who can get money, make her acquaintance, gain her confidence
and some of her secrets, and then lead her into a situation where she
must pay or be exposed. This is your last visitor’s special line. You
might help me a lot if you would tell me what Mr. Hilton wanted from
you.”

“He came to see me about a personal matter of no importance,” she
replied.

“Pardon me if I do not believe you,” he said.

She made no response.

“You will not tell?” he demanded.

“I have nothing to tell,” was her steady answer.

“I might force you to tell--” he snapped at her, but instantly cut
himself off.

“Since you won’t tell me,” he said, stepping more squarely before her,
“then I’ll tell you. Bradley came here to blackmail you; blackmail is
one of Bradley’s big side-lines just now. Hilton was a follow-up man on
the same business. If he wasn’t in this particular game before, he got
next the other night at the Grantham. He saw you slip off your rings
and hide them when Jack’s father was coming to your table. He guessed
what that action meant, and it was easy for him to dig up the rest.”

Clifford paused. “I’m right so far, yes?” he demanded.

But she did not speak.

“And I can tell you just what he said,” Clifford continued, “and how he
said it--for he’s a most gentle-spoken party. It would cause him very
great regret to have to tell Mr. Morton that his son had contracted a
secret marriage, and it would cause him even greater regret to have to
tell both the Mortons just who Mary Regan has been and just who are the
members of her family. The only way he can be saved from inflicting
upon himself this regret is for you to come across with a large sum of
money. Well, isn’t that about it? Now will you help me out?”

“I can say no more than I have said,” she replied.

“Then I shall have to get him alone,” Clifford said, with grim quiet.
“Him and the others.”

He left her with no further word. On the way down in the elevator he
recalled the fragment he had heard over the telephone; and again he
stepped into the convenient privacy of the florist’s shop. Not more
than two minutes had passed when he saw Peter Loveman enter one of
the elevators. So it was Loveman she had been telephoning to. She had
doubtless sent for the little lawyer to ask his advice--the irony of it!

Clifford waited for Loveman to descend. Fifteen minutes passed--it
was now getting on toward six; then into the lobby, walking eagerly,
came Jack Morton. And then in the entrance, watching but discreetly
unobtrusive, appeared Jack’s father. Jack’s elevator had made its trip
up and had just descended, when the elder Morton crossed the lobby and
addressed the elevator-man. The florist’s door stood open, so Clifford
heard every word.

“By the way,” said Mr. Morton, “what is the name of the gentleman, your
only passenger, that you just took up? I thought I recognized him as an
acquaintance.”

“Mr. Grayson, sir.”

“He lives here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I suppose he has one of your bachelor apartments?”

“No, sir. He lives here with Mrs. Grayson.”

“To be sure. I didn’t know Mrs. Grayson’s health had permitted her to
come back from California. Please don’t mention my having been here;
they might feel hurt at my not having come up.”

He slipped the man a bill and went out. Clifford realized that Mr.
Morton had been engaged upon a bit of private sleuthing on his own
account: which might lead to--what?

Clifford thought a moment. Then he sought out the superintendent of
the building, and after some very confidential talk, and a showing of
credentials, which the superintendent verified by calling up Police
Headquarters, he departed, bearing with him a pass-key to all the
apartments of the Mordona.




CHAPTER XII

A GENTLEMAN OF PLEASURE


There were at least four persons that Clifford knew it was desirable
to keep under surveillance--Bradley, Peter Loveman, Mr. Morton, and
Hilton; but the professional ladies’ man he regarded as the best clue
to the immediate situation. “Yes, you stick to Hilton,” Uncle George
agreed decisively that evening at dinner. “When it comes to twisting
women, that dear limber guy is a better committee on ways and means
than any charmer that ever adorned himself in a smile, pumps, and a
dress suit.”

That night Clifford trailed Hilton from restaurant to theater, and then
to three of the smartest hotel ballrooms, and then, toward three in the
morning, saw him to his hotel. He picked Hilton up at noon the next
morning; lunched (it was Hilton’s breakfast) at a table near him at the
Ritz-Carlton; followed him to a few restaurants where afternoon dancing
was under way; and at exactly half-past five he followed him into the
Mordona.

He gave Hilton a minute’s start, then rode up to the “Graysons’”
apartment. Hilton had evidently been admitted, for the corridor was
empty. Muffling the lock with a handkerchief, Clifford slipped in the
pass-key, and swiftly, but with velvet caution, he opened the door.
Inside, he closed the door with as great care, and stood, unbreathing,
listening kitchenward for the maid--fingers on lips and a bill held
out to check immediately any words should that young lady appear:
a needless stratagem, since Mary had given her maid that afternoon
out. Hearing nothing, he moved softly to the curtained doorway of the
drawing-room, and glanced in. Apparently Mary had planned to go out to
an early dinner, for she wore an evening gown. She was standing erect
in the middle of the room, gazing with level eyes at the immaculate Mr.
Hilton.

“I am here at five-thirty, as I said I’d be,” Hilton was saying,
smiling pleasantly. “I hope you have seen the wisdom of my remarks and
have reconsidered your defiant attitude of yesterday. You undoubtedly
have a very good plan, and it would be most unfortunate”--his voice was
soothingly argumentative--“if you compelled me to tell Mr. Morton about
the marriage, and tell them both who your relatives are, and just who
is Mary Regan. Most unfortunate, I assure you.”

“You need not squander your emotion. I have the money.”

“I approve your good sense! You have the full amount?”

“You may count it for yourself.” She held out a little roll.

“Ten five-hundred-dollar bills. Correct. Though it pinches me that you
could not make it the ten thousand I asked for. However! I suppose”--in
high good humor--“you’d like a receipt for this. It might help you in
court if you ever decided to bring action against me.”

“Your jocularity is not greatly appreciated. Now that you have the
money, I suggest that you go.”

“As pleases you.” Drawing back the lapel of his slender afternoon
coat--it had been a warm afternoon, and he had worn no outer coat--he
slipped the bank-notes into the top pocket of his vest. “In leaving
you, Mrs.--ah--Grayson, let me wish your little enterprise the most
complete success. Good-afternoon.”

Clifford was on the point of springing into the room, when, to his
amazement, from the door which opened into the library, there emerged
the plump figure of Peter Loveman. On the face of the shrewd little
lawyer was a bewildered, almost sickly look, the like of which Clifford
had never beheld on that usually amiable and ruddy countenance.

“Just a minute!” said Loveman.

Hilton whirled about. “Oh, it’s Loveman! Hello, Loveman.”

Loveman crossed toward the other. “What are you doing here?” he
demanded.

“Just making a little afternoon call. Will you return the courtesy and
tell me how you come to be here?”

“I was here when you came, and was waiting until you had gone to
finish my talk with Mrs. Grayson.” Clifford could see that the control
which had slipped away from Loveman was regained, for the little man
was benign again--therefore, dangerous. “Are you sure, Hilton,” he said
softly, “that your purpose here was only to call?”

“Merely social, Loveman,” the other replied, smiling.

“I think, Hilton,” continued Loveman, in his soft, pleasant tone, “that
anything you got here you’d better return to Mrs. Grayson.”

“I have nothing to return.”

“I think you’ll find it wiser and more profitable in the end to return
it,” went on Loveman’s pleasant voice.

“I have nothing to return,” repeated the other, drawing on his gloves.

The two men gazed at each other steadily. Clifford could see that
beneath Hilton’s smiling politeness there was defiance, that beneath
Loveman’s soft manner there was menace. He was puzzled by this
hostility, for he had figured that the pair, with Bradley, were working
together. But he instantly perceived why this hostility should be
masked; the two spoke thus indirectly because neither, or at least not
Loveman, wished Mary to understand what lay between them. And Mary did
not understand; the bewildered look she gave the pair told Clifford
that.

Hilton ended the brief tableau by picking up his hat and stick, which
he had carried into the room with him. “Good-afternoon, Mrs. Grayson;
this has been a most pleasant occasion. So-long, Loveman.”

He was turning away when Clifford sprang through the doorway and
upon him. Clifford seized his right wrist and swung the arm upward
and backward with a vicious twist--an old police trick--and thrust
a hand through the flaring front of the exquisitely tailored coat
and possessed himself of the bank-notes. Hilton’s stick and hat went
flying; he let out a cry of surprise and pain; but before he knew
what had happened to him there had snapped about his wrists a pair of
handcuffs.

Clifford jerked him forward, so that their faces were within a foot of
each other. “Well, Hilton, this time I’ve got you with the goods on!”
he snapped. “This will be the last woman you’ll squeeze money out of
for about five years!”

“See here, I’ve done nothing,” gasped the breathless Hilton. “That’s my
own money--I had it when I came here.”

Clifford turned to Mary. “I warned you what he was--one of the
cleverest of that new trade whose specialty is squeezing big money out
of women!”

“He’s done nothing,” Mary affirmed, looking directly at Clifford.
“You--how did you get in here? I heard no ring.”

“Pass-key. That story doesn’t go, Mrs. Grayson--it doesn’t go, Hilton.
I was right on Hilton’s heels when he entered. I heard him demand the
money on threat of exposure. I saw the money passed.”

He turned abruptly on Loveman. “And you, Loveman, you fit into this
pretty little game, too!”

“Me, Bob, my dear boy?” protested Loveman. “Why is it,” he demanded, in
a tone of mourning, “that the innocent bystander is the one that always
gets the copper’s stick over his new spring derby?”

“Your suspicions against Mr. Loveman--” began Mary.

“Don’t say a word, Mrs. Grayson,” Loveman cut in quickly.

“Your suspicions against Mr. Loveman are mistaken,” persisted Mary.
“Mr. Loveman gave me that money.”

“Gave you the money!” exclaimed Clifford.

“Mrs. Grayson!” appealed Loveman.

But Mary went on, speaking very steadily and with a formal precision.
“You are right about Mr. Hilton. He came yesterday afternoon, demanding
money which had to be paid by half-past five to-day. I at first
refused; afterwards I recognized I didn’t dare not pay. I did not know
where to get such a sum, so I telephoned Mr. Loveman that I wished to
see him. He came at once, and I told him of my situation and that I
could not possibly raise the amount upon such short notice. Jack did
not have the money, and I could not have asked him for the amount,
anyhow; and my uncle is away out on the coast. I asked Mr. Loveman’s
advice. He saw my predicament, and himself offered to give me the
money. Half an hour ago he came, bringing the money which you have. I
believe that completely exonerates Mr. Loveman.”

“Yes, Bob,” Loveman said cheerfully, “I guess that lets me out.”

Clifford looked keenly at the little man’s round, good-natured
face--behind which played an unmatched shrewdness. Clifford did not
disbelieve Mary, yet it seemed to him out of the man’s character to
play such a rôle as Mary had described. This was one more aspect of the
whole situation which for the moment bewildered him.

“I think, Peter, we’ll soon figure out just where you fit into this
case,” he said shortly. He turned to his prisoner. “At any rate, I’ve
got you for fair, Hilton,” he said grimly. “Loveman, kindly oblige Mr.
Hilton by picking up his stick and hat.”

“You may have me all right,” said Hilton, with a pale, twitching smile
that he tried to force to be jauntily indifferent, “but when the
evidence against me is produced in court what will happen to Mrs. Mary
Regan Morton Grayson?”

“Oh, I say, Bob,” Loveman spoke up quickly, “call it square if he gives
the money back to--”

But his words were cut off by the ringing of the apartment bell. They
all suddenly became as fixed as so many statues. Then Mary spoke, and
her words came rapidly:--

“It must be Jack, home from the office. He’s probably forgotten his
key. Mr. Loveman, you go to the door and prevent his coming in. Say
whatever you like.”

Loveman slipped through the curtained doorway, and the next moment
Clifford heard the outer door open. Then he heard an amazed voice
exclaim:--

“Well, if it’s not Loveman! Now what the devil are you doing here?”

Clifford and Mary both started. The amazed voice in the next room was
not Jack’s voice.

“I’m here--on a little business--with Mrs. Grayson,” stammered Loveman.

“So am I,” said the voice.

“But she’s engaged--I assure you--”

“I’ll only take a minute or two. Come on; you shall introduce me. Don’t
hang back.”

The next moment Loveman was pushed through the door, and behind him
appeared the tall figure of Mr. Morton, evening clothes showing beneath
his overcoat. He stopped short at what he saw.

“Why, Mr. Clifford!” he exclaimed. And then: “Why, I beg your pardon,
Miss Gilmore! Or should I say Mrs. Grayson?”

Clifford saw that Mary had gone almost white. He sensed, and he knew
that she sensed, that one of the supreme crises of her new life--the
life that was to make her or break her--was unexpectedly before them.

Mary spoke calmly. “It is Mrs. Grayson now.”

“How rapidly events do happen in New York,” Mr. Morton remarked
politely, his keen gray eyes full upon her. “Miss Gilmore when I saw
you at the Grantham--Mrs. Grayson within a week. He must be a young
Lochinvar, Mr. Grayson, the way he does things.”

Hilton had been standing beyond Clifford, blocked out of Mr. Morton’s
first swift survey of the scene. He now shifted forward, and Mr. Morton
saw him, the grip of Clifford fastened on his upper arm, and the
glinting handcuffs on his wrists.

“What’s this all about?” Mr. Morton exclaimed.

Hilton was swift to see what advantage for him lay in the situation. He
stepped nearer Mr. Morton.

“It means that I am the victim of a most unfortunate misunderstanding,”
he spoke up quickly. “Mr. Clifford believed, mistakenly, that I had
come wrongfully by some five thousand dollars in my possession, and he
took the money from me and placed me under arrest.”

“It’s none of my business, I suppose,” Mr. Morton said, “but is this
correct, Mr. Clifford?”

Clifford remained silent for a moment. In a flash he saw that for him
to answer with the full truth would lead to Mary’s instant ruin: this
after he had declared that he had stepped out of her life, that he was
going to leave to experience and her own decisions the shaping of her
fate.

“The last part of his statement is correct,” replied Clifford--“that I
took the money from him and placed him under arrest.”

“But he declares the money is his. If not, whose is it?”

In the passing moment Clifford had decided to put it squarely up to
Mary, to thrust the tangled threads of her destiny into her own hands.
But Hilton beat him to the very reply he intended making.

“Ask Mrs. Grayson whose money it is,” cried Hilton, and, wheeling, he
gave Mary a meaning look.

But Mr. Morton’s eyes waited on Clifford. Clifford turned and gazed at
Mary.

“Yes, ask Mrs. Grayson,” said Clifford.

“Mrs. Grayson,” said Mr. Morton, “the ownership of this disputed money
seems to rest on your word.”

She hesitated. Clifford read beneath that white, calm face: realized
that she was on the thinnest of thin ice--if indeed she were not
already through it and in the black waters. He believed, and was
certain she believed, that Mr. Morton already knew of the marriage--but
did he know of the other things?

“Whose is it, Mrs. Grayson?” prompted Mr. Morton.

She indicated Hilton with a nod. “The money is his; give it to him, Mr.
Clifford,” she said.

Clifford quickly weighed his conflicting responsibilities. To give Life
the chance to test Mary out to the end of this experience weighed more
important than the mere capture of Hilton.

“Here it is,” he said; and thrust the bills into one of the handcuffed
hands--and as he did so, out of the tail of his eye he caught a look of
dismay on Loveman’s face.

“Since your affairs seem to be adjusted,” put in Mr. Morton, “I dare
say you’d like to be saying good-afternoon.”

Clifford removed the handcuffs, Loveman gave Hilton his hat and cane,
and the professional entangler of women, though ruffled somewhat as to
the perfection of his apparel, bowed himself out with exquisite manner.

There was a moment of silence--a strain upon all except Mr. Morton, who
had the light, easy bearing of a man of the world at an afternoon tea.
If he knew or guessed anything, he did not show it--and his pleasant
surface made him seem all the more dangerous.

He gave Mary a slight but gracious bow. “I hope you’ll forgive my
dropping in so informally. But I had learned your address by chance,
I happened to be in the neighborhood, and I wished to advance my
acquaintance, begun when you were Miss Gilmore.”

“I’m sure I’m glad you called,” returned Mary.

“Then we’ll have a little visit--yes?” He slipped off his overcoat.
“Mr. Clifford, I know Mrs. Grayson would be glad to have you remain as
our chaperone. Mr. Loveman”--with the faintest of ironic smiles--“I
know I would not have a ghost of a chance with such a famous lady’s man
in the company, so I am going to have the audacity to ask you to call
again.”

He had spoken with lightness, but there had been autocratic demand
behind his words. Loveman disappeared into the room whence Clifford had
seen him emerge, and returned with hat and coat. He tried to speak an
offhand good-bye--though Clifford read that his soul was agitated with
acute uneasiness--and started out.

“I’ll be back in a moment,” Clifford said to the two, and followed the
little lawyer. He caught him in the hallway and held him with a hand on
either shoulder.

“Loveman,” said he, looking down into the round face, “I certainly was
up in the air for a time. But I’ve sized up the whole situation now.”

“What situation?”

“The situation between you, Miss Regan,--Mrs. Morton, I mean,--and
Hilton. I thought that, of course, you, Bradley, and Hilton were in the
game together.”

“Well?”

“I thought there was just one scheme on foot to blackmail Mrs. Morton.
I’ve just tumbled to the fact that there were two schemes--and that
there’s just been a head-on collision between the two.”

“Bob, my boy, please elucidate.”

“Further, Loveman, I understand your generosity in the matter of that
five thousand. Bradley had demanded money, and you knew it. When Mary
Regan sent for you yesterday, told you of the demand, and convinced you
she could not possibly meet it, you had an inspiration. It wouldn’t
do to withdraw the demand; better to give her the money yourself, and
thereby increase her confidence and gratitude--that’d make her more
inclined to fall in with you when you wanted to use her in some other
big game. And your five thousand which you’d given her with your right
hand, after she’d had it for just a few minutes, would come right back
to your left hand. A great idea, Loveman!--great stuff!”

“You’re smoking too much hop,” smiled Loveman--but it was a sickly
smile.

“But there’s many a slip ’twixt the right hand and the left. You never
suspected that there was a second blackmailer on the job; Mrs. Morton
probably thought that Bradley and Hilton were working together, and
told you little more than that money was demanded. And Hilton has
walked right off with your five thousand, and you’ll not get it back.
And your client in there, Mr. Morton, is on to Jack and Mary Regan, and
the part you’ve played, and there’s about to be an explosion, and the
rest of your beans’ll be spilled. Good-night, Peter, old boy, and may
you have pleasant dreams!”




CHAPTER XIII

MR. MORTON TAKES A HAND


All thought of the sickly-smiling Loveman, and all his ironic
jocularity, slipped from Clifford as he stepped back into the graver
situation which existed in the drawing-room. The pair had seated
themselves during his absence; Mary was regarding Mr. Morton with a
composure that must have heavily taxed her nervous capital.

Clifford took a chair slightly apart. He felt that he had become merely
an onlooker. The scene was to be played out between Mr. Morton and
Mary. He judged that the easy manner of Mr. Morton was a ruthless fury,
marvelously controlled. Watching them, he pulsed with suspense as to
how Mary would bear herself during this scene, as to how it would come
out.

Clifford had found them silent when he had reëntered, and this silence,
pregnant with big drama, continued for a moment longer. Then Mr. Morton
smiled.

“I don’t believe in beating about the bush, Mrs. Grayson. It’s awfully
hard on the shrubbery. So I’ll come to the point. Of course you know
why I’m here.”

“You said you came to renew your acquaintance with Miss Gilmore,” she
managed to say.

“Oh, that, of course. But there’s another reason. You see”--with his
pleasant smile--“I happen to know Mr. Grayson.”

(Why in God’s name, Clifford asked himself, didn’t the man set loose
the anger and denunciation and defiance customary in such situations,
and not play this cat-and-mouse game!)

“And Mr. Grayson being such a good friend,” Mr. Morton continued,
“in fact, a most intimate friend, I naturally was most eager to
become acquainted with Mrs. Grayson. Please do not consider that I am
descending to mere flattery, Mrs. Grayson, when I say that I applaud
his taste.”

“Thank you.”

“I do not mean to depreciate him, but he has shown a finer
discrimination than I thought Mr. Grayson capable of.”

Clifford saw Mary stiffen. He knew her instinct to rush forth to meet
an inevitable danger.

“I also do not believe in beating about the bush,” she said quietly.
“We both are aware that in speaking of Mr. Grayson we are speaking of
your son.”

The veiled keenness in Mr. Morton’s eyes became open. “I perceive, Mrs.
Grayson, that you are not only beautiful, but that you are an unusual
woman.” He did not speak for a moment; then, “Let me add that I not
only applaud Jack’s taste, but approve his choice.”

Both Clifford and Mary started. “You approve Jack’s choice!” she
breathed.

“How could I help it?” he returned.

Clifford and Mary could only stare at him. They had expected outraged
fury--and this had come! They were so dazed that they did not know Jack
had entered until he stammered:--

“Father--you here!”

“The evidence indicates such, my boy,” returned the elder Morton.

“Why--why--” He looked about, frightened, helpless, at the three;
and then stammered on: “I went to the Biltmore to meet you, as you
telephoned; but they told me you were out, and I thought I’d run up
here for a minute and then get back--”

“My engagement with you,” interrupted Mr. Morton, “was merely a
fatherly subterfuge to keep you away from here while I had a little
visit with Mrs. Grayson.”

“Then”--he choked, swallowed--“then you know everything?”

“Not everything. But I know the essentials.”

“Oh, my God!” And Jack collapsed almost bonelessly into a chair and
covered his face with his hands.

“Come, brace up--there’s nothing to worry about,” half growled Clifford.

“It’s all right, Jack,” explained Mary. “Your father says he approves
your choice!”

Jack was on his feet as though an electric current had hurled him
upright. “Is that so, dad?”

Mr. Morton nodded.

In two eager steps Jack was across the room wringing his father’s hand.
“You don’t know how relieved I am!”

“Why should you think I’d object after really meeting Mrs. Grayson?”

“Call her Mary, dad.”

“Mary, then, with your permission. Plainly Mary is a young woman of
exceptional sense, and I am sure she and I will understand each other
splendidly.”

Jack crossed swiftly to Mary. “Mary!” he exclaimed, seizing her hands,
“Mary!” And then in a lower voice, though Clifford heard him: “It’s all
coming true, Mary,--it’s all coming true!”

The Golden Doors had marvelously swung open!

Mr. Morton was speaking again: “Let’s get back to sensible talk--which
is what I came here for. I wish to commend your discretion in this
matter. Boys will be boys, but usually they’re boys in such a noisy
way. I’m sure the discretion was yours, Mary.”

“Discretion? I don’t know what you mean,” said Mary.

“I mean that you have done everything so well,” he continued
pleasantly. “You’ve not laid the affair open to instant recognition by
thoughtlessly flaunting yourself about with Jack. You’ve even taken the
precaution of wearing the conventional rings. It’s the Riverside Drive
affair done in the best Riverside-Drive-affair manner.”

Clifford saw Mary go white again, and whiter than before, as Mr. Morton
spoke; and he thought she was going to fall as she gathered the meaning
of his words--gathered what, since he had first entered, had been his
real conception of the relationship.

“But, dad--” began Jack in a throaty voice. “You don’t know what you’re
saying! You don’t understand. The truth is--”

“Jack!” cut in Mary.

“Oh, yes, I do understand,” his father assured him. “And don’t try
to shield Mary with protestations. She doesn’t need such flimsy
protection.”

“Dad,” demanded the young fellow huskily, “what do you think this
situation is?”

“The obvious and usual one: you’re living here together; as they always
say it on the stage, she’s your mistress.”

He turned to Mary. “Jack’s a sentimentalist. But you’re a sensible
woman and don’t humbug yourself by hesitating to call a thing by its
right name.”

His last words were an even-toned affirmation of a commonplace, not
a question. Clifford watched Mary closely: of a certainty, Life was
testing her! He waited tensely for her reply, and so did Jack--and
Clifford realized what vague worlds of different events hung upon the
words yet within her lips.

“I am Jack’s mistress--yes,” she said, looking very straight into Mr.
Morton’s eyes.

“Mary, that’s--”

“Jack!” she ordered sharply.

“There’s no nonsense about you, Mary,” said Mr. Morton approvingly.
“Jack has braced up so much recently--”

“If I have braced up, it’s been because Mary has made me!” put in Jack.

“I don’t doubt it, and I want to thank you, Mary. He’s braced up so
much that a long-contemplated marriage, which has been delayed by his
irresponsibility, can now go through; and I want it settled and over
with, quick, while Jack is still in a reformed mood--before he breaks
loose again. I know you’ll be sensible and reasonable about this
matter, for I know you went into the affair knowing it could not last.”

Jack seized his father’s arm. “Father, you’ve got to listen--”

“Jack!” Mary again cried peremptorily.

“She’s taking it with a lot more sense than you are, son. I’ll see that
you have no reason to complain, Mary. I’ll ask Mr. Clifford to talk
over the arrangement with you. He can speak in better taste for me than
I can speak for myself.”

He took her hand, and there was a very real admiration--of its sort--in
his gray eyes. He spoke in a lowered voice.

“Merely because Jack must go, I don’t want it to be the end of things
between you and the Mortons. I hope I may have the pleasure of seeing
you soon.”

“Perhaps,” said her lips.

“I shall count on it!”--pressing her hand.

He turned away. “Well, son, are you ready? I’ve made an engagement for
you for to-night.”

But Jack sprang to Mary’s side, and seized in both of his the hand his
father had just relinquished. His handsome if weak face was working
with indignant, protesting passion; for the moment he was strong and
sincere and fine to the capacity of his nature.

“Mary, I’m not going to stand for this! I’m not going to leave you in
this way--I’m not that kind of a rat!”

“We’re going to do just as your father says, Jack,” she said with quiet
dominance, her face very pale. “What he suggests is wisest for us all.”

Jack stared at her; he could not read whether there was subterfuge or
utter finality in her words. But whatever her purpose, he recognized
that in this situation her way had to be his. His figure slumped down,
and he turned about.

“Put into a suitcase whatever you may need at once; you can send for
your other things,” said his father, and pressed him through the door.
“Mary, after a few minutes in the next room with me, Mr. Clifford will
return for a talk with you. For myself this must be good-night.”

“Good-night.”

Bowing, he went out. As Clifford--mere audience--followed him,
he saw that Mary stood unchanged: stiffly erect, and pale and
composed--though he had a sense that her dark eyes were unnaturally
wide.

       *       *       *       *       *

When Clifford reëntered the room fifteen minutes later, Mary was lying
face downward on the couch, her whole figure taut. She heard him come
in, and at once spoke, not changing her posture:--

“You’ve been talking all this while?”

“We spoke for only a few minutes. The rest of the time I’ve been
sitting in there, thinking.” Then, with a savage burst: “I wouldn’t
have let Morton use me, only I wanted to see you again!”

“What did he say?”

“He told me to settle with you on any reasonable terms.” Clifford
stopped and waited, but she did not speak. “Want to know what he might
possibly give?” he demanded.

“What else did he say?” she asked, not moving.

“A lot of things--to the general effect that you were a damned decent,
square little sport.”

She made no response to this.

“Why did you accept the position he put you in, of being Jack’s
mistress?” he burst out roughly.

“I could not help myself--unless I wanted to ruin everything.”

“Surely you do not still hope to save that situation?” he exclaimed.

She did not answer, and again there was silence. Then the doorbell
rang.

“Shall I answer it?” he asked. “It’s probably Jack slipped up for a
private word.”

“I’ll answer it,” she said.

She rose from the couch. He had expected signs of conflict, agony,
perhaps tears or hysteria;--if only there should be a real outbreak of
hysteria! But her face was composed and clear-eyed.

She returned a moment later, bearing a large box, on its top in gilded
letters the name of the florist who had a shop opening on the Mordona’s
lobby. She removed the lid and disclosed a rich mass of orchids. On
their top lay a small envelope such as florists have in stock for the
convenience of patrons. From this she drew a card, which she read and
then passed to Clifford without comment. It was Mr. Morton’s card, and
on its two sides was closely written:--

  I am going to be a lonely man to-morrow. Won’t you save me from
  myself by dining with me at the Ritz?--and then an act or two of a
  play, and then supper wherever you like? I’ll telephone you.--The
  West Indies are heaven just now, and I’m thinking of chartering a
  yacht. A cruise of a month or so in those waters-- But shall we talk
  it over to-morrow night?

Clifford gazed at her, automatically handing her back the card. Rage
surged up in him, and he seized the box from her arms and, stepping to
the window near which they stood, he raised it, and threw far out into
the Drive some fifty dollars’ worth of orchids. He drew down the window
and turned back to her. But her look expressed neither approval nor
disapproval.

“Well, you see where you are!” he said grimly. “And you once called
them the Golden Doors!”

She nodded, but otherwise did not respond. Her face, fixed absently on
his, was intently thoughtful.

Her silence, her control, her look of far-away thought, stirred both
anger and consuming curiosity. “Well--what are you going to do? What’s
the way out?”

“It’s not the way out I’m thinking of--it’s the way in,” she returned
slowly, quietly. “The Golden Doors are going to open.”

“Open! How?”

“I do not know.”

“Through that Mr. Mor--” he was beginning, when he noticed that her
fingers had mechanically torn the card across.

“I do not know,” she repeated quietly. “But they are going to open. And
now, please go--I want to think.”

He gazed at her a moment, marveling that such unforeseen manipulations
of Life, Life the great moulder and remoulder, had not seemed to
change her ambition, her pride, her will, her girlish confidence: he
understood her--yet she was the eternal mystery! Then he left her,
standing in the middle of the hired drawing-room, mechanically tearing
into tiny sifting flakes the invitation to a voyage among perfumed
seas.




CHAPTER XIV

MARY FACES A CRISIS


Clifford had just gone, and Mary now sat alone in the ornate
drawing-room which for a brief week she had occupied as “Mrs.
Grayson,” and considered rapidly the situation in which her own will
and the unforeseen working-out of life and human nature had, within
the last half-hour, suddenly placed her. Concrete questions, with
their inseparable difficulties and dangers, rushed upon her: What was
Clifford going to do? What was Jack going to do, whose mistress she
had just declared herself to be before his father? And what would be
the next move of Jack’s father, amiable forgiver of what he considered
Jack’s discreet liaison, whose invitation to a yachting tour for two
among West Indian seas lay in tiny fragments upon the floor?--which
invitation, she knew, he would soon repeat and press for an answer. And
most especially, just what was she going to do herself to make her way
safely through all these dangers which beset her plans?

Again she recalled Clifford’s grim words: he was through interfering
with her, he was going to leave it to Life, to the shaping forces
of Life’s experiences, to make her or ruin her. Well, she was going
to show him! She was going to make Life her tool, her ally, her
servant--she was going to bend all its currents to carry her in the
direction of her desire!

And then for a space she felt herself at a loss in this new turn of
affairs. She felt the instant need of the guidance of some one near
to her. Clifford? No, she would have nothing to do with him now. Her
brother Slant-Face? But her present situation was not the sort in
which the skill of her brother, whom discretion had necessitated her
neglecting, could possibly avail her. And then she thought of Uncle
George. He was her friend, he would understand her; and no one could
give more shrewd counsel, could plan more cunningly, than this urbane
old master of the follies of the world and of the stratagems by which
the world could be made to believe his wishes to be its own inborn
desires. Yes, she would call in Uncle George.

And then, suddenly, she had a different vision of her situation. For
the present, at least, she must act alone. She arose quickly. These
questions that had been so prompt to ask themselves, those dangers that
had presented themselves so vividly, they indeed pressed her sorely;
but most pressing of all, she decided, was that she should move from
here where all could find her to some obscure hotel, where she might
remain undiscovered for a few days and have time in which to plan and
act. She ordered the trunks up; and at once, with the help of her maid,
she set about the packing, which was quickly finished since she and
Jack had brought nothing to this richly furnished apartment except
their clothes. All her own things for which she would have an early
need she put into one steamer trunk and a bag.

She had changed into a traveling-suit, had paid and sent away her maid,
and was standing in the hall of the apartment watching the baggageman
tag the trunks and taking from him the claim checks, when the apartment
door opened and in stepped Jack.

He stared at Mary, at the trunks, at the change that had been made
in their brief home since he had left it two hours before. But he
stood quietly at one side, until the baggageman had shuffled into the
corridor with a trunk humped upon his shoulders.

“Mary, what does this mean?” he demanded sharply.

“I’m just leaving; I haven’t time to tell you now. I’ll write you or
telephone you.”

She started past him, but he caught her arm. “Mary, I’m going to know
this now! And I’m going to understand everything else!”

He was white, and so wrought up with excitement that she perceived
that whatever problems she might be facing, the most pressing and
the most dangerous was the barely suppressed frenzy of the young man
before her--which frenzy, if not controlled and insulated, might bring
about an explosion and cause half a dozen other explosions. “Come
on,” she said, and led the way from the stack of trunks through the
drawing-room, so recently the scene of unforgettable drama, into the
study, where there was a heavy door that gave privacy and in which
minor explosions could take place unheard. Jack closed the door, and
stood with his back against it--a tense, white, haggard figure, made to
seem all the more haggard by the contrast of the unemotional formality
of evening clothes.

“I was at dinner with father and Maisie Jones--she’s the girl they want
to marry me to--and a few others, but I managed to give them the slip!”
he said rapidly, by way of explaining his presence. “Tell me”--his
burning eyes were fixed on her--“what do those trunks mean?”

She told him the truth; not the whole of it, but what she did tell was
true enough.

“You’re not going to do anything of the sort!” he declared. “But we
won’t argue that point now. First tell me this--why, in the name of
God, when my father discovered you here at the Mordona two hours ago,
did you admit that you were my mistress? Yes, and made me admit it!”

She spoke quietly, hoping to calm him by her reasonable voice. “It
began with your father’s mistaken conception of our relations. His
mistake saved us. It would have been foolish not to have fallen in with
his mistake. Surely you understand that?”

“I didn’t understand it, and it made me sick!” he cried. “I backed you
up, just because I knew you wanted me to. But I’m not going to stand
any longer for this lying, this living in secret! I’m going to end it!”

“End it? How?”

“I’m not going to let my father, or any one else, think of you as
my mistress! I’m going to tell him we’re married! And from now on
everything’s going to be in the open!”

She had never liked him more than just then. Whatever else he might be
in the future, she would never be able to forget him as he was at this
his highest moment--frenzied, outraged, dominated by reckless impulse.
But she saw the danger to her dreams in this attitude.

“It’s fine of you to say that, Jack, but you must not do it.”

“Why not?” he demanded.

She strove to keep her reasoning, soothing tone. “It ought to be plain
to you, Jack. You are entirely dependent on your father. If he were
told of our marriage--particularly since he’s so eager to have you
marry that other girl--he’d be sure to cut you off in every way, and
I’m not going to have that happen to you.” Within herself she was also
saying that if Mr. Morton were told of the marriage, and if she and
Jack lived in the open, father and son would inevitably and swiftly
learn who she really was--and that would end everything. “We must keep
it all quiet, Jack,” she went on, “and keep on waiting, and after a
time we’ll have our chance to win your father around. You leave it to
me.”

His face had suddenly darkened at mention of his father. “What did
Clifford offer you in my father’s behalf, after we’d gone?” he
demanded abruptly.

“Mr. Clifford told me that your father would give me in settlement any
sum I might mention.”

“And your reply to that?”

“I didn’t make any reply. There was none.”

“He’ll expect a reply. He’ll come for it himself, if necessary.”

“That’s one reason for my moving--because I knew he would come.”

“Was that all dad offered?” Jack demanded. “You made a big hit with
him.”

She thought it best that the inflammable youth should remain ignorant
of the father’s invitation, convoyed by orchids each worth a bank-note,
to the supposedly disespoused mistress of his son to join him in a very
exclusive cruise.

“That was all that happened,” she answered steadily.

Quickly, but without seeming haste, she shifted from this dangerous
subject, back to their difference. “Of course you agree, Jack,” she
pressed him, “that we must still keep things quiet, and keep on
waiting?”

His desperate mood was instantly back upon him again. “Even if we could
keep up that pretense,” he cried,--“why, you’re forgetting Maisie
Jones! You’re forgetting my predicament!”

“Your predicament?”

“I can’t keep it quiet, even if I want to! Don’t you see? Now that
I’ve settled down into a steady business man--your doing!--all parties
are willing that Maisie and I should at once be formally engaged and
then be married in a very short time. Father’s pushing it across as
though it were a big option that expired to-morrow. Get the fix that
puts me in? There are only three things for me to do. Run away from it
all, in which case dad’ll be done with me as long as he lives. Or say I
won’t go through with the thing with Maisie, and give no reasons--which
means the same result. Or else come right out with the truth that I’m
married to you. See my fix?”

Mary saw; and swiftly judging her many-angled situation she saw that,
however pressing other matters might be, this matter of the other girl
was the first business that must be somehow adjusted if she were to
realize her vaulting dreams--if she were to pass through the Golden
Doors. And as she perceived this, she had an instant’s realization,
that this business of gaining the worldly heights, which had at the
inception of her plan seemed so simple and easily achievable, was every
day becoming more complicated, more tortuous. Again Clifford’s grim
words flashed briefly back: “I’ll leave it to Life to test you.”...

“So, you see, I might just as well come across with the truth about our
marriage!” Jack exclaimed. “It’s the best way out of the fix!”

Mary hardly heard him; she was rapidly considering this new problem.
“You’ve never told me how it came about, this arrangement with Miss
Jones.”

“Oh, just the way such matters usually happen. Maisie and I have
known each other for a long time; there’s been a sort of unspoken
understanding in our families that some day we’d get married--and I
guess I fell right in with it. You see, I rather liked Maisie, and
I’d never thought much about such affairs, and it didn’t make much
difference. But--well, you know, I haven’t been behaving very well;
and her people said there’d be nothing doing unless I straightened
out. Since you’ve set me to work and kept me working, they’ve recalled
their veto--and it’s all right with them. That’s about the size of the
situation.”

“What’s her attitude toward you?”

“Maisie’s? I guess Maisie rather likes me. In fact,” he confessed,
“though I don’t deserve it, Maisie really likes me a lot.”

“What’s she like?” Mary asked quickly.

“You mean looks, or--or personally?”

“Personally.”

“Maisie’s an awfully fine girl,” he answered soberly.

“Does she have any special interest?--something through which an appeal
might be made to her?”

“I don’t quite understand?”

Mary saw that for her purpose, it might not help any if he did
understand. “Where is she staying?”

“At the Grantham.”

“Who’s with her?”

“An aunt; her father’s sister, who thinks she manages Maisie. But
Maisie does just as she pleases.--But what are you driving at with all
these questions about Maisie?”

“I don’t know myself yet. You can avoid committing yourself for a few
days?”

“I suppose I can stall for that much longer.”

“Then listen, Jack,--here’s just what we’ve got to do,” she said
rapidly, dominantly. “No matter what you think, or feel, we’ve got
to keep our affair quiet for the present, and go ahead just as we
originally planned, except that you’re to stay with your father. I’ll
not consent to any other arrangement, so it’s no use arguing. You go
every day to your office just as you’ve been doing; I’ll call you up
there when I want you. And don’t be surprised at anything you see.”

“But what are you going to do, Mary?” he insisted.

“I don’t just know yet; I’ll let you know when I do. If we keep our
nerve it will all come out all right. Here are the claim checks to
your trunks: I have ordered all the baggage sent to the Grand Central
Station. You must go now, Jack,--you really must!”

She fairly pressed the bewildered, unwilling Jack from the apartment;
and then for a few moments she stood in the hall, now cleared of her
luggage, rapidly planning. Then she shot down the elevator and hurried
out of the Mordona to a taxi,--fortunately just missing Loveman, who
she knew was coming here to see her,--and some twenty minutes later,
again registered at the Grantham as “Mrs. Gardner.” She was the
occupant of a suite on the same corridor as Miss Maisie Jones, and had
ordered her trunks brought from the Grand Central Station.

Settled here, she continued her planning. There seemed no end to the
plans that had to be thought out, to the dangers that must be eluded
and averted. And yet she felt confident--very confident.

But mixed with her confidence was an intermittent apprehension. She
believed she had avoided the others. But Clifford--if Clifford would
only not interfere.




CHAPTER XV

LOVEMAN SHOWS HIS CLAWS


But the next morning came, and as yet there had been no signs of
Clifford.

At half-past ten Mary rang at the door of Maisie Jones. Her plan for
beginning their acquaintance was very simple, merely the adaptation
of an ancient device belonging to her past with her father and her
Uncle Joe Russell--the preparation of two letters addressed to Miss
Maisie Jones, which were in fact nothing more than modistes’ engraved
invitations to inspect new spring styles.

Miss Jones herself answered Mary’s ring. “My name’s Mrs. Gardner--these
letters somehow got mixed in my mail,” Mary began, smiling with the
engaging frankness she knew how to assume. “I could have returned them
to you by the maid; but the maid--it seems you and I have the same
maid--told me that your aunt was ill, and I thought I’d bring them
myself and make it an excuse to do such an un-New-Yorkish thing as to
ask how a sick neighbor is.”

“Aunt’s not seriously ill,” said Maisie Jones.

“But I suppose her illness means that you must stay pretty close to
your rooms?”

“Yes.”

“I can sympathize with you. I’m convalescing from pneumonia, and am
supposed to rest the whole time. To confess the truth to you”--with a
smile of guiltily humorous candor--“my real reason for bringing the
letters myself was that I saw in it a few minutes’ relief from this
awful boredom of getting well.”

Miss Jones hesitated. “Won’t you please come in?”

Mary entered. The rest was natural development, a development which
with her skill she made rapid. She was humorously frank about herself,
and from personal bits which she adroitly dropped here and there, she
let Miss Jones gather that she was the daughter of a New York family
who moved among the city’s smarter set, that her husband was in the far
West, on business, and that the other members of the family--they were
an irrational and self-centered lot--were at Florida and California
resorts gratifying their various individual predilections.

Frankness begot frankness. Maisie Jones, a shut-in, was most willing
to talk; but Mary, though making a show of lively interest in what was
said, was shrewdly studying the girl. Maisie was strikingly handsome--a
specimen of the American girl who has been through a fashionable school
and then had a successful year or two in society. Mary catalogued the
qualities her plans must take account of: she was spoiled, willful,
proud, jealous--possibly vindictive.

This first study of Maisie completed, and the opening made for future
meetings, Mary started back to her suite, thrilling with confidence.
Her plan was under way! And she was going to succeed, even though she
was going it alone!

But when she entered her sitting-room, she stopped short. For from a
chair had risen the smiling person of Peter Loveman.

“Good-morning, my dear,” said the little lawyer.

“How did you get here?” she demanded sharply.

“I told the people at the desk--I know ’em all here--that you’d
telephoned for me, and had asked me to come right up. Your door was not
locked. That’s all.”

“But how did you know I was staying here?”

“I’m afraid you were followed from the Mordona last night,” he answered
placidly.

“How many know this?”

“Two or three--not many more,” answered the little lawyer.

So then she was not to have her few unmolested days in which to mature
and execute her present designs. Her dangers were in point of time
closer to her than she had thought. Well, she must work all the more
quickly, all the more skillfully.

She seated herself, and he resumed his chair. “Of course you’ve come
here for a reason, Mr. Loveman. What is it?”

“That was a fine little idea, Mary, we originally worked out for
this affair,” he began amiably--“for you to marry Jack Morton, keep
the matter quiet until you were fixed solid with Jack, and until
conditions developed so that you could win over his father. Yes, a fine
little idea. It would have landed you at the top, where nothing ever
could have touched you.”

“What are you thinking of now?” she asked sharply.

“Nothing, my dear,--only we both know that fine little idea has had a
great fall, and all the king’s horses and all of God’s angels can’t
ever put that idea together again.”

“What are you thinking of?” she repeated.

He did not reply at once, but smiled affably and softly rubbed his
hairless crown. The shrewdest brain of its kind in New York had done a
lot of thinking in the last sixteen hours. Certainly the first stages
of the plan, the plan as he had planned it for himself, had fallen down
calamitously. And he had seen the further stages of the plan (as the
plan, unknown to Mary, concerned him) menaced with sudden danger--and
had seen even himself, personally, on the brink of uncalculated
misfortune.

“Isn’t it plain what I’m thinking of, Mary?” he said after a moment.
“After what happened yesterday, it doesn’t count for much that for the
time you made Mr. Morton believe you were only Jack’s mistress. He’s
certain to learn the facts very shortly; your whole plan is the same
as exploded. You may stave off the end for a day, two days--but hardly
longer.”

She refrained from speaking of her present enterprise. “What do you
think we ought to do?”

“This has always been a business proposition for you,” he replied in
his amiable, reasoning manner, “and the way things have turned, it
naturally is going to be a business proposition for me--Mr. Morton
being my client, you know. So let’s consider how we can make the
most out of it. Now, first item, Mr. Morton is bound to find out
the truth in a few days. If he finds it out for himself, nobody’s
going to profit. We simply lose, say, ten thousand dollars. My first
proposition--this is small money, of course--is that we arrange to beat
Mr. Morton to this discovery. You know, for some time I have been under
directions from Mr. Morton to follow up Jack’s doings. Now, let’s say
that to-morrow I turn in a report that the detectives I’ve employed
have just discovered that Jack is married--which will mean a bill for
detective service of at least ten thousand. Right there is ten thousand
saved out of the ruin. Of course I’ll split it with you.”

Mary managed to control her expression; she saw a few things regarding
Loveman she had not suspected. “And after that?”

“Of course Mr. Morton will want to institute proceedings for a divorce,
and naturally I’ll be retained as his attorney. You’ll make him pay big
for the separation; and I being on the inside can tell you the limit
that you can make him pay over.”

He smiled at her genially as though it were a settled matter which
Mary’s good sense would applaud. Now that the time had come to do
business, and since he considered that Mary was in this with him, he
had not hesitated to reveal a fragment of his method as a specialist in
domestic affairs--which was to play both ends and every point between.
Smiling, he expectantly awaited Mary’s approval.

“And after that’s done, then what becomes of me?” she asked.

“Why, my dear, it will be handled so that you’ll come out of the
proceedings with a pretty fair reputation and holding tight to the name
of Mrs. Jack Morton. With such a handsome woman as you are, and such
a start, there’s nothing I couldn’t do with you if you privately put
yourself under my direction! Nothing!”

He rubbed his soft, finely manicured hands in excited anticipation,
and let his speech run free. “Honest, Mary, this is the big thing I’ve
seen in this business from the beginning. I never thought anything
really big or permanent would develop from that marriage. Compared to
other prospects, that was only pin-money--only the starter--only the
prologue. The curtain really goes up when we’re through with this.
Mary, my dear, if I were to tell you what I’ve done for some women in
this town--you’d certainly sit up! I don’t know now just what I’ll do
with you; I’m an opportunist--I always play for the biggest chance
that comes along at a given time, or for the biggest chance that I
can develop. But what I’ll do for you will be strictly within the
law--it may even be most thoroughly respectable. I tell you, Mary,” he
enthused, “with me handling you, with my knowledge of New York life and
of the strings to pull, there is nothing I can’t do for you!-- I tell
you nothing!”

His large eyes were shining on her brilliantly. Rarely had this master
of domestic intrigue, this marvelously keen student of human nature and
subtle manipulator of human weakness and ambitions, been stirred by his
own excited imagination to such a frank, if incomplete, statement of
the methods of his art. For a moment, despite herself, Mary felt half
carried away by the power of the little man; saw herself for a moment
as perhaps at some future time being fitted into one of his amazing
plans.

“And for all this what would you expect?” she asked.

“Naturally a manager would expect a manager’s share.” And as she did
not respond, he prompted her briskly: “Well, now, let’s get back to
the first proposition--though that’s mighty small peanuts. I suppose
to-morrow will suit you all right for me to give Mr. Morton my
detectives’ report that his son is married?”

“No.”

“No! Why not? It won’t be safe to put it off any longer.”

“Mr. Loveman,” she said quietly, looking at him very steadily, “I’m
going straight ahead with the original plan.”

He sprang from his chair, fairly sputtering surprise. “Why, you’re
crazy! You can’t do it!”

“I’m going to try.”

“But you’ll fall down flat! You can’t possibly keep this thing going
for more than a day or two!”

“I’m going to try,” she repeated.

“If you do, you’ll not only ruin yourself, but you’ll ruin some more of
us, too,” he said in consternation. “Why, yesterday, when Mr. Morton
found me in your apartment at the Mordona, I had the closest sort of
shave. And now, if you try to keep on with your plan, and the certain
explosion comes, don’t you see that Morton will learn that while
retained by him I’ve also been sitting in the game with you? Don’t you
see you’ll ruin me?”

“So that’s why you’ve come to me with these new propositions?” she said
keenly--“to save your own skin?”

“Yes,” he said defiantly, “though those new propositions, the last one
at least, were always part of the plan I’d had for you.”

They were now standing face to face, she almost half a head the taller.
“Peter Loveman,” she said slowly, distinctly, “despite your skin, and
my skin, I’m going straight ahead.”

“What!” he exclaimed, astounded; and then: “You can’t! There’s that
explosion, due in a day or so--and after that you’ll be nothing but
smoke and dam’ thin smoke!”

“I have my own idea of how to do it, and I believe I can succeed.
Anyhow, I’m going straight ahead.”

“No, you’re not!” he said sharply. In a moment the usually amiable
face had become grim with menace--and few faces could be more truly
menacing. “If you won’t play this game with me, Mary Regan, then this
minute I cut you out of it and play the game alone.”

“Just what does that mean?”

“It means that I’ll not get as much out of it as if we worked
together--but I’ll _get it, and get it certain_. It means that in half
an hour Mr. Morton will have my detectives’ report telling of the
discovery of his son’s secret marriage and telling all about who the
wife is. And it means that I’ll handle the suit for separation--and
that I’ll collect for both services. And it also means that I’ll deny,
and deny successfully, any statement that you may make as to any
relations between us. I guess that fixes you!”

“So, you’d do that!” she breathed, staring at him. Then, without
another word, she crossed to her desk and took up the telephone.
“Central, please give me Broad 9000.”

In a moment Loveman was across the room and had seized her arm. “That’s
Mr. Morton’s office!” he exclaimed. “What’re you up to?”

Giving him no heed, she spoke into the instrument. “Is this Broad
9000?... Please tell Mr. Morton, Senior, that Mrs. Grayson wishes to
speak to him.”

One of Loveman’s hands closed with a swift, spasmodic grip over the
telephone’s mouthpiece, the other hand fiercely gripped Mary’s arm.

“What’s this you’re up to?” he demanded huskily.

She gave him a calm, defiant look. For a moment they stood so, silent,
the telephone clutched by both of them.

“I’m going to beat you to it--that’s all, Peter Loveman. I’m going to
telephone Mr. Morton about Jack’s secret marriage and about who his
wife is--and there’ll be no big bill for detective services for you.
And I’m going to tell Mr. Morton that I shall not oppose any kind of
divorce or separation or annulment proceedings, and that I shall not
ask for or accept one dollar in the way of settlement--and that means
there will be no big fee for you for handling a difficult case. Out of
this you’ll get exactly nothing. Now, I guess that fixes you!”

His large eyes gazed at her with an almost super-penetration. But there
was no doubting that she would do as she had said. His usually ruddy
face, gone pale the moment before, now took on a yellowish tinge.
Then he laughed with forced joviality, and removed his hands from the
telephone and her arm.

“That certainly was once that one of my jokes was taken seriously.”
He laughed again. “Why, you poor child--of course I wasn’t going to
double-cross you!”

She was not deceived by this swift change of front. She knew that she
had shown the higher card.

“Is what you say to be interpreted as meaning that you will not
interfere with my plans?”

“Go right on!” he said heartily.

“All right.” She hung the receiver on its hook and set down the
telephone. “But if ever there is any interference which seems to come
from you, I’ll do exactly what I said.”

“Oh, come, Mary, forget my bit of gun-play. You ought to know that I
was only fooling.” He was now thoroughly amiable again, as far as smile
and manner went. “Just how are you going to do it, Mary?”

“I’m going to do it--that’s all I can definitely say as yet. And now, I
have a lot to think about--”

“And you’d like to have me go. All right, I’ll go. But say, Mary,--you
sure have nerve!” he exclaimed, with a sincerity that was sincere.
“Nerve, and a lot of other things. And remember this: I’m counting on
putting you across, a little later, in the way I just told you about.
You’re just the woman I could do it with--big! Big--you understand!
Good-bye.”

As the little lawyer went out, Mary took a deep breath. That was one
danger, and an unexpected danger, that she had narrowly averted....
Her quick, eager mind flashed ahead to a picture which his words had
suggested: “Put you across--big!” Perhaps later, if her present plans
went awry, she might want to be put across in some magnificent way--who
knew?--and Loveman was the one man to do it.

But for the present, Peter Loveman was to be trusted just so far as he
could be trusted.




CHAPTER XVI

THE STRINGS OF HUMAN NATURE


Loveman had been gone no more than fifteen minutes, and Mary was
thinking upon her plans, balancing this prospect against that danger,
when her telephone began to ring. She took it up, and to her dismay the
voice that greeted her over the wire was the voice of Jack’s father.
His first words she did not hear at all--her senses were almost wholly
concentrated in dismay that two of the persons from whom she had sought
seclusion had within a single hour learned of her whereabouts! How soon
before all would be about her again?

“How did you learn where I am?” she asked automatically.

“Why, you called me up awhile ago, and said Mrs. Grayson wanted to
speak to me,” he replied. “When I tried to answer, you had hung up. But
Central located the telephone the call had come from.”

Mr. Morton went on to ask to see her at once--anyhow, not later than
luncheon. She considered whether she should see him again, after
her admission of her liaison with Jack, after that orchid-smothered
invitation to a voyage in tropical waters--or should she evade him by
once more running away? But running away would mean the abandonment of
her plans involving Maisie Jones--and that she could not do. Besides,
at the best she would only delay the meeting with Mr. Morton; the
meeting itself was inevitable.

While her lips replied to him, her mind considered rapidly. Should
she see him alone--or in public? Only by a solitary meeting could she
reduce the ever-present danger of accident prematurely revealing her
identity to him; but a solitary meeting, in view of what he supposed
to be her character, might prompt him to make open advances of a
sort suggested by his perfumed invitation--which advances she dared
neither permit nor too bluntly repel. And then she thought of what
might be a way out--the small Japanese Room just off one of the large
dining-rooms: this would give her the protection of both privacy and
publicity. She suggested it to Mr. Morton, and he promptly said he
would reserve the room and would meet her at half-past twelve. “Please
remember this,” she ended,--“here at the Grantham I am known as Mrs.
Gardner.”

She slipped down shortly after twelve, to avoid the danger of
recognition by any one in the crowd of lunchers who would come in a
little later. But as she passed through a hallway on the main floor,
she glimpsed a square figure behind a newspaper--Bradley. She went on
without pause and slipped into the Japanese Room. So Bradley, too, had
learned of her whereabouts!

Ten minutes later Mr. Morton entered, looking as sprucely young as
fifty can look, smiling admiration in the gray eyes that were more
accustomed to a gaze of autocratic command. Mary had previously placed
herself at the table so that she could see into the larger room without
being seen, and during the preliminaries of their conversation her main
faculties were surreptitiously directed beyond the hangings. Presently
she saw Loveman enter the larger room. Instinctively she knew Loveman
had followed Mr. Morton here, to keep close watch over what he did and
what might develop. After her scene that morning with Loveman, she knew
he would strike the instant he saw she was failing, or thought she was
about to fail. Loveman and Bradley--her seemingly simple plan certainly
was growing complicated!

And then a little later she saw Clifford enter. Her heart skipped a few
beats: so, then, he was watching her, as she had expected! What might
he intend doing?... Well, whatever it might be, she would go straight
ahead!

Presently she had to give more heed to Morton, for he was touching upon
things that were vitally personal. “Let me again applaud the discretion
you showed in your affair with Jack, Mrs. Gardner,” he was saying. “And
again let me compliment you on your sensible attitude when you saw the
affair had to be broken off.”

“Thank you.”

“Pardon my referring to the sordid money side of things,” he went on.
“I was prepared to meet whatever you had in mind--but Mr. Clifford has
reported to me that you would accept no settlement. I do not quite
understand.”

“I did not enter into the affair with Jack expecting to be bought off,”
she replied.

He looked at her keenly, but said no more on the subject. “There is one
thing that has surprised me a bit, though, in so discreet a woman as
you are, Mrs. Gardner: that is, your coming to the very hotel at which
Miss Jones is staying.”

“It is the hotel at which I usually stop.”

“I was merely thinking that your being under the same roof might lead
to some unexpected happening that would let Miss Jones learn--you
understand. But you are very sensible and careful.”

He leaned over the little table. “And now let’s talk about you and me,”
he said softly. “What is your answer?”

“My answer?” she evaded.

“To my suggestion that we explore a more amiable climate--together.”

Her back was against the wall. “I’d rather not have to answer.”

“But your mind is made up?”

She hesitated. “Yes,” she admitted. “But I’d rather not speak--not just
now.”

“Why not?”

“There may develop complications; complications which I can’t now
explain.”

“But at least,” he urged, “can’t you give me a hint of what your answer
will be, if complications do not interfere?”

She thought rapidly. He was pressing her hard from one direction, and
outside sat Loveman, a danger from another direction--watching her,
ready to expose and destroy her at the slightest sign of failure. Of
the two she just then feared Loveman the more. She had to put Morton
off--she had to have some weapon against Loveman.

An idea flashed into her brain--a desperate idea, but she was now
playing a desperate game.

“Won’t you please give me a hint?” he insisted.

“Well,” she said, with the air of one consenting, “here is a
proposition that may sound to you absurd--but then a woman is supposed
to be irrational. For my own reasons I can’t now tell you what my
answer is, but I’ll write it out in a letter and give it to you if
you’ll promise not to read it until you have my permission. That way
you’ll always have my answer with you. I may telephone or telegraph
you, when I’m ready for you to open the letter.”

“I promise,” he agreed.

“Then I’ll write it here,” she said.

The waiter brought heavy stationery, and with Mr. Morton’s fountain pen
she began to write. He watched her closely until he was certain she
was engrossed in her note, then stealthily he possessed himself of her
handbag which she had left upon a third chair beside the table. This he
cautiously opened, and into it he slipped an envelope which he took
from his pocket. Then he closed the bag and returned it to its place.

Mary finished her letter, thrust it into an envelope, which she sealed.
This she held tentatively above the table.

“On your honor as a gentleman you promise not to open this until I give
you the word?”

“Promise? I swear!”

“And you promise not to try to be--too friendly until I give you the
word?”

“That comes hard--but I promise that, too.”

She held out the sealed envelope. He took it, and also caught her hand.

“Even if I’m not allowed to read, I’m allowed to guess--and hope,” he
said softly; “and in the meantime, I’m going to call on you now and
then--and for the sake of discretion, I’ll take my chances and come
unannounced.” And smiling expectantly he slipped her letter into the
inner pocket of his coat.

A little later, when they had parted, she met Uncle George near the
elevators. It was evident that he, too, had just finished lunching.

“Mary,” he said solemnly, “excuse me for not having failing eyesight,
as a man of incurable senility should have--but really I couldn’t help
lamping the would-be gazelle you were eating with.”

“What’s wrong with my doing that?” she asked defensively.

“Nothing at all, dear--nothing at all: only just remember that no
matter what his song is nor how soft he sings it, he’s an old goat in a
canary’s skin.”

“I believe I can manage him,” she returned confidently.

“I hope so, Mary--I hope so. But he’s descended from one of the first
families of Sodom and Gomorrah, and he’s a wise party, and he knows
what he wants and he knows how to get it, and he usually gets it, too.”

Uncle George paused a moment, then added: “Excuse my seeing it,
dear--I’ve got the habit of seeing things and can’t break it. But did
you notice that he put something in your bag?”

“No.”

“Then if you don’t believe my old eyes, you might take a look for
yourself.”

She opened her bag. There was the envelope Mr. Morton had slipped into
it, unsealed and fat. Surprised, she drew from the envelope a folded
packet of bills and rapidly fingered them.

“Ten one-thousand-dollar bills!” she breathed.

Uncle George nodded. “Just so. That’s how he sings a little love
song. But he can sing a lot of different sorts of songs, and he’s a
swell performer at a lot of other acts besides singing. That’s all,
Mary--except here’s hoping you beat him in the end. But, though you’re
clever, I’m not placing any bets on you. Good-bye, dear.”

Up in her apartment Mary considered the matter of this money. Mr.
Morton, she perceived, was playing the game as he saw it; and for the
present, she decided, she must seemingly play the game in the same way.
She returned the notes into the envelope, and slipped the packet into a
drawer of her desk.

She thought over her situation as a whole for a few minutes. Her
original plan involving Maisie Jones would have been difficult enough
had she been permitted the few days on which she had counted in which
to work it out uninterrupted, but this prompt injection of Loveman, and
then of Morton, into her scheme, doubled the number of human objects
which she must juggle without a slip. The situation was difficult,
yes,--it would require the sharpest alertness of all her wits,--but she
could do it!

Mary composed herself and went in again to see Maisie Jones, on whom
she had promised to call after she had lunched. While they chatted Mary
studied the girl with new intentness, dropping in adroit questions
which would bring out revealing remarks. Instinctively she despised
this daughter of plutocracy: a fluffy blonde, who had had every good
thing in life served to her, unasked for, upon a golden platter, who
had never once had to think for herself. She deserved just what was
being planned for her! But despite Mary’s scorn--which was, perhaps,
composed in part of that hate which human nature feels toward its
contemplated victim--Mary perceived that beneath the girl’s fluffy
worldliness, she was fundamentally the sort of girl who develops into
a woman whose life is centered upon her domestic affairs and domestic
happiness--who demands and subsists upon loyalty. And Mary now knew
enough of Jack to know what Jack, with his instability of purpose and
affection, would in the years to come bring into the life of this girl.

Again, as in the morning, Mary one by one drew out the other qualities
that lay beneath Maisie’s girlish charm. She was spoiled, selfish, full
of temper, vindictive--and also she was proud to the last degree, and
she seemed inflexibly a Puritan in mind and impulses. It was upon the
last two qualities, of pride and inflexible Puritanism, that Mary’s
quick mind based her now swiftly maturing plan.

Presently Mary, in her rôle of a member of the smarter New York set,
brought her light, humorously cynical talk about to some of the men she
knew--to rumors of their none too circumspect _amours_; and then, quite
casually, she mentioned Jack Morton.

“You know Jack Morton?” Maisie Jones asked.

“I’ve met him--yes.”

There was a quick flash of jealousy in the blue eyes. “I happen to know
him, too,--a little. Is he--is he like those other men you spoke of?”

“You mean in regard to women?”

“Yes.”

Mary appeared not to be aware that this topic had a personal interest
for Maisie Jones. Also she had swiftly calculated how she must handle
this particular business. If she told Maisie outright some scandal
concerning Jack, Maisie in her pride might refuse to believe her, and
the matter would end right there. Maisie had to be so led that she
believed herself to be leading, and whatever she learned she must
apparently find out for herself.

“Miss Jones, these men are all alike,” Mary answered lightly, “and they
say Jack Morton is the most alike of them all.”

“But--but I’d heard that Jack Morton was very steady just now.”

“That’s the little way men have.” Mary gave the soft, cynical laugh of
the wise young woman of fashion. “The more that men have to hide, the
more steady and proper do they try to appear.”

“You mean that he is--that there is a woman--” Maisie Jones could get
no further.

“So they say. And I’m told he’s the same as engaged to a nice girl in
Chicago--poor thing!”

There was a brief silence. Mary discreetly avoided looking in Maisie’s
direction.

“Are you--are you certain about that other woman?” asked a strained
voice.

“I’ve seen him about with her several afternoons.”

“Afternoons? I thought he was busy till five o’clock.”

“That’s a man’s oldest pretense, being busy all day.”

Again a brief silence; then again the strained voice, trying to be
steady and indifferent:

“What is she like?”

“I tell you what,” said Mary casually, “if you really want to know, I
think I can show her to you--with him. I’ve noticed them having tea
together at the Biltmore several times recently. If you like we can go
there for tea this afternoon--it will do us both good to get out--and
in the big crowd there at tea-time we’ll never be noticed.”

“All right,” said Maisie.

“Then suppose you call for me at my apartment at four.”

It was so agreed. Mary said that she might be a few minutes late
because of an errand she had to do, but that she would leave her outer
door unlatched so that Maisie might come right in and wait for her, and
she told Maisie she need not ring, as her bell was out of order.

Mary went away with a sense that her delicately devised plan was now
under full way; and she saw, as though the event were now concluded,
just how Maisie Jones would react when she, Mary, pulled the strings of
human nature. On learning what she believed to be the truth, Maisie’s
Puritanic soul would be so horrified that she could have nothing more
to do with Jack; and further, her pride would not permit her ever to
let the public know that she had been neglected for another woman, or
possibly even jilted. Her pride would make her keep Jack’s secret for
her own self-protection, and make her forestall the possible appearance
of being jilted by herself doing the jilting first.

All that now remained, before Mary should be safe again--barring
interference from Clifford--was for human nature to react according to
human promptings.




CHAPTER XVII

THE OTHER WOMAN


Mary sat on the bed in the bedroom of her suite, trying to moderate
Jack, who had furtively stolen up five minutes before in response
to her telephone summons. The stage was set for the last act of her
carefully planned version of the eternal triangle,--the time for the
curtain to rise was near at hand,--and as she talked to Jack she kept
her ears alert for any sound that might come through the open door
connecting with her sitting-room. This would denote the entrance of
Maisie, and was to be the cue for the action to begin on which she had
staked everything. To prevent any misadventure to her plan through the
automatic habit of ringing bells, Mary had disconnected the wire.

She had not told Jack of the rôle that he was to play, for she had not
dared to trust him with the knowledge that he was playing a rôle--he
might balk; so she had the added difficulty of so managing him that he
would play a part without even guessing that he was play-acting.

“I can’t stand this situation any longer, Mary,” Jack fumed. “I want
to come out with it all! Think of me having to sneak up here to see my
own wife! And think of the other angle of my damned situation--being
fairly shoved to the brink of the altar with another woman. I can’t
stall that thing off for more than a day or so longer. Then I’ll simply
have to come out with the truth--our being married.”

“Jack,” she said sharply, for there had been dynamite in his temperish
speech, “you must remember what you just agreed upon--that even when
we’re alone you are not to refer to my being your wife, or to our
marriage. You are not to speak of those things again until I give my
consent.”

“All right, Mary,” he groaned.

“For the present we’ve got to keep up the pretense that our
relationship is what we admitted before your father. You promise that,
too?”

“All right--I promise. But this is certainly hell!” And he looked his
misery; for his habit of life had accustomed Jack Morton neither to
suffering nor self-restraint. “But say, I don’t see that you’re working
out anything with Maisie Jones--at least I’ve felt no relief.”

“You will if you keep your promises.”

She looked at the little gold clock--Jack’s gift--on her
dressing-table; the hour was exactly four. She must now, with her
utmost carefulness, steer the dialogue without Jack’s guessing that it
was being steered.

“What we’re doing is for the best, Jack,--you must trust me as to
that,” she said. “But, of course, things were a lot more comfortable
when we were at the Mordona.”

“Why, our flat there was heaven!” he exclaimed. She had him talking on
the right tack now, and he held the course enthusiastically. Her ears
reached out for other sounds than his words; and after a minute or two
she heard a slight noise in her sitting-room--and she knew that Maisie
Jones had entered; and she knew--in fact she was visualizing it--that
Maisie had heard Jack’s voice, that Maisie had suddenly paused and was
breathlessly listening.

“It was pleasant, Jack,” she said distinctly--her mind’s eye seeing the
effect on the tense figure in the next room.

“I’ll never forget that little flat, sweetheart,” he enthused. “That
week we spent at the Mordona--say, that was living!”

“And as Mr. and Mrs. Grayson--”

“I wish we were back there now, Mary!” And he seized her hands.

“Perhaps when you get things straightened out--and suspicion quieted
down--”

“You mean about Maisie Jones?”

“Yes. Perhaps then we can go back to our flat in the Mordona.”

“No. Not back there. The Mordona won’t be safe for us until--you know!
But this old town is full of other nice little flats--where we’ll be
quiet and cozy and nobody’ll ever find us out. And we’ll do it the
minute you say the word!”

“And I’ll say the word just as soon as it is safe. You must go, Jack,
in just a minute, for I’m expecting some one.”

Enough had been said; her little scene was now complete; the listening
figure in the next room could put but one interpretation upon what
she had heard. Mary let Jack hold her hands and his ardent gaze
she returned with a seemingly equal ardor. But her faculties were
really all in the next room, witnessing what was happening there. She
visioned the girl as standing transfixed at this evidence of Jack’s
faithlessness; and then in pain, in a fury of pride, stealing silently
away--later to say, if by any chance she ever again spoke to Mary, that
she had changed her mind and had decided not to come that afternoon.

That stricken, creeping figure was what Mary visioned; that was the
way she had calculated human nature would react. What she actually
saw, the next moment, was Maisie Jones standing in the doorway, her
hands clenched so that her white gloves had burst at a dozen seams, her
figure trembling, her blue eyes blazing fury.

“I’ve heard everything!” she gasped. “Oh, you--”

“Maisie!” breathed Jack, staring.

“Oh, you sneaks--you liars--you beasts--both of you!”

“Maisie--you don’t understand--listen--”

“Don’t come near me!” She backed through the door. “Don’t come near me!”

He followed her in consternation, Mary behind him, until all three
were in the sitting-room. “Listen, Maisie, for God’s sake!” he cried.
“You don’t understand--”

“Oh, yes, I do understand!” the furious girl flamed at him. “After what
I heard, I couldn’t help understanding! You’re simply a low, vicious,
lying beast of a man, Jack Morton,--you with your pretense of having
steadied down and become a worker! And this woman you’ve been living
with--your--your--”

He had seized her wrist. “Maisie,” he said, “say what you like about
me. But don’t say a word against Mary--for Mary--”

“Jack, stop!” Mary cried sharply, thrusting herself between the pair.
She was dismayed by this unexpected development of her carefully
constructed triangle--but if she could end this scene quietly the
situation might somehow be saved. “Stop, Jack!” she added warningly.
“What she says won’t hurt me.”

Maisie, her control now all gone, turned her fury and scorn full upon
Mary. “You adventuress! You common street woman! You cheap seller of
yourself! You--you--”

Jack gasped at her enraged words, then broke through Mary’s
intervention.

“You shall not say such things about Mary!” he cried in an almost equal
rage. “Mary is my wife!”

“Your wife!” repeated Maisie.

“Yes, my wife!”

“Jack, be still!” cried Mary. “Miss Jones, he’s lying to protect me. I
don’t like the words you used about me; but in substance they’re the
truth.”

“They’re not the truth, Maisie!” Jack, for that moment, had passed
beyond Mary’s control. “She’s my wife, and nobody can say such things
about her! She’s my wife, and I can prove it!” Swiftly he took a wallet
from an inside pocket of his vest, drew a slip of paper from it, and
thrust it into Maisie’s hands. “There--look at that!”

There was neither time nor chance for Mary to interfere. Maisie glanced
at the slip of paper. Her volcanic wrath suddenly subsided; her face
blanched. Then mechanically her lips repeated the script in the printed
form she held: “John Harrison Morton and Mary Russell Regan.”

She looked up; she was in a daze. “Your marriage certificate, Jack,”
she said in her mechanical tone. And then questioningly: “But Mary
Regan?”

“That’s Mary’s real name--she just borrowed the name of Mrs. Gardner,”
Jack explained. “You see we were married secretly because Mary thought
father would object to her; and also because--don’t take this in a
wrong way, Maisie--because of what father wanted you and me to do.”

“I see,” said the heavy lips. She turned to Mary, “But those things I
just overheard? And your pretending not to be Jack’s wife?”

Mary’s plan had gone so far from its calculated course, and so
swiftly, that upon the instant she saw no better way than to tell the
truth--even if she should not tell it all.

“Miss Jones, I planned for you to overhear, and believe, what passed
between Jack and me--though Jack had no knowledge of what I was doing.
I thought that if you discovered that Jack was in love with another
woman--and had been living with her--your insulted pride would cause
you to break with Jack and give no reason.”

“Yes--go on,” breathed the girl.

“You see, Jack was in the worst sort of a predicament. He was married
to me; he was dependent as to his future upon his father; and his
father was trying to press him into an immediate marriage with you. It
was a matter of days. Had he told the truth or had he for no explained
reason broken with you--either would have ended him with his father.
There was only one way out of the situation that would not ruin Jack,
and that was for you to be the one to break it off. To play upon you so
that you would do that, that’s what I’ve been trying to do.”

“I see.” The girl, grayish pale, regarded Mary in dazed wonderment.
“But why did you, just a moment ago, try to make me believe that you
were Jack’s--his--his mistress?”

“To keep Jack’s father from learning the truth. Don’t you see it?
If you should tell his father that you had learned that Jack had a
mistress, it would not injure Jack’s prospects nearly so much as if you
told him that Jack had a wife.”

“And, Maisie,” Jack cut in, “if I have steadied down, it’s because Mary
made me! I want you to know that!”

The blue-eyed girl, standing very still, and breathing very tensely,
made no response, but kept her gaze fastened upon Mary. Mary tried to
guess what was passing in the mind of this girl--young, willful, of
proven jealousy and temper, who, holding that marriage certificate in
her hand, held also Mary’s fate. What was that girl going to do?

A minute or more passed, all three of them motionless and silent--a
space Mary was never to forget. Then the tableau was sharply broken by
a soft knocking at the door of the suite. The three turned about, just
as the unlatched door swung cautiously open and into the room stepped
the elder Morton, his masterful face bouqueted with a smile. He stopped
short and the smile was plucked away.

No one of the four moved or spoke; then followed tense silence which,
though but a moment long, seemed an epoch to three of the group--each
of whom sensed a different charge of human dynamite, its fuse
sputtering, in this scene.... The elder Morton, here on such other
business, looked penetratingly at the unexpected trio: did the presence
of the three mean that Maisie had learned the truth about Jack and
Mrs. Gardner?--which would disrupt one of his dearest and most patient
plans. And also did they suspect why he was here?... As for Jack, he
was merely stricken dumb and powerless with a sense of unavertable
disaster--the axe was already falling.... And Mary, her will nullified
for the moment by a sense of futility, breathlessly watched the grayish
face of Maisie Jones, who, in the hand that now held the crumpled
marriage certificate, also held the swift _finale_ to all her planning;
each second she expected the outraged, jealous, and vindictive girl to
speak, or hand the crumpled paper to the gray-templed man beside the
door.

It was the elder Morton, trained by his worldly experience to keep on
playing his part whatever the circumstances, who ended this hour-long
moment.

“I just started to call on you, Maisie,” he explained evenly,
pleasantly, “and at your door I learned from a maid that you were with
Mrs. Gardner. I pressed the bell-button, then knocked, but as there was
no answer, and as the door was open, I ventured in--and here I find the
three of you.”

Mary felt the uselessness of further effort, since the other girl
held her fate in her tightly clenched hand; but her inborn quality of
keeping on mechanically forced words from her lips--though as she spoke
them she recognized her words as a lame explanation. “Miss Jones was
going out with your son, and as she was passing she stopped in for a
moment.”

Mr. Morton looked keenly at Maisie, and waited; and Mary looked at her,
in suspense yet sure of the end, and waited.

Then the gray-faced girl spoke for the first time--and her fingers
twitched about the document she held.

“Yes, Jack and I were passing, and just dropped in.”

Mary maintained her outward composure, but inwardly she started.
So!--Maisie Jones was holding back her weapon, waiting her chosen time
to strike.

Morton seemed to accept Maisie’s words; but before another word could
be spoken, while all the dangerous human elements of the situation were
in suspense, Mary saw a new figure press open the unlatched door--Peter
Loveman. In a flash she understood the little lawyer’s presence: that
dread which had caused him to be forever hovering about her and Mr.
Morton had made him follow Morton here--that he might be beforehand and
save himself, in case of mishap to her impossible plans.

Her mind, working with incredible speed, had another instantaneous
fear. Every instant she expected Clifford to enter and add to the
complications swarming upon her.

Loveman’s round, keen eyes swiftly took in the situation. To him this
coming together of the four of them face to face, of Mr. Morton, Jack,
Mary, and the girl Jack had been directed to marry, could have but one
meaning, one outcome. His speech followed his conclusion so promptly
that there was barely a moment between his entrance and his first word.

“Pardon my coming up here, Mr. Morton,” he said rapidly, stepping
forward, “but the matter is so immensely important as to abrogate
formalities. I have just made a discovery--”

“Mr. Morton,” Mary interrupted sharply, pressing between the two
men. She knew that yet a new destruction was in Loveman’s next eager
words; and her instinct to keep on fighting to the very end instantly
controlled her. “Mr. Morton--before you hear him, read my letter!”

“Your letter?” queried Mr. Morton, taken aback by the suddenness of all
this.

“The letter I gave you in the Japanese Room. The letter I told you to
hold until I gave you permission to read it. You have it with you?”

“Yes, here it is, Mrs. Gardner.” He drew an envelope from an inner coat
pocket.

“Mr. Morton, I’ve just discovered--”

“Read my letter first,” Mary again broke sharply in upon Loveman. “The
time has come that I spoke of, Mr. Morton,--the time when you have my
permission to read my letter. It tells you all that Mr. Loveman has
discovered and more!”

“Mr. Morton--”

“You wait, Loveman. Mrs. Gardner first.”

Mr. Morton ran a forefinger beneath the embossed flap. The little
lawyer was yellowish-pale, there was a spasmodic quivering of the soft
folds beneath which his Adam’s apple was throbbing. Mary saw Loveman’s
condition, and with a seemingly involuntary action, laid a hand upon
the finger of Mr. Morton’s that was sheathed in the envelope.

“That letter contains everything, Mr. Morton. I wasn’t quite ready for
you to know it. I’d rather you did not know it yet--but Mr. Loveman
has forced me.” She turned to Loveman, and her next words had in them
a hidden meaning for him, and another meaning for Mr. Morton. “Since
you are determined, Mr. Loveman, that Mr. Morton must know it, I prefer
that he learn it from me--and that he learn everything.”

In her steady glance, the sallow little man read reckless defiance--and
beneath her words he read the offer of a bargain. And he had a swift
sense, vague as yet, that the situation might not be as desperate as he
had at first believed.

“If Mrs. Gardner really prefers that nothing be said about it just
now--”

“I do prefer,” she interrupted him.

“Why, then, naturally, I’ll not say anything at present--provided Mrs.
Gardner agrees to say nothing.”

“I agree.”

“And the letter?” softly suggested Loveman.

“With your permission, Mr. Morton,” and Mary deftly slipped the
envelope out of his hands.

“But, see here, the letter was mine!” Morton exclaimed. “Where do I
come in?”

“It is my confession, is it not?--and hasn’t a woman the right to
choose the time when she makes it? You shall know everything--when the
right time comes.”

She turned to the little lawyer. “I believe that is all, Mr. Loveman.”

“But the letter?” he prompted.

She understood. “You definitely promise?”

“Yes.”

“Very well, then”--and slowly, all eyes upon her, Mary tore the sealed
letter up and dropped the pieces into the waste-basket.

There was a moment’s pause. Each of the four had his own belief as to
the revelation in that letter she had so calmly torn to fragments. As
for Mary, she was outwardly composed enough; she believed that the
crisis with Loveman was safely passed--perhaps; but every second she
was poignantly aware of the danger represented by that motionless girl
who still held the marriage certificate in her hand. Mary could not
guess what that emotional, jealous, pampered girl would do, nor at what
instant she would do it.

Mr. Morton turned from Mary to Jack and Maisie. “Run along, children,”
he said pleasantly, “and do whatever it was you were planning to do. I
may pick you up later somewhere.”

Almost mechanically the girl walked out. With a quick glance of fear
at Mary, Jack went after her--and Mary followed her with her eyes,
wondering.




CHAPTER XVIII

HOW MAISIE JONES REACTED


Mr. Morton turned upon Mary the instant Jack and Maisie Jones were out.

“Mrs. Gardner, how much did Miss Jones learn or guess about you and
Jack?” he demanded sharply.

“You saw the scene, you can draw your own conclusions,” replied Mary.
“If you wish to know definitely, I suggest you ask Miss Jones.”

“U’m. She didn’t seem to know just what to make of the scene--but I
don’t believe she suspected anything. You carried it all off mighty
well,--Mrs. Gardner,--mighty well; in fact you saved the situation.
Loveman”--with sharp rebuke--“you damned near spilled everything,
trying to blurt out your discovery before Miss Jones!”

“That’s once I didn’t stop to think,” apologized Loveman.

“Then suppose you excuse yourself and do some thinking outside. I want
a few words with Miss Gilmore--beg pardon, Mrs. Gardner I should say.”

“But--first I’d like a few words with Mr. Loveman,” said Mary,--“alone.”

She stepped out into the corridor ahead of Loveman, walked a few
unsteady paces, and turned a corner. This corridor was empty. She
halted.

“What did you want to see me about, Mary?” the little lawyer asked
nervously.

“I didn’t want to see you--I wanted to get out of that room--after what
I’ve been through.”

She leaned dizzily against the wall, and breathed like a runner at the
end of a race. The situation she had just been through had, indeed,
taxed her full strength; but her mind went on to dangers yet ahead.
That girl with the marriage certificate in her hand--she had held back
because she was waiting a better time, and a more effective method, to
strike. And when she struck, she would strike hard--no doubt of that!
Mary wondered in what form of cold fury the girl’s natural feminine
vindictiveness would express itself.

She opened her eyes. Peter Loveman was still waiting beside her.

“I guess I didn’t quite get the situation when I broke in on that scene
awhile ago,” the little man began apologetically. “I thought it was all
up with you--and I thought I might as well save myself if I could.”

“I know,” she said wearily. And then vigor came into her voice and
bearing. “But don’t forget this, Peter Loveman,--if you ever try
to cross me again, I’ll finish you off with Mr. Morton just as I
said--even though I finish myself, too!”

“That’s never going to happen, Mary,” the little man said
propitiatingly. “And remember, Mary, what I said to you this
morning--that if this affair gives any sign of going wrong, just
privately leave your end of it with me--and after that let me manage
you--and there’s nothing I can’t do with you! Nothing!”

She regarded him absently--although the vision his words had created
registered itself in her subconscious mind as something that might
come to pass in the future. Without answering him, she turned away and
reëntered her apartment. Beside her door she came to a sudden pause.
Bending over her desk was Mr. Morton intently working over something
which she could not identify. But the next moment she knew. Mr. Morton
had recovered from the waste-basket her torn letter and was fitting its
fragments together.

Instantly she was across the room, and had caught his arm. “Mr. Morton,
you mustn’t do that!” she exclaimed, reaching swiftly for the letter.

He easily warded off her clutching hand. She struggled to possess the
fragments. But he was too powerful a man for her to contest with on
equal physical terms, and she dared not cry out--so after a moment she
gave up.

“Really, Miss Gilmore, you know, you can’t trust a man’s curiosity too
far,” he said coolly, though pleasantly; and holding her two wrists in
a powerful, yet gentle grip, he read the torn letter through.

He looked up. His face was without expression.

“And so, Miss Gilmore--_this_ is your confession?”

She nodded.

“And also your answer to my suggestion about our little cruise?”

Again she nodded.

“So!” He turned back to the ragged mosaic of heavy note-paper, and
slowly he read aloud:--

“‘I can no longer keep my secret from you. I am really a married woman.
Further, my husband is very jealous. He may be back any time. I must be
most discreet.’”

Morton raised his gray eyes to her; and then suddenly his strong,
worldly face softened into a smile.

“My dear, what a little fool you are! This is nothing to make such a
fuss about. Your being married doesn’t necessarily make the slightest
difference to me--and I’m sure the Caribbean winds will be just as
soothing--and that the moonlight will be just as soft. The yacht will
be ready next Thursday.”

He tried to slip an arm about her. But she evaded him, and spoke
quietly.

“But my husband is now in New York!”

“Oh, the devil!” And then he smiled again. “But I’m sure a woman of
your quickness of mind can invent an excuse that will take care of your
husband. You can trust that my end will all be managed quietly.”

Again she avoided an attempted embrace. “But he is now in this
hotel--and he knows I’m here--and he’s so jealous--”

“The devil!” This time he did not smile. “That is some complication!
You certainly do have to be discreet!” He thought quickly. “You’d
better move from this hotel to some place where you will not be so
easily under his eye. Anyhow, I was going to suggest your moving on
account of Miss Jones. Being this close to her, she might any time
stumble on to--you know, between you and Jack.”

“I’m going to move to-night,” she agreed, her mind all on how she was
going to rid herself of him, and yet not offend him.

“Good! Now, as token and seal of our understanding--” He bent toward
her with pursed lips.

She checked him with the thrust of a stiffened arm. “Not now!”

“Some day, then? And soon?”

She eyed him steadily. “Sometime, perhaps--if when that time comes you
still want to.”

He had no suspicion of what was in her mind. He smiled.

“Oh, I shall want to! But don’t set the time too far--”

The telephone on her desk began to ring. In relief at the interruption
she seized it--but the relief was gone as she heard the voice that came
over the wire.

“Yes, I’m alone,” she replied into the mouthpiece. “You may see me
right away.”

“Who was that?” asked Morton as she hung up.

“My husband.”

“My cue for a quick exit! Remember, my dear”--he seized both her
hands--“we’re going to have that little cruise just the same. I’ll give
orders--”

“You must hurry,” she interrupted. While he had been speaking, she had
reached quickly behind her back, opened a little drawer and thrust
into it her hand. “You must hurry,” she repeated, and urgently pressed
her hands against him--and while doing so she slipped the envelope
containing the ten one-thousand-dollar bills into the inner pocket of
his coat. “Go, please! Good-bye!”

The next instant he was gone. Mary sank into a chair beside her window.
She had won thus far through her wit and her will; but wit and will
would serve her no further; she was spent--utterly spent. What was her
culminating scene, the scene that would end her, lay just before her,
and for it she had neither strength nor subterfuge nor courage. She had
fought, through sheer force of habit, to the end--and at the end, which
was only a moment ahead, she had lost. So she leaned back in her chair,
limp, her eyes closed....

But spent as she was she was sufficiently alive for her curiosity to
respond to a matter that again recurred to her. Clifford had known of
her whereabouts, possibly of her purpose. Why had he not interfered?...
Why?...

A minute or two passed; then she became aware that some one had entered
and had crossed to her side. She slowly opened her eyes, and wearily
arose, and regarded Maisie Jones dully, indifferent to denunciation or
threats or furious acts.

“You telephoned you wished to see me,” she said.

Maisie, very rigid and still gray of face, did not at once speak.

“Well?” prompted Mary.

“I came to tell you what I intend to do,” said the other, and stopped.

“Go on. I know just about how you feel, and I guess I’d do about the
same. I’m prepared, so don’t try to break it easy to me.”

“Of course,” said the girl,--and there was a catch in her voice,--“of
course you know that I love Jack.”

“Yes, I know,” said Mary.

“I love him so well,” continued the girl, “that I don’t want to do
anything to hurt him.” She swallowed, then drove herself on, her blue
eyes gazing straight into Mary’s dark ones. “I’m going to be honest.
I’m not doing this because it’s easy; nor because I like you--I can’t
do that yet. I’m doing it for--for Jack.”

“Doing what?” breathed Mary, suddenly bewildered.

“I’m doing it because I see you can be more to Jack than I can ever
be,” the girl went on. “You’re the sort of woman that can make a
man--you proved that when you made Jack steady down and go to work. I
could never have done that for Jack.”

Mary could only stare.

“And I think it was big of you,” the voice went on, now a choked and
awed voice, “to try to save Jack by sacrificing yourself--by being
willing to acknowledge yourself his--his mistress, and accept that
humiliation, in order to protect him. I could never have done that
either.”

Still Mary, sure manager of her destiny, could not speak--could only
stare at the white face which had begun to work.

“I shall return to Chicago to-night,” the girl went on. “In a week or
two I shall make my aunt write Jack’s father, giving no reason, stating
I no longer care for Jack and wish everything broken off. And I shall
write, confirming this. That will put me out of the way--I’ll no longer
be a source of danger to you and Jack. I guess that’s all. Good-bye.”

She thrust the marriage certificate into Mary’s hands and turned and
started rapidly out. Then she abruptly turned and came back; and she
gripped Mary’s hands, and her blue eyes were flooding.

“I can’t like you--yet. But I’m not going to let myself be mean about
this,” she said huskily, in awe and humility. “I wish I were as fine as
you are! You are wonderful--wonderful!”

Suddenly she leaned forward and kissed Mary’s cheek; and then, this
time, she was gone.

Mary gazed after her with wide eyes, then sank limply into a chair.
She had won--for the time being; but that she had won did not at this
moment even touch her thoughts; nor just then was her mind trying to
justify her by saying that Maisie, as now she saw her, was too good
for Jack, and that her own action, whatever its motives, had saved
Maisie from a life of certain unhappiness. Just then she was dazed by
the uncalculated twist of the girl’s action; unsuspected, unanalyzable
things were tumultuously stirring, quickened into life by that swift,
tear-wet kiss which still thrilled her cheek--by the fervid declaration
that she was fine and wonderful. That girl, tears in her eyes, had
called her fine and wonderful!...

She seemed, with all those sudden strange things surging within her,
to be sitting there a woman unknown to herself. And then out of this
chaos, there rose a clear-cut, definite sentence, that remained fixed
before her mind--a sentence of Clifford’s, spoken with impersonal
grimness: “There is a big woman in you--but if you are to be changed,
only Life can do it.”... Was this what it meant, that chaos within her?
After all, had Clifford been right? Was Life doing something to her?

Bewildered, breathless, almost fearfully, she sat regarding this
strange, unknown woman stirring within herself....




CHAPTER XIX

MARY THINKS THINGS OUT


Mary awoke with a start to certain practical and immediate dangers of
her situation. Mr. Morton knew she was here at the Grantham, and so
did Peter Loveman; whatever she might do in the end, she had a desire
to avoid both of these men for the present--at least until she had
determined upon her course. There was but one way to escape them, and
that was to disappear from the Grantham before either of the pair had
time to return upon their different enterprises.

Within an hour she and her baggage were at another hotel. Within a
second hour she was being shown about by a representative of a renting
agency. That same evening she was installed in a little furnished
apartment in the Nineties just west of Central Park. The better to
protect her privacy she decided she would do her own housework and
would go out rarely except in the evening.

Here her mind began once more to review her situation--as it was
to keep on doing for many a long day to come. She had won, by an
unbelievable twist of human nature. Yet she had not won; she was, as
she now perceived, only at the beginning of an enterprise that was
hourly becoming more complex and difficult--and that was also leading
into what for her were undiscovered and uncomfortable areas of the
human soul.

To be sure, for the immediate present at least, she had apparently
averted the danger of the discovery of her secret marriage to Jack
Morton. But the danger of that discovery would keep on recurring--at
least until she had finally won out. And there was the ever-present
danger that her husband, and her husband’s father, might somehow learn
who Mary Regan was and had been. And there was the elder Morton, eager
in his amorous suit. And there was Peter Loveman, who might any time,
to serve his own ends, proceed swiftly upon some course that would mean
disaster for her.

And then, there were those queer feelings which had been stirring
in her since Maisie Jones, a choke in her voice, had called her
fine!--wonderful!--and since Maisie, loving Jack, had declared Mary had
proved that she would make far the better wife for Jack. Mary did not
understand these strange emotions. She did not like them, and she tried
to force them out of her being. But despite this effort there were
fear-stricken moments when, with all her dangers, she felt that she
could not even count upon herself.

The next morning she called up Jack, telling him where she was. He
could telephone her as often as he liked, she told him, if he would be
careful to speak only when he was alone. But she forbade him coming to
see her; that would be unsafe, as he might be followed. Jack protested
against this order, but she was firm, and at length he gave his promise.

As the days passed, days when she had no company except her own
thoughts and Jack’s telephone messages, she reasoned herself out of the
influence of those strange feelings begotten by the behavior and the
words of Maisie Jones (at least she believed she did), and she reached
a clearer conception of herself (or believed she did) and of what must
be her future procedure. And the way she saw herself, her plans, her
motives, was anything but unfavorable. She was just like most other
women. She wanted position, yes--she wanted money, yes; and she was
getting them in exactly the same way that the most proper and honored
women were winning them, by playing her cards as a woman. As for what
she was hiding--well, wasn’t all the world hiding something? She was
merely doing what all were doing.

She came to see herself--despite the methods by which she would attain
her end--as making a figure as a wife that Jack would be proud of
before the world. As Jack’s wife she was going to give him her best.
No man’s wife was going to be better-gowned or of more distinguished
appearance, and no wife could do more than she, with the will and the
brains which she knew she had, to hold her husband up to the standards
expected of a man of large affairs. Later, after she had made Jack into
a real man, and through that service had somehow managed to get Jack’s
father reconciled, and after she had thoroughly established herself
with them and as a noteworthy figure in their circle--later she would
tell them just who she was and what she had been, and by that time Mr.
Morton would recognize that she was the one woman in the world who
could have brought, and could still hold, Jack to such a position of
worldly success.

Thus she thought, as the lonely days went by. But as more and more she
saw Jack as the foundation of her plan, so more and more did she see
him in another possible aspect. This second possibility grew to be her
chief concern.

All this while her mind had been reverting again and again to Clifford.
After a time Clifford and her dominating concern began to be linked
together. At length there came a day when, obeying an impulse, she
called Clifford up.

Within an hour she was opening her door to him. Silently she led the
way across the dingy, chintz-furnished sitting-room, and with a rather
stiff formality the pair seated themselves.

“You sent for me,” Clifford began, quietly enough.

“Yes. I want you to help me.”

“Would you mind explaining?”

Already she had taken on that cool, defiant, challenging manner which
seemed instinctive with her in all her dealings with him. “You helped
get me into my marriage with Jack Morton. You said that experience was
the only thing which could make me over--and that this marriage might
prove to be the best possible experience by which Life could change me.
Remember that?”

“I did say something to that effect,” he replied quietly, watching her
and still wondering.

“Well, I am not going to be changed; I have told you that. But I have
accepted your challenge, and I’ll play the thing through to the finish.
But you are partly responsible for my position. That’s why I have the
right to ask you to help me.”

He stared. Only one so essentially defiant in spirit, so audaciously
self-confident, could be saying such things so quietly.

“You want me to lose out,” she went on, “but even so, I know you’ll
help me if you promise to do so. I’ll admit that there is no other
person I can call on who can really help me.”

“Help you? How?”

“With Jack.”

He was accustomed to her calm audacity. But none the less he was for
the moment taken aback by her request--that he, a rejected suitor,
should be so coolly called in to assist with the husband.

He recovered his speech. “Before I answer that, perhaps you will tell
me something.”

“What?”

“Something that has a bearing upon your plan with Jack. Excuse my
curiosity--but perhaps you will tell me just what was the outcome of
your affair with Maisie Jones?”

She was no less curious than he in regard to one point in that
experience--why he had refrained from action at the Grantham. She had
been wondering about this, over and over, all these days.

“You know about that?” Her words were as much an affirmation as a
question.

“I have had to know about it,” he said. “I knew of Jack’s engagement
and its pressing character, and when you went to the Grantham and took
the suite next to Miss Jones, I surmised, with the help of a few facts,
the general nature of your purpose there.”

“Then if you knew, why didn’t you interfere?”

“When I surmised what your plan was, I felt it was no affair of mine. I
was close at hand, but I kept myself in the background. I felt that it
was your game, for you to play out alone.”

She drew a deep breath. So that was his reason!--he had given her her
leash, he was letting her run free. Though watching her, he was, as he
had said before, leaving it to experience to make of her what it would.

She recalled his initial inquiry. “The affair ended,” she said briefly,
“by my being forced to tell Maisie Jones, in confidence, that I was
secretly married to Jack.”

“And Maisie Jones? I know she loved Jack.”

“She promised not to tell, or interfere.”

“Is that all? And if so, why?”

“She seemed to think--I did not try to deceive her; she deceived
herself--she seemed to think I would make Jack a better wife than she
would. And she said that, so Jack wouldn’t get into trouble with his
father about the engagement, she would have a letter written to Mr.
Morton breaking the engagement off because she did not love Jack.”

“Is that all?”

She met his gaze with composure, showing nothing of the strange and
persisting emotion Maisie Jones had awakened in her. “That is all.”

“Thank you.” He did not pursue his inquiry, though his eyes regarded
her keenly. “To come back to your request that I help you with Jack.
Whether I help you depends upon what you intend doing. First, how do
you happen to be here?”

Her answer was prompt and direct. “After all that has happened, it
seemed safest and wisest for me to disappear. Too many persons were
becoming mixed up in my affairs--I wanted to be free from them.”

“How about Jack? Is he also in the dark as to where you are?”

“Jack knows. But I do not dare see him.”

“And these are the only reasons you disappeared so suddenly from the
Grantham?”

“The only reasons,” she returned steadily. But consciously or
unconsciously Mary here withheld part of the truth. There was something
else: the unadmitted influence which the action of Maisie Jones had had
upon her.

“Next, if I am to help you,” continued Clifford, “what are your general
plans for the future? You don’t mind telling?”

“I don’t mind telling you everything.” And she went on to tell
him these things which she had thought out more definitely during
her solitary days. “My general plans are what they have been
since I married. My main purpose at present is to keep Jack going
straight--until through my influence he shall have become established
as a responsible business man; this I expect to be an achievement for
which I shall secure acknowledgment and which will win Mr. Morton’s
favor. And then, a little later, after I have established myself with
them, and have been openly before the public as Jack’s wife, I shall
tell them just who I am and what I have done.”

“And having done that, what do you think will happen?”

“I shall have proved to them that I am the one person who can hold
Jack to the job of being a man; and I shall have proved to them that,
despite my being Mary Regan, I can make a figure as a woman that Jack
and his father will be proud of before the world. That is my plan.”

The calculating worldliness of her frank scheme was amazing. Here was
the strangest part of their recent relationship--she had made it a
point always to show him her most worldly side.

“I see,” said Clifford. “But there are a few difficulties. How
about the older Morton and his urgent invitation to a cruise for two
passengers among the West Indies?”

“So long as I can keep in hiding, that’s not a pressing problem. And if
somehow he learns where I am, I shall be evasive; I can manage that.”

“And Peter Loveman, if he finds you are here?”

“I can handle Peter Loveman,” she replied confidently; and then added:
“Not long ago he wanted me to give up my plan concerning Jack. In fact
he threatened me.”

“Why?” Clifford asked quickly.

“He said I could not possibly succeed. Also there was something else he
wanted me to do.”

“And you replied to him?”

“I told him I was going straight ahead. And I showed him that I was
stronger than he was. He then suddenly became pleasant again, said his
threat had been only a joke. If I called the turn on him once, I guess
I can call it again if necessary.”

Clifford made mental note of this threat. “Let’s come back to Jack.
Would you mind being more explicit why, and in what way, you want me to
help?”

“All my chances of success are based upon making a man of Jack. As
matters now stand, it would ruin everything if I were to see him often.
Jack is very susceptible to the influence of the people immediately
around him--and if I dare not see him, how can I influence him? That is
my supreme difficulty.”

“I see,” said Clifford.

“Just there is where I want you to help me. Jack likes you. I want you
to see a lot of him--help keep him working--help keep him straight.”

Clifford stared at her. Her calm audacity was almost unbelievable--and
yet it was just like Mary Regan.

“I’ll help you,” he said after a moment. “Is there any special source
of danger you fear?”

“Only the general situation. Everything depends on Jack’s being a man.
Just now I can’t help him much; and Jack--you understand--is likely to
go in the direction of the person who is nearest him.”

“I’ll do what I can,” said Clifford.

Then, for the first time since his entrance, she showed emotion.
Impulsively she thrust out her hand and clasped his.

“Thank you!” she said.




CHAPTER XX

CLIFFORD’S NEW ASSIGNMENT


When Clifford left her, though still amazed at the task she had set
him, he was more occupied with a new possibility--Life worked so
strangely!--that had come upon him during their talk. Had Mary, through
her scheming to achieve worldly place and fortune by means of Jack,
come by slow degrees and perhaps unknown to herself to have a real
responsibility toward Jack? And if so, how would she react under that
responsibility if ever a crisis should arise?

At once Clifford began work upon this strange assignment. And at
once this assignment, strange as it was to start with, took on an
even stranger twist--though this new turn was not at once definitely
apparent.

Clifford was curious concerning Jack in his new rôle as a business man;
and half an hour after leaving Mary he was shown into an office in a
large suite down in the financial district. Jack sprung up eagerly from
a littered desk.

“Hello, Bob! Say, this is great, your dropping in on me like this--a
regular relief expedition to a strayed North-Pole-hunting outfit! Only,
as a financier, I’m no Commodore Peary; I’m in the Dr. Cook class.”

Clifford returned the smile of the pleasant, almost boyish face. “How
goes the work, Jack?”

The young fellow made a grimace at the papers on his desk. “They’ve
turned over a one-cylinder mining proposition to me to handle. Oh, ye
gods! Bob--has science yet discovered an anti-toxin for work?”

“Then you’re getting tired of it?” Clifford asked, studying him keenly.

“Tired, you bet!--and also tangled. But I’m going to stick it out.” He
lowered his voice: “You know, it’s all Mary’s doing, my starting to
toil in this old foundry. She said I had to make good--and you can just
bet I am going to make good!”

Clifford nodded. “It’s great stuff; hang on with all your teeth. But
you can’t be on the job all the time. Suppose we have dinner together
this evening and then see a show?”

“Sorry, Bob, but I’m dated up with dad to-night. If you’ll make it
to-morrow evening, though, you’re on.”

“All right. Say we meet at seven in the Gold Room at the Grantham.”

It was so agreed. Clifford left Jack with one dominant impression: at
least this phase of Mary’s scheme was visibly succeeding--Jack, whom
no one had ever been able to get to go to work before, seemed tightly
anchored to his job.

The next evening Clifford was at a table in the Grantham at seven.
He waited until eight--untroubled--but Jack did not appear and no
message came from him. It puzzled him somewhat, but provoked him more.
But, remembering his promise to Mary, he swallowed his resentment and
the next afternoon he called Jack up at the Morton offices. He was
informed that Jack had not come down at all the day previous, nor had
he appeared this day.

Clifford began to think. That same afternoon, at six-thirty, which he
had learned was the elder Morton’s cocktail-time, he wandered into the
lounge of the Biltmore bar. Here he found Mr. Morton, and casually he
inquired for Jack.

“I was afraid the boy wouldn’t stick,” said the handsome, middle-aged
man of the world, “and now I’ve had proof of it. Here’s a telegram I
received from him this afternoon, filed on board the Canadian Express,
saying he’d suddenly decided to run away for a bit of shooting. Just
like him, to disappear without a word’s notice.”

Clifford read the telegram, and returned it to the Western financier;
and after a few commonplace remarks he walked away with a casual air.
But within his calm exterior he was seething with suspicions, ideas,
questions. He dropped into a chair in the wide corridor, and eyes
fixed on an evening paper, he rapidly studied this new situation. That
telegram was a fake. Jack Morton, however irresponsible, would never
so behave while he felt as he did toward Mary Regan. Jack Morton had
disappeared, and some will other than his own had controlled his
disappearance.

Who had brought about this disappearance? If there was a plot here,
just what was the plot?--and what its purpose? Was Jack himself the
victim primarily aimed at?--his father?--Mary?--some other person?

Into his mind there flashed something Mary had spoken of: that menacing
demand of Peter Loveman, coupled with Loveman’s jovial declaration that
his threat had been only a joke. Was that shrewd, far-scheming lawyer
behind the disappearance of Jack? And if so, what was his ultimate
object?--what was his present plan?

A new idea occurred to Clifford. A minute later he was in a telephone
booth talking to Mary.

“What have you heard from Jack since I saw you?”

“Not a word.” There was concern in her voice. “He always telephones me
two or three times a day.”

“And you’ve had no telegram?”

“No.”

“There’s nothing to worry about,”--and Clifford told her of the
telegram Jack’s father had received.

“But why shouldn’t he have telegraphed me, too?” she demanded.

“You know Jack is inclined to be careless, even with the people he
likes best,” he assured her. He gave her no hint of his suspicions;
already it was part of his vaguely forming counter-plan that Mary must
be kept from guessing what he suspected.

He hung up and returned to his chair. He had picked up one
point--perhaps. The fact that Mary had received no telegram, did it
not signify that the person behind the scheme, whoever the person was,
while wishing to reassure Mr. Morton, desired to disturb Mary? Might it
not be an essential part of the scheme that Mary should be disturbed?
It seemed possible.

Sitting there in the corridor, Clifford had still another idea--and
during the days that followed it became the backbone of his plan. Here
was mystery enough: the sudden disappearance of Jack in a manner so in
keeping with his known character as to cause no public commotion. But
he now saw this case as a double case. He was going to try to clear
up Jack’s disappearance, yes; but though professionally the solution
of that disappearance was his chief interest, as a man he was more
interested in Mary Regan--for though he knew her so well, she was to
him still the supreme mystery. He was going to do all he could do, yes;
but he decided that he was going to keep himself in the background of
this new development of affairs, and direct the action, or leave it to
its own direction, so that whatever situation arose, Mary would have to
face it squarely and alone. He was going to force a show-down of Mary’s
real nature--to make Life test her. That was his second, and dominant,
task.

The search for Jack Morton was the foundation for this second task,
and Clifford sensed Loveman to be his best lead. That night, with all
the appearance of merely killing time, Clifford sat at a little table
in the Gold Room at the Grantham. But while he dawdled, he slipped an
occasional glance across the big glittering room at the small round
table known as “Mr. Loveman’s table.” The table was as yet empty:
Clifford did not wonder at this--the hour was only eleven, this was the
opening of a new play, and Loveman was an habitual first-nighter.

Presently a hand fell on Clifford’s shoulder. “Hello, Bob,--what’s
wrong with the world?”

Clifford looked up. Beside him was the plump, smartly dressed person of
Peter Loveman, smiling amiably.

“Nothing much is wrong, Loveman,--except most of my war-babies have
whooping-cough.”

“Buck up, old scout, and come over to my table, and let me buy you some
bubble-water.”

“Can’t, thank you. I’m waiting for a party.” And then Clifford, with
seeming carelessness, but watching Loveman all the while, played a
bold card: “What d’you think--I was to have had supper here with Jack
Morton. And I just learned from his father that the young scamp has
gone to Canada on a shooting trip.”

Loveman showed a mild surprise; in him the stage had lost an admirable
actor. “You don’t say! I hadn’t heard that.”

“His father showed me Jack’s telegram. Jack might at least have sent me
word before this,” said Clifford.

“Just like Jack: a good fellow, but you can’t count on him.” Loveman’s
voice lowered. “I wonder if our common friend, Mary Regan, has heard
anything from him.”

“Not unless he thinks a lot more of her than he does of me,” Clifford
grumbled.

“Queer situation there, isn’t it?” mused Loveman. “Wouldn’t be
surprised if he had treated her the same as he has you.” The lawyer’s
tone became humorously lugubrious. “Well, we all have our troubles.
Here’s that little Nina Cordova. After I’ve said a fond, swift, and
eternal farewell to twenty thousand dollars backing her in that awful
frost ‘Orange Blossoms’--honest, a guinea-hen that’d half-swallowed an
open safety-pin would pull out its hair and eat bichloride if it had a
voice like Nina’s--here’s Nina begging me to back her in a new piece
that’s a crippled and half-witted twin to ‘Orange Blossoms.’ Can you
beat it! And yet I suppose I’ll come across. That’s just the sort of
sucker game I always fall for.”

With a gesture of mock despair, the little lawyer--true lover of
the best in music and the arts, and patron of the worst--crossed to
his table. Clifford knew that Loveman, as well as himself, had been
fencing. He wondered whether he had made Loveman believe that he
believed in Jack’s northern trip, and that he was unconcerned about
Jack and Mary. He thought he had.

Clifford, alert for every possible clue, managed to keep an eye on
Loveman’s table. Presently he saw a lithe, handsome young man in
close conversation with Loveman. It was Hilton, whom from a previous
experience he knew to be a suave adventurer in this brilliant
border-world wherein smart fashion and glossed scoundrelism mix in
easy fellowship. So then Hilton and Loveman, for mutual advantage, had
adjusted the financial _contretemps_ which had risen when their plans
had crossed that afternoon at the Mordona. This undoubtedly meant that
something was brewing. Clifford would have given his balance at the
bank and all he could have borrowed there, to have known the exact
substance of their talk.

After a few minutes Hilton nodded as if some point had been settled,
and with the grace of the professional dancer, crossed the great room
and went out. Clifford’s first impulse was to follow him, but he
thought better of it and kept his place. He had his recompense, for a
little later the dainty Nina Cordova entered with an escort. Soon, as
if by the ordinary drifting of after-midnight merry-makers, she, too,
was conversing with Peter Loveman.

Again Clifford would have been glad to trade his cash and credit that
he might hear. He knew that this girlish-looking creature had been
privately fitted into more than one of Loveman’s adroit plans of this
pleasure world; and he remembered, too, that less than a year before
there had been the beginning of an affair between Jack and Nina--that
she, with fame glittering before her excited vision, had dropped Jack
for what she always spoke of as “her art”; and he guessed that now,
having been pushed by managerial enterprise beyond her meager merits as
a singer in musical comedy, and having toppled ingloriously from her
lofty dreams, she might have quite other plans.

If there was a plot, could Nina be in it? And if she was in it, what
was her part? And if Hilton was in it, what was that gentleman’s rôle?

Nina and Loveman went off together toward three o’clock. Clifford,
alive with suspicion, followed in a taxi--only to see Nina set down at
her hotel, and see Loveman drive straight to his apartment house and
enter. Clifford watched the windows of the lawyer’s studio apartment,
wondering if any person had been waiting within to consult with
Loveman; but promptly at four o’clock--Loveman’s regular hour for going
to bed--the studio windows darkened.

Clifford had learned nothing that was definite. But he had the sense,
the result of long experience, that he was on the trail of the parties
chiefly concerned, and that he was close upon something big--though
that something was provokingly intangible and elusive.

There was but one way to handle so obscure a situation: that was by
an intensive study of every possibility, and the next day Clifford
began upon this slow, cautious programme. Loveman’s telephone wires had
already been tapped by the Police Department. Clifford now took the
vacant apartment above Loveman’s and secretly installed a dictagraph
in the big studio which served Loveman as a library. Always there were
ears at these wires; and with the help of four of Commissioner Thorne’s
best plain-clothes men, Clifford tried to keep every movement of the
suspects covered. Also he enlisted the aid of Uncle George, in whose
ears the secret doings of Broadway were somehow mysteriously published.
Loveman came and went about his business and pleasures, apparently
as usual; Hilton was not seen again; Nina Cordova was seen only two
other times; and once, for a few minutes in the Claridge restaurant,
Clifford saw another woman with Loveman--one Nan Burdette, who had had
a meteoric career in New York’s pleasure life, and about whom Clifford
had heard a thing or two not at all to that young woman’s credit. And
though she never knew it, Clifford personally kept a watch over Mary
Regan. Some way, he felt sure, Mary was involved in this.

Also as part of this plan of studying all possibly related
circumstances, Clifford scrutinized every available item of the pasts
of Hilton and Nan Burdette and Nina Cordova.

But for all his own effort and the efforts of those helping him,
Clifford still had little more than suspicion to explain the
disappearance of Jack Morton. Jack could not have vanished more clearly
had gravitation become suddenly invalidated and had he been shot off
into space in the night.

Clifford kept doggedly at his method. It was all slow work, painstaking
work, and tedious, tiring, undramatic work--as all good police work
is and necessarily must be, except for now and then a turn of luck,
a moment of inspiration. But after the fifth day following Jack’s
disappearance a change was noticeable: from the various sources of
information which Clifford had set to work, little details began to
be accumulated--bits of action that had been seen, fragments of talk
overheard by the patient listeners on the wires. His accumulation of
tiny facts increased rapidly; and fitting the fragments together he
began to perceive the outlines of a plan, though as yet he had no
proof--a plan which, if he was conjecturing truly, was a typical case
of how clever powers may operate through and behind the brilliant
activities of Big Pleasure--of how such powers may subtly twist persons
to their own ends, the person never guessing what has really happened.

On the seventh day there came to him another fragment which made him
see his conjecture as an even stronger possibility, which made him feel
that this hidden plan was drawing toward its climax--and which caused
him hastily to send off the following note to Mary:--

  If you wish me to help you, then you must take no action without
  first referring it to me. And if any person asks you to do any
  particular thing, I want you to learn all the details of any proposed
  plan and then tell me, before you give your answer. You can invent
  plausible excuses for any delay.

The next day proved how correct had been the reasoning that had
prompted the sending of this note, for in the afternoon he had a
message that Mary wished to see him at once. He hurried to her
apartment, quickened with suspense.

“Mr. Loveman has found that I am staying here,” she began.

“I knew that. He was bound to find you sooner or later. Has he asked
for anything?”

“He has invited me out for the evening.”

“You are to go with him alone?”

“So he said.”

“You learned definitely where he was going to take you?”

“Yes. To dinner at the Ritz--to a play at the Empire Theater--to supper
at Delmonico’s--then dancing at that new café, Le Minuit. Shall I
accept?”

Clifford thought rapidly. “Certainly.”

“What do you think is in his mind?”

“Merely to entertain you,”--though Clifford did not believe his own
words,--“to try to reëstablish himself in good standing with you.”

“Then how should I behave?”

“Just have as good a time as you can.”

Clifford was cool enough until he was out of her presence; then
feverishly he considered what she had told him. Whatever this
subterranean affair might be, if this invitation had any part in it,
he reasoned that nothing would happen at such discreet places of
entertainment as the Ritz-Carlton, the Empire Theater, or Delmonico’s.
Instinctively he knew that the design would unfold itself, if it were
to be unfolded that evening, at Le Minuit, an establishment which
had just then caught the errant fancy of some of the smarter social
set, and naturally, therefore, of members of the smarter set of the
demi-world and underworld.

His business, therefore, was to be at Le Minuit.




CHAPTER XXI

AT THE MIDNIGHT CAFÉ


Monsieur Le Bain, proprietor of the Grand Alcazar, was a man of ideas
and was by way of being a bit of a monopolist in his chosen business.
But he was careful not to be his own competitor; so when he had
prospered to the point where prosperity could be enlarged only by a
second restaurant, he took great thought that he should not injure that
excellent proposition, the Grand Alcazar. The result of this thought
was Le Minuit, which he so named because its doors did not open until
midnight.

Shortly after twelve Clifford, turning a few paces off Broadway,
mounted a brilliant stairway. By being off the street floor, “The
Midnight” gave a sense (an effect carefully thought out by Monsieur Le
Bain) of privacy and also of piquant naughtiness. He was in evening
dress; patrons of the place, male or female, had to be so garbed to
pass the gold-braided guardian who held the outer door.

Inside the café, Clifford was approached by a head waiter.

“I want to see Monsieur Le Bain--at once,” he said in that manner which
head waiters instinctively obey.

The head waiter vanished. The next moment Monsieur Le Bain was
approaching.

“Joe,” Clifford began shortly, “this joint is being watched, and I’ve
got my eyes on it, too.”

“Honest to God, I ain’t pullin’ nothin’ crooked here,” responded
Monsieur Le Bain, lapsing from his French accent into the one more
natural to him.

“You’d better not try to,” Clifford warned grimly, looking coldly and
squarely into his dark eyes. Seeing that he had made his impression,
Clifford inquired: “Mr. Loveman come yet?”

“No.”

“But he has a table reserved for two?”

“Yes.”

“Joe, you give me a table for one, close to it, so I can see Loveman,
without being seen.”

“I can fix you up with a cabinet particulier,” the other said
cringingly, “if it’s privacy you want.”

“I don’t want to be alone in any cabinet particulier. I want to be
alone where I can see. You’re going to fix that up, Joe,--and you’re
not going to pass any tip along to Mr. Loveman. Otherwise you’ll be
hearing something from the Bureau of Licenses that won’t be healthy for
your business.”

“Aw, now, don’t get sore,” said Monsieur Le Bain, “it’s goin’ to be
just like you say.”

It was. Two minutes later Clifford was in a nook at one end of the big
after-midnight restaurant, a tubbed palm insuring him privacy from any
save those who should purposely come investigating. A few yards away,
with a placard “Reserved,” was the table that had been indicated as
Loveman’s. Along the nearest side of the room was a row of begilded
doors, entrances into small private dining-rooms--Monsieur Le Bain’s
“cabinets particulier.” The passing of waiters through these doors with
loaded trays, and the issuance of laughter, informed Clifford that some
of these rooms were already occupied.

Clifford’s job was now a waiting job; and while he waited the
appearance of Loveman and Mary Regan, he took in the restaurant. Le
Minuit, though it advertised “newest decorations, most titillating
dishes, most astonishing entertainment,” was to Clifford the same old
thing: its only individual appeal to the imagination was that it did
not open till midnight, and that it was reputed to be supreme in the
matter of naughty surprises. The pretentious mural paintings--the rows
of mirrors inserted in the walls, framed with gilded plaster--the palms
in tubs--the artificial vines, with their clusters of purple glass
grapes hanging from the latticed ceiling: all was to him a wearisome
duplication. And Le Minuit’s cabaret was the same old thing--perhaps
a bit more _risqué_ than the average--except for its great feature,
one Molkarina, a native Hawaiian dancer, who whirled and contorted and
jiggled in what New York accepted as authentic folk-dances--but who, as
Clifford knew, had never been any nearer the much-sung island beaches
than the Barbary Coast of San Francisco.

Of the three or four hundred persons who by this time were in the room,
Clifford knew some by name, all he knew by types. There were a few
indubitable members of the smartest social set for whom the wildest was
becoming tame and cloying; and there were men and women hardly less
well dressed, who lived by every means except honest effort--who were
looking for pleasure and looking for prey; and in between these showy
extremes were a few work-a-day persons who had come hither in a spirit
of daring exploration.

Presently Clifford saw Mary Regan, obsequiously led by Monsieur Le Bain
himself, and followed by the urbane little Peter Loveman, make way
through the hilarious room and take possession of the reserved table.
Clifford keyed himself to watch and listen. He sensed that he was now
about to have revealed to him the heart of this whole business.

Evidently Loveman had given full orders in advance, for almost
immediately supper, with champagne in an ice pail, was brought to the
table. The talk at first was chiefly the amusing, disarming chatter of
which Loveman was a master. Then by degrees it became more serious,
then it shifted to Mary and her plans.

“Let’s face the whole situation squarely, Mary,” Clifford heard the
little man say in his most plausible voice. “I’m perfectly willing to
back you up in the original proposition--stand right behind you--the
same as I promised--if you still want me to. But let’s not bunk
ourselves. Mary, I’m telling you God’s truth--it’s a great game if you
could put it over--only you _can’t put it over_!”

“I’ve told you I’m going to try, Peter Loveman,” she returned steadily,
“and if you double-cross me, I’ll do exactly what I said I’d do--and
that means you’ll be shown up to the Mortons and, besides, won’t get a
nickel out of them.”

“Now, now, Mary, let’s don’t talk threats. Whatever the play, we’ve got
to back each other’s hand; and if your play seems the best play, I’ll
be right with you. But let’s look at the facts sensibly, Mary. First
fact, my dear: you’re basing your hope of succeeding in your plan,--it
was the original plan of us all,--you’re building that plan, on Jack.”

“What do you mean by that, Mr. Loveman?”

“I couldn’t help seeing what was in your mind, my dear. You’ve been
trying to reform Jack. You believe that if you can steady Jack down
permanently--make a real responsible man of him, which is what
everybody else has failed to do so far--that you’ll make yourself so
solid with both of the Mortons, so much of a necessity, that they’ll
forgive whatever you’ve done and gladly take you on as a regular member
of the family. And as a member of the family you believe you’ll add to
the Morton dignity and prestige.”

“You think I can’t do that as well as any woman?” Mary demanded.

“That part of it you’d do better than any other woman!” Loveman
hastened to reply. “But I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about
what comes before that--your plan to make a man out of Jack. You never
can do that.”

“Why not?”

“Several reasons. Chiefly because Jack can’t be made a man of.”

“I can do it.”

“Mary, let’s quit kidding ourselves,” Loveman returned gravely,
quietly. “Unless you’re with Jack constantly you can’t influence him.
And if you’ve seen Jack during the last ten days you’ve done more than
any one else has.”

Mary tried to speak calmly. “Jack recently left New York on a hunting
trip.”

Loveman shook his head. “Shooting would never take Jack away from New
York; certainly not for ten days. He’s just--I think you understand.”
He regarded Mary keenly. “You know Jack’s old reputation; he used
to show more speed than any man who ever entered the Broadway
Free-for-All. He never cared much for song--but he was all for the
other two members of the old trio. The last bottle was Jack’s quitting
place, and daybreak was his bedtime.”

“Well?” demanded Mary.

Loveman answered slowly. “There’s a rumor about that Jack’s his old
self once more; that secretly he’s been in New York all the while, and
that Broadway’s got him again.”

“I don’t believe it!” cried Mary in a low voice.

“And I do,” Loveman said solemnly--“though I have no proof.”

Clifford could see that Mary, gazing across at the little lawyer, had
turned very white. For all her confident exterior, he guessed she now
feared that Jack had done just what Loveman had said.

“Well?” she challenged.

“If Jack has,--and I’m sure he has,--isn’t it perfectly plain that you
can never make a responsible man of him? And if you can’t make a man of
him, it’s perfectly plain that you can never put your plan across.”

“Well?” repeated Mary.

Loveman leaned farther over the table and spoke in a low voice--though
Clifford got his every word. “Drop the game, Mary. It’s a dead one.
There’s not one penny for you, or any one else, in trying to play it
further. Drop it, and come in on the basis I spoke of a week or so ago.”

Mary’s face gave no sign of what she might be thinking. “Just what was
that--if you don’t mind outlining it again?”

“First item: I don’t need to remind you that I’m retained by Mr. Morton
to look after Jack; say in a week I bring in a report that Jack has
contracted a secret marriage--which means a bill for ten thousand for
detective services, which I’ll split with you. Second item: he’ll want
a divorce; I’ll handle the case and get a big fee--that’s where I
come in. You’ll not fight, if he’ll pay high enough; that’s where you
clean up between a hundred thousand and half a million--and being on
the inside I’ll be in a position to tell you the top figure that Morton
will pay. And third item: freed of this mess, and with Mrs. Jack Morton
as your legal name, there’s no end to the big propositions I could put
across for and with you--you with your looks and brains, and I with my
inside knowledge of New York domestic life. Big stuff--big, I tell you!
I could land you close to the top!”

His enthusiasm, which had mounted as he spoke, now abated to a tone of
solid, unanswerable argument. “That’s why I say to you to drop your
present impossible game, and come into these new propositions.”

She did not answer at once; so that he was led to prompt her: “That’s
plain enough, isn’t it, Mary?--that the thing to do is to stop thinking
about Jack and come in on these other lines?”

“Perhaps,” she answered steadily. “But first, I’ve got to find out
about Jack. I don’t believe what you believe.”

“Well, I’m disappointed--though perhaps I don’t blame you. But the
proposition stands open.”

With the philosophic sigh of the man to whom the world has taught
patience, he fell upon the remainder of his half of the guinea-hen.
Clifford saw him rub his napkin twice across his mouth, place it upon
his knees, from where it slipped to the floor--which may or may not
have been a signal. But, at any rate, the next moment a waiter, who had
been standing close at hand, opened the door of the nearest cabinet
particulier. “Did you ring?” he said, and stepping inside left the door
open. Mary’s gaze, wandering from her table-mate, went through the
doorway, and she saw, what Clifford also saw from his retreat: Jack
Morton, his features soddenly loose, leaning in a stupor against the
shoulder of a woman.

She stared fixedly at this picture so unexpectedly enframed by the
doorway; then involuntarily there burst from her lips:--

“Good God--look!”

Loveman raised his eyes from his guinea-hen, and followed her gaze.
“Well--of all things!”

The waiter, coming out, closed the door, and the brief picture was
gone. Then Loveman turned on Mary, his big eyes wide with amazement.

“That certainly is some jolt! Not that I’m surprised at the fact--only
surprised at our coming on it like this.”

Clifford saw that he regarded her keenly. She was very pale and
strained, but said nothing.

“Well, who guessed right?” he ventured after a moment. Then, more
confidently: “That ought to settle matters, Mary. There’s nothing else
to it--you’re coming in on the new line.”

Again Mary did not speak. But for Loveman there was no need for her
to speak. Clifford easily guessed what was passing in his mind. The
danger which she represented to Loveman was now averted; the plans
which he was going to carry out with her were already successes. His
active brain was leaping months, even years, ahead. This was one of
the big moments of his life--one of those few moments when a series of
great achievements become suddenly possible.

But Clifford could not see into the soul of Mary Regan; tensely he
wondered what was passing therein--and waited.




CHAPTER XXII

MARY MAKES AN OFFER


Mary, gazing at that little door, was, for all her composed exterior,
sick of soul: contrary emotions and impulses clashed within her. A
fury suddenly possessed her. She had lost--been defeated in her great
plan by the invertebrateness of one man. Well, Jack could go his
champagne-bottled way to the inevitable end of such as he! She was
through!... And then she remembered Maisie Jones, admiring tears in her
proud eyes, and she recalled her trembling words of belief: “You can
do what I can never do--you’ve proved that you can make a real man of
Jack.”

She rose quickly. “I’m going to get him,” she breathed huskily.

“Wait--you mustn’t!” cried Loveman in alarm, starting up and clutching
at her wrist.

But she eluded him, and made for the little door of the cabinet
particulier, he at her skirt--and Clifford just behind them. What
they all saw was a tricksy, ornate room, lighted with imitation
electric candles; Jack now toppled forward limp and unconscious among
the dishes; and about the table Nina Cordova, Hilton, that polished
adventurer of the smart hotels, and Nan Burdette, high-colored,
bold-eyed café favorite.

Mary moved inside, Loveman at her heels. But Clifford remained without,
waiting. The situation was Mary’s--for her to face, for her to reveal
herself by.

Mary stepped quickly forward and shook Jack’s shoulder. “Jack--wake up!
Come on out of this!”

Jack, a limp weight, showed no life, but the other three did. Nan
Burdette sprang up.

“Stop that! What d’you think you’re doing?”

Mary flamed at her--and at Nina Cordova--and at Hilton. “I’m going to
take him away from you blood-suckers,” she said with cold fury.

“You call me that--” the café beauty was beginning angrily, when Nina
Cordova, the petite, rose and checked her. “Shut up, Nan!” She leaned
toward Mary, and spoke cuttingly, “Why, if it isn’t the little dame
that Jack lived with, and got tired of, and then gave the grand shake.
Well, little one, what are you going to do with your darling sweetheart
who loves you so much that he’s run away to avoid the sight of you?”

Mary’s voice was chokingly composed. She returned the other’s ironical
gaze with a glare of contempt.

“I’m going to take him away from you people--to where he can sober
up--have a chance to think about it all--become himself. That’s what
I’m going to do.”

“And what good’ll that do you?” pursued Nina cuttingly--“since he’s all
through with you?”

“What he thinks of me has nothing to do with the case,” Mary returned.

“Mary, it’s no use--keep out of this!” cried little Loveman. He took
her arm to draw her away, but she shook him off.

“I’m going to do exactly what I said I’d do. Come on, Jack.”

“No, you’re not!” Nina cried, suddenly sharp and venomous, leaning
farther across the table. “You just try to start anything like that and
I’ll tell the Mortons who you really are--_Miss Mary Regan_!”

Hilton, finished gentleman of hotel, café, and ballroom, had moved
around the table to her side. “And start anything, and _I’ll_ tell what
I know,” he said in a hard voice, his hands twitching. “And it’ll be
something besides what Miss Cordova will tell. I believe you get me,
Mrs. Mary Regan Grayson!”

“And we won’t put off telling till to-morrow!” cried Nina Cordova. She
moved quickly to a little wall telephone, tinted in gray-and-gold to
match the room, and took down the receiver.

“Give me the Biltmore.... The Biltmore? Connect me with Mr. Morton....
Mr. Morton, this is Miss Cordova. Will you please hold the wire a
moment.”

She muffled the mouthpiece with a palm and turned upon Mary. “Get out
of this--or your finish will come in just one second!”

Clifford’s eyes, taking in all, were centered on Mary, who was gazing
at all these faces bent upon her in menace. He saw that her impulses
had come to a sudden halt; that she realized that these persons could,
and would, do exactly what they threatened; that their telling would
mean an immediate end to the ambitious plans for which she had schemed
and worked and waited so hard.

There was silence in the little cabinet particulier; all the figures,
save Jack’s, stood in tense tableau--waiting. Clifford, looking through
the aperture of the door, recognized that this was a climax in Mary
Regan’s life. Events, with some guidance from him had arranged a
supreme test. The next instant would prove something--what? He was as
taut as those within.

Mary, with slow calm, drew a deep breath; her figure stiffened. “Mr.
Hilton, Miss Cordova,” she said steadily, slowly, her eyes not leaving
them, “you may tell everything you like. I am going to take Jack away
from here.”

At her words an exultant thrill leaped through Clifford. She had had
her choice--and had chosen the way of her own destruction!

Mary put an arm under Jack’s shoulders. “Stop that!” cried Nina,
in sudden fury, dropping the telephone receiver and clutching the
unconscious Jack, so that he was torn away from Mary’s arm. With
energetic fury she turned on Loveman. “Peter Loveman, make her stop!
You promised me, if I’d come into this, you’d fix up a marriage between
Jack and me!”

“Shut up, Nina!” Loveman cut in sharply, in half panic. “Mary,” he
cried, seizing her arm, “come on--let’s leave her--quick!”

But the lithe Hilton did not depend upon the influence of mere words.
From somewhere out of his elegant person he drew a small pistol, and
this he thrust against Mary’s side.

“Get out of this,” he snapped, “or this gun goes off! And we’ll all
swear it was suicide. The gun’s a lady’s size, and suicides are common
in joints like this. Get out!”

Mary did not quiver--she looked Hilton squarely in his handsome, evil
face. At that instant Clifford stepped swiftly into the room and closed
the light door behind him. The next instant he had wrenched the pistol
from Hilton’s hand, and pocketed it, and had seized both Hilton and
Loveman by their collars.

“Cut out that rough stuff, Hilton, or I finish you off here!” he said.
“And so, Loveman, I’ve got you at it again?”

The little lawyer twisted about--gave Clifford a startled stare--and
then forced a smile intended to be tolerant, but which was sickly.
“Why, Bob, I don’t know a thing about this--”

“Shut up!” snapped Clifford.

He turned to Mary, who was still bewildered by his sudden appearance,
and again the leaping thrill went through him. “Mary, you’ve gone
through this great! Great, I tell you. And these people--don’t worry
about them another minute. You’ve won out!”

Mary stared at him, now breathing quickly. “I don’t quite--understand.”

“You were not supposed to understand. There has been a big, careful,
subtle plan,--a plot devised by Peter Loveman,--and you, without
knowing it, were to have been the goat!”

“Oh, I say now, Bob!” protested Loveman; “you’re talking like a
melodrama. Why should I plot against Mary?”

“Why? Listen to your own words--you know whom you said them to.” And
Clifford quoted, driving his words savagely at Loveman: “‘Say, but
this is one hell of a situation! Here I went into a game to clean up
in three or four directions, relying chiefly on the criminal instincts
of a clever girl to see the game through--and, damn it, if the girl
hasn’t turned straight on me! Or, if she is playing a crooked game,
she’s trying to play it straight. And the original game is no good
now--is sure to fail. I want her to quit it, and come in on some other
big proposition; but she won’t quit it--she still dreams she can put
it over. And if I openly block her, she’ll blow on herself and me, and
break with me, and that’ll end everything. How’s that for a hell of a
fix!’ Remember saying that, Loveman?”

Loveman had paled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“And remember saying this, Loveman?” Clifford drove at him: “‘I’ve got
to have Mary Regan with us. But the only way out of this mess is to
handle affairs so as to make her believe, from her own experience, that
she can’t succeed in her respectable game--then she’ll come around to
our way of thinking, and she’ll try to clean up with us. And there’s
only one way to reach her--and that’s through Jack Morton.’”

Clifford turned sharply upon Mary. “Isn’t it clear to you now?--Jack’s
disappearance and all the rest? Loveman was determined your plan with
Jack Morton should not go ahead. Since he didn’t dare openly oppose
you, he concluded that the best scheme to defeat you would be to
get hold of Jack and handle him so that he would give himself over
completely to dissipation--that would show you how hopeless your plan
was, and you’d drop it. You’ve been framed, and Jack’s been framed; and
this wine party in here was part of the frame-up; and Loveman’s letting
you have a glimpse, as if by chance, of Jack in here, a hopeless
_débauché_, was to have been the clinching argument that would make you
give up and join in with him.”

“Clifford,” blustered Loveman, “everything you have just said is a
lie!--and Mary knows it.”

“Loveman,” returned Clifford in grim wrath, “even though you are a
small man, I’d hit you in the face if I didn’t think it might improve
your features.” He turned again to Mary. “Hilton and Nan Burdette have
been Loveman’s chief tools for keeping Jack drunk and out of sight;
they’re both experts at such business. Miss Cordova has been in it to
help out in some of the finer points; she’s an old-time friend of Jack,
and you’ve just learned of an ambition of her own. That’s the case,
Miss Regan. I don’t feel like praising Jack, but it’s only fair to him
to emphasize that he’s not here because he tired of you, as they’ve
tried to make you think. I want you to understand clearly that Jack
is the victim of this smooth bunch; that whatever he felt toward you
two weeks ago, he doubtless still feels; that whatever he then was, he
probably still is.”

“A lot of good that’ll do her, when I tell what I know!” burst out the
infuriated Miss Cordova.

“And I can tell a little that will help,” grimly added Nan Burdette.

There was a glitter in Hilton’s dark eyes, and he bared his white
teeth. “And what I’ve got to tell will jam up her game even worse! You
and she are not going to get away with this!”

“The three of you are going to say exactly nothing! Nan Burdette,”--with
sudden incisiveness,--“I know your part in that Gordon affair. Miss
Cordova, I’ve got more than a hunch about that pearl necklace Mrs.
Sinclair gave her husband to have repaired and which strangely
disappeared. And, Hilton, I’ve got a lead about a certain lady who
fainted--she really drank drugged tea--at an afternoon dance at the
Grantham and whose diamond brooch was not afterwards found. I’d run
every one of you in this minute--only I’d rather keep things quiet and
give Miss Regan her chance to do just as she pleases concerning Jack
Morton. But if there is one word--and I’ll know it, if there is--if
there’s one word from any of you that touches on Miss Regan, I’ll get
every one of you!”

He turned sharply on Loveman. “These are your people, Peter Loveman;
working under your orders. You tell them to keep their mouths closed
about Miss Regan; if there’s a peep, something very unexpected is also
going to happen to you.”

“See here, Clifford,” protested Loveman, “I’ve no control over them!”

“Believe it or not, Loveman, but I’ve got you, too,” Clifford retorted
sharply, “only I’d rather not close in on you just yet unless you make
me. You’ll give them that order and see that they obey it, or you’ll
get what you’ll get!”

Loveman gazed for a moment longer into Clifford’s set face. Then with a
feeble attempt at a pleasant smile he turned to the others:--

“I guess you all understand that I’d like to have you do as Mr.
Clifford says.”

“That’s all,” said Clifford sharply. “Now, get out of here--all of you.
You can settle your bills outside. I give you just one minute.”

Within the minute they were gone. Mary and Clifford, alone in the
little room, Jack still pitched unconsciously forward upon the table,
looked at each other for a long space. Despite the fake Hawaiian music
and the laughter of the mixed world of Le Minuit, which sounded through
the thin partitions, there was in reality a deep silence between them.

“I want to thank you--I want to thank you very much,” breathed Mary, at
length.

He seemed not to hear her halting words. “Do you know what is the
really big thing about all this?”

“What?”

He spoke very quickly. “By your action a few minutes ago, you proved
that you are not wholly the worldly person you thought you were. The
risks you then took were not to save your ambitious plan; you took
them to save Jack. You forgot yourself. Through your own scheming Life
placed a responsibility on you--and you accepted it. That is the big
thing!”

She stared at him, bewildered questioning in her pale, dark face. He
saw that she still did not understand herself--the impulses which had
moved her--and which might still be moving her. For a moment she did
not speak. Then she asked, looking down at Jack:--

“But what am I to do now?”

“That is for you to decide. When you have decided, I’ll help you.”

“If I take Jack from here--” She broke off; and stood gazing
thoughtfully at the stupefied boy. “It would do no good unless--unless--”

Again she left her sentence uncompleted. The insistent ringing of
the little telephone, whose receiver was still dangling, caught her
attention. She walked with a manner of decision to the telephone.

“Central, please get me the Biltmore,” she requested steadily. “This
the Biltmore? Please connect me with Mr. Morton.... Is this Mr. Morton?
Mr. Morton, this is Mrs. Grayson--Miss Gilmore, you know. I am now at
Le Minuit. I wonder if you would care to meet me here.... Very well,
in ten minutes, then. I’ll be waiting in a taxi-cab down in front....
My answer to your invitation? Yes--if you want my answer, I’ll have it
ready.”

She hung up.

“He was referring to that cruise with him?” asked Clifford.

“Yes.”

Clifford regarded her curiously: What was her purpose in summoning Mr.
Morton into this situation?

“I want to get Jack down into a taxi-cab,” Mary went on. “How can I do
it?--and without attracting attention?”

“That’s easy. Nothing of that sort attracts attention at Le Minuit.”

He pressed a button, and from the waiter who appeared he demanded
the immediate presence of Monsieur Le Bain. Two minutes later the
proprietor entered.

“Joe,” Clifford ordered briefly, “get Mr. Morton’s things, whatever
they are, and have two of your waiters help him down into a taxi, and
have the taxi wait till we come down. Everything quiet, mind you.”

“Sure,” said the Frenchman from somewhere below Fourteenth Street.

Presently two waiters supported the still stupefied Jack out of the
room; a little later Clifford and Mary passed unheeded through the
hilarious patrons of Le Minuit, down the stairway, and across the
light-flooded sidewalk out into the waiting taxi-cab, in one corner of
which Jack huddled limply. Here they sat silent, waiting. Clifford had
a sense that it was not the old Mary Regan beside whom he sat--but that
new Mary Regan who did not know herself: and he had a sense that, with
her at least, big issues were still at stake.

Presently another taxi rapidly turned the corner and came to a pause
just behind them. Out of this the elder Morton stepped.

“Wait here for a moment, please,” Mary said to Clifford. She stepped
out upon the brilliant sidewalk--and Clifford looked on, wondering.

“Oh, Miss Gilmore!” cried Morton, swiftly coming to her with an eager,
expectant smile. “You were an angel to call me up--after not letting me
see you for so long! Though,” he quickly added in soft complaint, “it
wasn’t very kind of you to run away from me as you did.”

“You advised me to leave the Grantham,” she reminded him.

“Yes, but I didn’t advise you to go leaving me in ignorance of
your whereabouts,” he returned in an amiably hurt tone. “And
that--ah--little present: was it kind to return it, without a word, the
way you did?”

“You mean that ten thousand dollars? I did not need the money.”

“No?” He smiled. “I thought a woman always needed money.--Well, my
dear, now that I’ve found you again I hope there’ll never be another
such dreary hiatus in our friendship. You’re looking--but I’m no poet!
And at last I’m to have my answer?”

“Yes,” she said quietly.

“Good! I’ve had that yacht put in commission. Everything is waiting.
When’ll you be ready to go?”

“I’m not going,” said Mary.

“Not going! The devil you say!”

He stared at her white, set face. Dominated by his own pleasant
conception of this situation, he had not till then really noted her
bearing. He was completely taken aback.

“Well--you have your nerve! Then why did you ask me to come over here,
and at such an hour?”

“I thought you might like to see your son.”

“Jack!” he exclaimed.

She nodded. “He’s in here”--and moving back a pace she pointed into the
car.

“My God--Jack!” breathed his father, as he sighted the limp, exhausted
figure. Then he saw Clifford. “You, Clifford!” he exclaimed sharply.
“Where’d you find him?”

Clifford stepped from the car. “I didn’t find him. Miss Gilmore found
him.”

Morton turned swiftly upon Mary. “So you’ve broken your promise and had
him all this time!” he cried harshly. “You brought him to this!”

“Hold on, Mr. Morton,” Clifford shot in. “Miss Gilmore had not seen him
till to-night. To-night she found him in the drunken company he’s been
in for ten days. She got him away from them and sent for you. The least
a gentleman--particularly a gentleman who has taken such poor care of
his son--can do under the conditions is to try to apologize.”

Morton glowered at Clifford. “If that’s the case, of course, I
apologize. But the question is, where’s he been all this time?”

“It seems to me,” put in Mary in the same quiet voice, “that the most
important question is, what are you going to do with him?”

“Do with him?” demanded Morton, staring at her. “What’s in your mind?”

Clifford had been, and still was, asking himself those same questions.

Mary, standing between the two men, gazed very calmly at Mr. Morton.
“You’ve had Jack in charge for twenty-five years--and in there you see
your work. He was with me awhile; during that short time he tried to
be, and was, a man. It’s up to you to choose.”

Morton stared--blinked his eyes--drew a deep breath. “Am I getting you
right? Are you suggesting that Jack come back to you?”

Clifford now began to understand; though he had no idea--nor perhaps
did she, for that matter,--of the degree to which she was moved by the
tearful figure of Maisie Jones, breathing, “You are big--wonderful!”

“I think I might make a man of him,” she said.

“You mean to resume on the old basis--the discreet Riverside Drive
affair--and all that?”

“Just that. I’ll do my best for him--provided he comes with your
knowledge and consent.”

He gazed at her intently. “You’re a new kind to me!” Then, dryly: “No,
thank you.”

“I shall never ask you for a single thing,” she urged.

He gazed at her, hesitating. It was not given to any of the trio to see
then what a moment of great crisis this was. It was like the apex of so
many of Life’s crises--very quiet, very composed.

“No, thank you,” Mr. Morton said with decision. “I have other plans for
him. I shall now handle him myself.”

“Just as you say. But remember, I made you an offer.” Her calm
expression did not change by a flicker. “Under the circumstances, the
simplest arrangement would be for us merely to exchange taxis. I
suggest that you take my taxi with your son. With your permission I’ll
take your cab. Good-night.”

She turned about, with her composed air of finality. “Will you please
help me in, Mr. Clifford?”

Clifford did so. Over his shoulder he had a glimpse of the handsome,
elderly man standing, loose-jawed, staring after her.

As Clifford settled beside her and the car sprang away, there was a
sharp, breaking choke from her, and she dropped her face into her
hands. After that she gripped herself and sat silent, rigid, as the
car spun on. Clifford, gazing on her, wondered thrillingly what was
happening within that taut figure ... wondered what might happen in the
days to come....




CHAPTER XXIII

LOVEMAN’S FINAL PLEA


As the taxi-cab spun northward through the two-o’clock streets,
Clifford continued to gaze at the taut figure of Mary Regan, and at her
white, set face. It had certainly been an hour to try her soul, that
experience ending a few minutes since at the Midnight Café.

To Clifford it seemed that all Mary’s shrewd scheming had brought her
up at last against an unsurmountable wall. Again Clifford wondered
what was passing behind that pale face: wondered what was going to be
the ending of her great worldly plan, which thus far had had so many
undreamed-of developments: wondered how all this tangled affair was
going to come out for her--and again wondered which of the two persons
he knew in her was to be the dominant Mary Regan when this matter had
played itself through to its unguessable conclusion.

The taxi-cab halted, and Clifford escorted her to the door of her
apartment house.

“What are you going to do next, if you don’t mind telling?” he asked.

“I don’t know yet--perhaps nothing,” she said absently. And then, with
quiet vigor: “Jack’s not to blame so much for what he is. It’s chiefly
his father’s fault. I wish I could make his father pay!” Her dark eyes
flashed, her figure tensed with sudden purpose. “Yes, somehow I am
going to make his father pay!”

She held out her hand, and gave him a steady look. “At any rate, I want
to thank you. You’ve done all you could for me. Good-night.”

“Good-night.”

He watched her in--this strange, confident young woman, so tangled in
the web of her own spinning, whom he had drifted into so strangely
helping, and whom, though she could now have no part in his life, he
knew he still loved. But back in the taxi-cab, his mind at once was
on another matter. He had glimpsed Peter Loveman lurking within the
doorway during the end of that scene in front of Le Minuit; and he knew
that keen little lawyer was no man to give up merely because he seemed
to be beaten. In fact Loveman would act all the more quickly for just
that reason.

Clifford drove two blocks to the south, a block west, and a block
north, then, ordering his cab to wait, he stepped out and walked north
to the next corner. He peered around this and waited. Presently he saw
what he more than half expected to see--Loveman crossing from a taxi to
the entrance of Mary’s apartment house. He saw him press Mary’s button,
and after a space saw Loveman push open the door and enter.

Clifford tried to guess what plan the little lawyer, whose wiles he
had exposed to Mary only an hour before at Le Minuit, could regard
as so important that it had to be undertaken at two o’clock in the
morning, without the loss of a single possible minute. He wanted to
slip down the street, enter the house, and try to watch and overhear;
but the chauffeur in Loveman’s waiting taxi might also be Loveman’s
lookout and personal guard. There was nothing for it but to wait where
he was and watch.

Within, up on the fourth floor, Mary stood outside her open door,
looking down into the dark, narrow stairway, with its sharp turns and
tiny landings. When the dim, mounting figure started up the last flight
and she saw it was Loveman, she drew sharply back and tried to close
her door. But Loveman, quick despite his plump figure, sprang up the
final steps and thrust his walking-stick into the closing aperture. He
tried to force the door with his shoulder, but Mary’s strength on the
other side was fully equal to his own and the door did not budge. He
desisted, but kept the advantage held by his walking-stick.

“Come, Mary, my dear, don’t be so inhospitable,” he said through the
crack, in a pleasantly complaining voice. “You know, I wouldn’t have
come at such an hour unless it was important. And you know I’m your
friend.”

The door did not move.

“This is a raw way to treat your old nurse and playmate,” complained
Loveman. “Particularly when I’ve come to tell you something that it’s
your business to know--something about Jack.”

There was a moment’s silence. Then suddenly the door swung wide open,
and Loveman found himself looking at a small automatic and beyond that
at the cold face of Mary.

“Come in, but behave yourself,” she said briefly.

He entered and closed the door. “Your suspicion hurts me, Mary, dear,”
he said in his amiably injured tone. He raised his two hands, one
holding the cane and the other his silk hat, high above his shining
dome. “Just to allay your suspicions, so we can talk as good friends
should talk, I suggest that you first frisk me.”

“Don’t be a fool, and don’t try to be humorous. Put down your hands.
I don’t care how many guns you have--I can beat you to the first
shot--and there’ll be only one shot. What do you want?”

Loveman lowered his hands and laid stick and hat upon a table. “Mind if
an asthmatic, dropsical, and almost moribund gentleman sits down while
he talks?” He eased himself into a chair without waiting her consent.
“Sit down, too, Mary. If you’re going to murder me, let’s make it a
comfortable affair for both of us.”

She took a chair, and sat alert with automatic held in her lap. “What
do you want?” she repeated.

“First?” he replied with a smile of amiable frankness, “I’ve got to say
that on the surface you do seem to have every reason to suspect me.
The way that business at Le Minuit turned out, and especially the way
Clifford twisted it, it did look as though I’d tried to do you dirt.
But those were only the looks--they were not the facts.”

“Do you mean to deny that that affair was a frame-up?” she demanded
sharply.

“I do not, for it was,” he returned promptly. “Further, it was a
frame-up chiefly against you. That brings me to the point that made me
hurry here--a point that had to have immediate explanation. It was a
frame-up, yes--but, honest, Mary, I framed you for your own good.”

“For my own good!” she exclaimed skeptically.

“Exactly. Listen, Mary. I’ve got to repeat myself--but I can’t help
that if I am to make myself clear. Your big idea in this secret
marriage with Jack Morton has grown to be to keep Jack at work--to
do what no one else has ever been able to do, make a man out of
him--so that after a time, when the big blow-off comes and they find
out who you are, you will have established yourself so thoroughly by
the service you have rendered that the Mortons will have to overlook
everything shady about your past and your part in this affair. That’s
the way you had it doped out to yourself, now, isn’t it?”

Mary did not answer.

“That was your plan--exactly. And your plan, all the big future you saw
for yourself, was based upon your making a man out of Jack. Mary,--I’m
talking straight goods now,--I saw you could never make a man out of
Jack. Nobody could or can. The stuff’s not there. I saw you were headed
toward certain failure--and wasting good months, and big chances, in
trying to put your grand dream across. I told you all this and tried to
talk you out of it, but you wouldn’t listen to me. So I decided to try
to prove my point by showing you the facts. I decided to frame you.

“To-night, I let you stumble across, as if by accident, Jack
chloroformed by grape juice and in the company of those ladies. I
admit I helped lead Jack into that. But I hoped you would see it as
the real thing, see how hopeless any dream was that was based on
making a man of Jack--and that you would quit the game right there.
But my little act was a fizzle. Still, Mary,”--and the little lawyer’s
voice was persuasively emphatic,--“even though Jack was led into this
to-night, the picture you saw of him, that wine and woman stuff, is an
honest-to-God picture of what Jack will be in a few months. Broadway
hasn’t yet got him completely--but Broadway is going to get him! I’m
telling you, Mary!”

Mary’s face was expressionless. “You didn’t come here merely to deliver
that speech, Peter Loveman.”

“Naturally, there is something else.” His round, large eyes regarded
her meditatively; then he leaned forward. “Mary, I’m going to lay all
my cards on the table. First, here’s a bit of a confession: I hung
around Le Minuit, and heard your offer to Mr. Morton to straighten Jack
out, and heard him turn you down flat, and saw him drive away with
Jack.”

“Well?”

“Wasn’t that just so much more evidence to show you that your big dream
can never, never come true?” he argued, quietly, but with the driving
force of the great lawyer that he was. “So I say again, for God’s sake,
drop it all! And, Mary,--you’d never have been happy even if you had
worked that game with the Mortons. You’re too much the daughter of
‘Gentleman Jim’ Regan for that sort of life--your father’s blood would
have sent you back to the old ways.

“Listen, Mary,--the sensible thing to do is for us all to cash in on
this Morton affair, before it breaks. I’ve said most of this before,
but I’ve got to say it again. Let me discover the secret marriage
between you and Jack; I’ll soak Mr. Morton hard for a detective bill,
and give you a half of what he pays. And by playing the thing this
way, I’ll keep solid with Mr. Morton and will be in a position where
I can milk him for a long time to come. And then, of course, you’ll
make him pay big for a divorce-- Morton will want to hush the matter
up as far as he can, and he’ll want to keep details out of court. And
since I’ll be representing Mr. Morton, I can put you wise to the very
limit he’ll pay. What you get there will be all your own; I’ll get
mine out of handling Mr. Morton’s end. And that business all settled,
and you with the name of Mrs. Jack Morton--why, there’s nothing big we
couldn’t put across as team-mates! And everything safe--and everything
big! And a little later, if you wanted it, I could, by watching chances
and playing the cards right, help you make a marriage that would be a
headliner in regard to wealth and respectability and position. Don’t
you see it all!”

She saw it, and it was a dazzling vision of its own kind. Moreover, she
knew this shrewd little lawyer could bring it all to pass. And among
other things his plan offered was the definite and immediate chance
to strike vengefully at Mr. Morton, who an hour before had so coolly
rebuffed her when, swayed by unaccustomed emotion, she had made him the
proposal to devote herself to Jack.

At length she spoke. “That was another good speech, Peter,” she said
quietly, “but you didn’t come here merely to deliver that speech
either. Just what is the big thing that’s in your mind?”

“Why, that you should drop your present game, instanter, and switch to
something worth while.”

“That’s not what brought you here between two and three o’clock in the
morning,” she insisted steadily.

He shifted slightly. “It’s like this, Mary,” he said abruptly, changing
from his persuasive tone--“you and I went into this thing together,
and I hope we’re going to stick it out together along the lines I’ve
just suggested. But matters took such a twist with to-night’s events
that I had to know definitely, at once, whether you were going to work
along with me.”

“And that’s the question you really want answered?”

“It is. And I’m hoping your answer is going to be ‘yes.’”

“I do not know what I am going to do,” she said quietly, her dark eyes
fixed upon his large blue ones. “But whatever I do, I shall do alone
and exactly as I please.”

He slowly wet his full, loose lips. “Is that final?”

“It is.”

“You mean that you are going to leave me out of it.”

“I am not going to think of you one way or the other.” She stood up.
“If that is all you came for, I suggest you now say good-night.”

His soft hands gripped the arms of his chair. Fury flamed within
him; words of menace surged to his lips. But Peter Loveman never had
more self-possession than when his situation was most dangerous--and
dangerous he certainly now felt it to be. So as he rose he smiled with
good-natured regret.

“I’m sorry it’s all off, Mary; it would have been big for us both. But
you have the right to do as you choose. Well, good luck to you--and
good-night.”

With a look of almost fatherly benignity, Loveman went out. Mary
suspected that regretful, genial smile--but she thought of it only
for a moment, for the next instant her mind was on other things. She
switched out her lights, and stepping to a window she looked out into
the deep silence of the night.

What should she do? At last she was alone face to face with her life’s
greatest crisis. She had played for big game--for wealth and worldly
position--and she had played daringly--and now, at the end, after all
her time and bold dreams and care and cleverness, it seemed that she
had lost, and lost finally, unalterably. And after all, even had she
won, would the winning have been worth the while?...

And then there was a resurgence of that self-confidence, that
determination, which were such strong elements of her nature. Should
she not make one last desperate effort to carry through her plan,
despite them all? Her resentment toward Jack’s cold, worldly father
suddenly flamed high. Just to balk the older Morton she would like to
save Jack and win out herself.

But how might it be done?... Almost unconsciously her mind began to
revert with nervous intensity to certain methods of that period spent
under the influence of her father and later of her uncle Joe--that
period of artful criminality that she had long thought of as forever
ended. By use of her old skill she might so outwit Jack’s father, might
so involve him, that he would gladly come to terms.

She stood there in the silent dark, thinking feverishly.




CHAPTER XXIV

TWO PLEASANT GENTLEMEN


When Clifford saw Loveman leave the apartment house and cross rapidly
to his cab, he waited to see no more. His next move, as he had planned
it, was based upon conjecture, and it had to be executed without a
lost moment. He ran back to his waiting taxi-cab, gave the chauffeur
Loveman’s address, and thrust a ten-dollar bill into the man’s hands.

“Keep the change, and forget the speed laws,” Clifford exclaimed as he
sprang in.

Five minutes later the rocking machine turned into Loveman’s street.
Save for his own car, the street was empty. Not waiting for the machine
to slow down, Clifford called “Beat it!” to the chauffeur, leaped to
the curb and walked rapidly into Loveman’s apartment house. At the
end of the corridor a negro youth lay loosely a-sprawl and snoring
on the telephone switchboard, and the elevator door stood open. The
sight reassured Clifford on one point: he had beaten Loveman to his
home--that is, if Loveman’s purpose had been to come home.

Noiselessly, Clifford crossed to the stairway beside the elevator and
ran up flight after flight, until he came breathlessly to the twelfth
floor, the floor above Loveman’s studio apartment. He let himself
through a door with a latch-key, and the next moment, sitting in the
darkness, he had on the headpiece of a dictagraph whose wires ran down
into the lofty studio which Loveman used as his library. Two or three
minutes passed--then he heard some one enter below--then he heard a
deep, gruff, unmistakable voice:--

“God, Loveman--thought you were never going to show up.”

His conjecture had been correct. There had been planned a prompt
conference to follow that night’s all-important undertaking.

“Been held up, Bradley,--everything’s gone wrong!” Loveman’s usual
smooth voice was now more like a snarl.

“Gone wrong!” exclaimed Bradley.

“Yes, the whole dam’ works!”

“But how the hell, Loveman--”

“I can’t explain here,” Loveman snappily interrupted. “It’s not safe.
Clifford’s got a dictagraph planted somewhere in this room.”

“The hell you say! But how do you know?”

“He quoted something to-night which you and I had said--something which
we said when alone in this room.”

“Damn him!” growled Bradley. “Why didn’t I go ahead, instead of minding
you, and have him bumped off when I wanted to!” And then: “Let’s look
around and rip out his damned machine.”

“There’s no telling where his wires run. Besides, there’s not time.
There’s a chance that he may be trailing me here--”

“Come on, then,” snapped the brusque voice of Bradley. “If he comes up,
let’s croak him. Leave your door open and we can pull him in here and
do the job. Then you can say he got into your flat and you shot him in
self-defense, thinking he was a burglar.”

Voices ceased; footsteps crossed the room below. Removing the
annunciator, Clifford slipped out into the hallway and cautiously
peered down the well of the stairway. On Loveman’s landing he saw two
shadowy, crouching figures, and in the hand of the lawyer he saw a
dim something which he knew to be a pistol. Instinctively he drew his
automatic and waited.

Five minutes passed--ten minutes. The figures below still maintained
their moveless ambuscade. Every moment Clifford expected them to turn
their suspicion and their search upwards; in that event, with that pair
in their present mood, it would mean bullets to the finish. Clifford
did not wish such a turn to the situation, even were he to come out the
victor; he wanted to carry this case much further, to have much more
direct evidence of the practices of the pair, before the end should
come. But he held himself tensely ready.

But his foresight and quick action had saved him an encounter: the pair
thought only of the possibility that Clifford might have followed
Loveman, and never that he might have preceded Loveman here. Presently,
a low voice ascended to him--Bradley’s.

“Guess he’s not trailed you, Loveman. Come on, I want the dope on what
happened to-night. Clifford can’t have your whole joint wired; let’s go
into your bathroom--he can’t have touched that.”

They withdrew and a moment later Clifford heard a door close. He
slipped down, waited a space at Loveman’s door, and then, after a few
moments’ manipulation with a skeleton key, he noiselessly opened it and
softly stepped inside. The hallway was dark, but at one end was an open
door from which light streamed. Toward this he slipped with a cat’s
tread, and peeped in. He saw the bathroom, as large as an ordinary New
York bedroom, finished in marble and white-tile, and in it sat little
Loveman and the big-chested Bradley.

In a low voice Loveman briefly outlined the fiasco of their careful
scheme at Le Minuit. Bradley swore--and Clifford was the chief object
of his guttural fury.

“What we goin’ to do next?”

“I’ve done one thing already. I beat it straight to Mary Regan.”

“What for?”

“She’s too good a thing to lose if we can hold her; so I tried to con
her into believing I’d framed her for her own good. But that’s not the
real reason--the big reason.” Loveman’s usually smooth voice was now
nervous and tense. “Don’t you see the fix she’s got me in? She knows
enough about me to get me disbarred, if she cared to talk--and perhaps
get me a prison sentence on top of it--and perhaps get you sent away,
too. So I simply had to have her on our side, if I could get her.”

“Well, what did she say?”

“She turned me down cold--said she was through with me.”

Again Bradley swore. “Well, if you’re afraid of her, why don’t you beat
her to that big stiff Morton--tell him who she is and what she’s done?
You can get away with it.”

“Telling Morton has got to be my last move. It’s too dangerous--I might
implicate myself.”

“Well, what you going to do?”

“My chief business has got to be Mary Regan,” Loveman answered
grimly--“fixing her so she can’t hurt me, and doing it quick.”

“You mean croaking her?”

“That raw stuff don’t go with me, Bradley. I’m not so tired that I’m
willing to run the risk of sitting in the electric chair up at Sing
Sing.”

“There’s a lot of things besides being croaked that can happen to a
woman in this town,” said Bradley. “The way that Mrs. Dormer case
was worked ain’t so bad; it’s always good for a repeat. Mysterious
disappearance until the danger is over. You can always handle a woman
so she’ll have nothing much to say about the time she was missing.”

“Too risky.”

“How about smearing her? That would help some, if it was done proper.”

“I don’t know what it’s going to be yet--but it’s going to be something
mighty soon.” He spoke with nervous incisiveness. “With you and Hilton
and Nan Burdette and Nina Cordova, there’ll be plenty of people. Your
first job will be to keep Mary Regan covered night and day, so we can
act the minute we’re ready. I’ll have something doped out by morning,
and I’ll let you know. Come on, let’s see if there isn’t a cold bottle
in the ice-chest.”

Clifford stole swiftly and noiselessly out. Fifteen minutes later
he was calling his name through Mary Regan’s door; and after a ten
minutes’ wait he was in her presence. During those minutes he had done
much thinking.

“Do you still control the lease to the apartment you had in the
Mordona?” he asked quietly.

She was bewildered. “Yes. Jack and I took it until the first of
October. Why?”

“Then you still have a key to the apartment?”

“Yes.”

“How much baggage do you have here? Not much, I hope.”

“A steamer trunk, and a bag.”

“Pack them. In half an hour you move back to the Mordona.”

“Back to the Mordona!” she exclaimed. “What for?”

He told her something of the formless danger in which she stood. “To
be safe for the present, you’ve got to be where no one will find you.
And the Mordona is about the last place any one will look for you. I’ll
get a car from Headquarters to move you, and you’ll leave no trail from
here.”

There was rapid packing--a silent carrying-down of baggage--a
ride through the night in a car that could be traced from no taxi
station--and Mary Regan was once more in the apartment in the Mordona,
where, months before, her glowing dream had changed to a sober,
patient, cautious struggle to re-make Jack Morton into a man.




CHAPTER XXV

A FATHER’S HOPE


The next day the first open move in this struggle was made--a minor
development, perhaps signifying no more in the unfolding of events than
their delay. Clifford learned of it when he dropped into the Grand
Alcazar the following evening on the chance of finding Uncle George.

“Hello, son--sit in with me on a little drink of this here wine drowned
in seltzer,” said the old man. And when Clifford was seated, he drawled
on, a solemn eye on his glass. “Son, I’ve been tapering fast toward
prohibition. In another month I’ll be a bone-dry state. But I’m such a
weak creature of habit, son, that I know I’ll just keep on tapering.
I’m a worried man, and here’s what’s worrying me: after I’ve reached
water, and am still tapering, what am I going to drink next? What’s
the answer? I tell you what, son, it’s an awful problem I got to face
single-handed and single-livered and all alone in the world--this
getting good so sudden and so fast that I can’t stop myself. Why, man,
when I hit heaven, I’m afraid I’ll have up so much speed that I’ll
shoot clean through.”

Clifford made no response; he knew none was expected. He gave solemn
gaze for solemn gaze. Then Uncle George permitted his bald left eyelid
to droop in a slight wink.

“Son, I been doing a little private blood-hounding--in my own special
delicate motor-truck fashion. The czar and the little czarovitch have
fled from the capital to Siberia.”

“Meaning who?”

“Meaning Mr. Morton and one freshly recovered son.”

Clifford was at once interested. “You talked with them?”

“Yes. Over at the Biltmore. The father don’t suspect how good I
am--therefore he doesn’t mind chinning with me a bit when we meet.”

“Where are they going?--what are they going to do? Did he tell you?”

“Son, my intellect may not be what it once was, but a gentleman doesn’t
have to tell me anything for me to know what he’s going to do. We
talked baseball; I was willing to put two bits on the Giants to win the
pennant next season--from which I learned that Mr. Morton was going
to beat it far from the night-blooming anemone of Broadway and the
tender folk-songs of the cabarets--and that he was going to give his
only offspring the advantage of his direct, undivided, and unsleeping
personal attention.”

Clifford nodded. This fitted in with Mr. Morton’s determination
announced the night before in front of Le Minuit when he had refused
Mary’s offer--his cool decision that he was now going to handle Jack.
Well, he was a master at directing men, at bending them to his will;
now that he had set himself to the task, perhaps he might also really
manage Jack.

Though Mr. Morton was out of the city, Clifford privately kept watch on
Mary, half expecting that her pride and her temperish self-confidence
would get the better of her caution and impel her into that vaguely
hinted action against Jack’s father. He tried to think out what course
might be brewing in her mind. He remembered that Mr. Morton, ignorant
of her true relationship to Jack, had tried to make love to her--the
passing love of a worldly man; and he knew that Mary was capable of
playing any part. She might, in her desire to even matters with Mr.
Morton, and reckless of herself and her own name, lead him on, always
eluding him, until--well, there was no guessing what Mary, bitter and
reckless, might attempt. But whatever she might try, she would carry
through.

Also--with the help of Lieutenant Jimmie Kelly, and the confidential
aid of Commissioner Thorne--he privately watched Bradley and Loveman,
alert for signs of attempt to carry out their self-protecting scheme
against Mary. But Mary’s hiding was a temporary check alike to herself
and the two men, and the next development in this complicated human
drama was to have its inception in another quarter.

Uneventful weeks passed; spring grew into summer; and then one evening
Clifford was surprised with a message from Mr. Morton asking him to
call at once at the Biltmore. Clifford went to the Biltmore, wondering
what lay behind this unexpected summons. Mr. Morton admitted him to his
sitting-room and asked him to be seated.

There was a litter of mail upon the table--evidently an accumulation of
correspondence that had not been forwarded. As Clifford sat down his
eyes were caught and sharply arrested by an open letter. He recognized
the writing--it was Mary’s; and almost before he knew what he was doing
he had read this fragment:--

  I have been thinking your suggestion all over--and possibly,
  _possibly_, if it were repeated--

Mr. Morton, who had followed Clifford’s eyes, reached sharply forward,
and snatched up the letter.

“Pardon my seeing it--I couldn’t help it,” said Clifford. And then:
“I remember you offered to take the writer of that letter on a very
private cruise. I suppose she has now consented?”

“That’s none of your business!” snapped Mr. Morton, pocketing the
letter.

So, then, Mary did have some plan under way!

“Mr. Clifford,” Mr. Morton said abruptly, then paused. Clifford now
perceived that the usually composed and masterful financier was in
a state of nerves which he was trying his utmost to control. “Mr.
Clifford, some time ago I asked you to help me with my son. I have
sent for you to ask you that again.”

“Help you!” Clifford wanted a bit of information on a certain point,
so he pretended a greater ignorance than was actually his. “Why, I
supposed you had taken Jack off, braced him up, and brought about the
marriage you once told me was your chief desire for Jack--to Miss
Maisie Jones. I supposed Jack and she were on their honeymoon.”

“That affair is all off,” the father said briefly.

“What! Definitely?”

“Her aunt wrote saying that Maisie no longer cared for Jack. I wrote to
Maisie, and she confirmed it. She was unchangeable.”

So, then, Maisie Jones had fulfilled her promise to Mary.

“To repeat,” Mr. Morton went on, “I have sent for you to ask you again
to help me with Jack.”

“My answer now must be the same as when you asked help of me before: I
can’t say until I know the situation. And even then I must reserve the
privilege to act as I think best.”

“All right. Have it your own way.”

“First, tell me what has happened since you took charge of Jack that
night at Le Minuit?”

“I took him to a mountain hotel in Maine, hoping that away from all his
old associates I could manage him more easily. But he kept me awake
night and day, and even then he was always eluding me and finding
road-houses where the prohibition law didn’t exist. Yesterday he got
away altogether. I know he’s somewhere in New York. I want you to help
me find him.”

“I thought you had Mr. Bradley retained for such service.”

“I have, and I’ve already notified him. But I don’t trust Mr. Bradley
as far as I once did. That’s why I’m asking you to help. Will you?”

Clifford felt the irony of it--that he should once more be called in to
save the man Mary Regan had married instead of himself. But he nodded.

“That may be easy enough if Jack is in any of the regular joy-joints.
But it will be hard if any of the sharps have got him in tow. Come on.”

Leading the way, Clifford began a careful search of the gayer
restaurants of Broadway. He picked up Lieutenant Jimmie Kelly.
The search was rapid, for it had not to go beyond the entrances;
Clifford knew the door-men and managers of every resort, and Jack
Morton was a well-known figure to all. To them Clifford put the same
question--“Young Mr. Morton in here?”--and all answered honestly,
having a very substantial fear of Clifford and Jimmie Kelly, and an
earnest desire to retain their licenses.

At length, toward one o’clock, they came to Le Minuit; and of the
proprietor, Monsieur Le Bain, Clifford asked the usual question.
Monsieur Le Bain replied that Jack was there, and led the way through
the din of his “authentic Hawaiian orchestra” and the hilarity of his
hundreds of pleasure-fevered guests, down a little corridor off his
“imperial ballroom.” He started to open the door at the end of this
little hallway,--the door to his most exclusive private room,--but
Clifford checked his hand.

“Needn’t bother, Le Bain,--you can go on back,” said Clifford. “And,
Jimmie,”--to the little lieutenant, as Le Bain went gliding away,--“I
wish you’d hang around, where you won’t be noticed much, so you’ll be
handy if needed.”

“All right, Bob,” returned Lieutenant Jimmie.

Clifford opened the door and pressed the elder Morton ahead of him into
a dining-room of gray-and-gold. What he saw was almost the same as he
had seen in Le Minuit many weeks before: here were Nina Cordova, Nan
Burdette, Hilton, and Jack--the only difference being that Jack, then
in a stupor, was now joyously maudlin.

“Why, h’lo, dad,” he said, swaying up, a handsome, flushed, boyish
figure. “Welcome home! Pull up chair, have li’l’ ole drink, ’n’ meet
m’ frien’s. ’N’ there’s Clifford--good ole scout Clifford--meet m’
frien’s. Everybody have ’nother li’l’ ole drink.”

The other three had risen. “I’ll take it as a favor if you’ll all say
good-night,” Mr. Morton said shortly. “I want to speak to my son.”

“So do we,” returned Nina Cordova in her most pertly charming manner,
which she figured as irresistible. “Jack invited us to his little
party, and we’re not going to insult the dear boy by walking out on
him.”

“Get out--all of you!” Mr. Morton’s jaws snapped together.

“See here, we don’t stand for that line of talk, and we’re not going,”
bristled Hilton.

Clifford caught Hilton by the wrist, and gave the arm a twist that made
the man drop sidewise to one knee and groan. “You are all going, and,
Hilton, you go first,”--and he thrust him through the door. He turned
to Nan Burdette, and the star of the long-faded “Orange Blossoms.” “If
you two want to avoid trouble,” he said shortly, “you’ll follow Mr.
Hilton right out.”

They glowered at Clifford, but started to obey. “See here,” hiccoughed
young Morton, “’f my frien’s go, I go too,”--and he swayed toward the
door.

But Clifford sharply closed the door upon the pair, blocked Jack’s way,
and laid a detaining hand upon Jack’s shoulder. “Stay with me, Jack,”
he said, “and we’ll have that little old drink together.”

“Don’ wan’ drink with you. Goin’ with m’ frien’s.”

A stubborn, vicious look had come into Jack’s face, a look that
Clifford knew meant trouble. “Just one little old drink, Jack, and then
you can go with your friends.”

Jack regarded Clifford’s impeding figure, and grinned cunningly. “All
ri’--jus’ one drink.”

“He’s already had too damned much,” growled the elder Morton.

Clifford gave the father an imperative, knowing look, pushed Jack down
into his chair, and pressed a button. “Send Monsieur Le Bain,” he said
to the answering waiter; and to Jack: “I’m going to order the drinks,
Jack, and we’re going to switch to high-balls--and we’re going to see
if this dump has some Scotch that’s really Scotch.”

As Le Bain appeared, Clifford stepped quickly to the door, spoke in a
low voice, and returned to the table. Presently Le Bain himself entered
with three glasses which he set down in careful order before the men,
and then withdrew.

“Here’s how,” said Clifford, and sipped his glass. Jack tossed his down
and rose unsteadily.

“Now, guess I’ll go find m’ frien’s,” he declared.

“Not yet, Jack,”--and Clifford pushed him again back into place.
“There’s going to be one more round, and it’s on you. I gave Le Bain
the order.”

Mr. Morton, not touching his glass, sharply watched the two. Jack
grinned cunningly at Clifford; then his face became vacuous, heavy; and
then he slumped forward, and head and shoulders lay inertly among the
wine-glasses and the dishes of the interrupted supper.

“What’s happened to him?” the father asked sharply.

“Doped.”

“Doped? What for?”

“Didn’t you see there was no handling him in the mood he was in? Le
Bain keeps his own knock-out drops for use on customers who become
obstreperous--and I ordered him to fix Jack’s drink. The dose is
light--it won’t hurt him.” Clifford abruptly changed the subject.
“Well, you’ve got Jack. What are you going to do with him?”

Mr. Morton did not answer; his proud, powerful face, now pale, was
fixed upon his son. Clifford also shifted his gaze to the huddled
figure. Despite everything, Clifford really liked this good-natured
piece of driftwood which washed so irresponsibly upon this great tide
of pleasure. But what he felt most strongly at this moment was the
ironical caprice of Destiny, which had enlarged so minor and will-less
a figure, a mere pawn in this big human game, into so all-important a
factor in Mary Regan’s life, and his own--and in the designs of many
persons.

Clifford turned to the father. “Well--what next?” he prompted.

“I wish to God I knew!” Mr. Morton burst out, his reserve suddenly
leaving him. “See what he’s come to! See what he’s done to himself!”

“He didn’t do it--at least not all,” Clifford said quietly.

“Who did, then?”

“Several persons--but chiefly his father.”

“His father!” An angry flush tinted the older man’s cheeks.

“Jack was not unusually bad or weak, and he was naturally most likable.
He would have turned out well enough if his father had trained him
right from the start and placed a man’s responsibilities--”

“I don’t want to hear any damned sermon!” the other interrupted.
“What’s done, is done! I’ve got to face the present. I’ve done all I
can to save him--and I’ve failed!”

He paused, then went on in savage desperation. “And if anything is
going to be done, it’s got to be done quick! I’ve controlled him, to an
extent, by controlling his money. But a fool aunt of his died the other
day, and left him a legacy of two hundred thousand which automatically
becomes his on his twenty-fifth birthday--and he’ll be twenty-five in a
month. If he’s not got hold of before he gets that money, then the last
chance is gone!”

He was silent a moment. Then came another burst, even more desperate.

“God, can’t you see what it means to me?--my only son!--all the plans
I’ve built on him!--and him come to this! For God’s sake, isn’t there
anything that can be done to save him!”

Clifford regarded him steadily. But there had suddenly begun a wild
pounding of his heart.

“There is just one thing that might possibly save your son.”

“What’s that?” the other cried quickly.

Clifford hesitated, while the struggle which had so swiftly arisen
within himself fought itself out.

In spite of all that had happened, a dream had persisted in him. If he
spoke the thought that was in his mind, and if that suggestion were
accepted and carried to a successful conclusion, it would mean the end,
forever, of this persistent dream....

And yet--there was that plan and purpose that had guided his attitude
toward Mary Regan these many months: that Mary should be allowed to
play her hand out--that Life should test her.

And then, in a flash, he was seeing again the letter he had glimpsed
when he had entered Mr. Morton’s room at the Biltmore--that letter
with its unmistakable intimation. A flame of anger went searingly
through him. Well, given into his hands was a method of putting Mary to
the uttermost test--of proving who and what she was: and a method of
bringing this whole matter to a head--for Mary--for everybody.

“What is it, man?” Mr. Morton repeated.

“You wouldn’t pay the price,” said Clifford.

“If I could get results I’d pay any price!”

“I’m not so sure you would, but I’ll try you.” Clifford stepped to the
little wall telephone, done in gray-and-gold to match the room, and
asked for Mary’s number at the Mordona. After a long wait Mary’s voice
sounded on the wire.

“This is Clifford,” he said. “I want to see you at once at Le
Minuit--very important. Ask Le Bain to show you where I am.... All
right.”

“Who is the party?” demanded Mr. Morton when Clifford had hung up.

“I think it best for you not to know until the party comes,” replied
Clifford. “The party should be here in half an hour.”




CHAPTER XXVI

HOW MARY’S DREAM CAME TRUE


A tiny dressing-room opened off this very private supper-room, and
into this they moved Jack and drew the curtains. Then the two men sat
down and in a silence which had as its background the laughter and the
wild, harsh dance music without, they smoked for half an hour--Clifford
wondering how this pale, grim man was going to bear himself, and how,
and as what, Mary would emerge from the double situation toward which
she was hurrying.

Presently there was a knock. “That’s our party,” said Clifford, and
crossed and opened the door.

But instead of Mary, there entered Bradley and behind him little Peter
Loveman. Both halted in seeming surprise. Instinctively Clifford knew
that Hilton had sent quick warning to the pair.

“Been on the track of your son, Mr. Morton,” explained Bradley; “and we
just trailed him here. Was going to shoot you word we’d located him.”

“You’re right on the job,” Morton said curtly. “But since I have him in
hand, I guess I won’t need you gentlemen. Good-night.”

Loveman stepped quickly forward; Clifford could guess the nervous fear
that prompted the keen-witted little man to want to be at hand in what
he sensed as a moment of peril to himself and the delicately balanced
edifice of his schemes.

“Pardon me, Mr. Morton,” he said firmly, in a voice of sympathetic
concern, “but I’m sure we might be of some service, and should remain.”

“I’m giving orders here,” snapped Mr. Morton. “Good-night!”

They stood a moment, Morton’s cold gray eyes commandingly fixed on
them; then they backed toward the door. Clifford thought rapidly: These
two, leaving here, might stumble across Mary Regan, so long searched
for by them, and prepared as he knew they always were to act on the
instant of discovery, they might somehow manage to put their daring
plan, whatever it might be, into instant execution. That risk must be
avoided.

“Wait!” Clifford called sharply to them. “Mr. Morton, I prefer to have
them remain.”

Mr. Morton stared. “Just as you like.”

“Loveman, Bradley, your request is granted,” said Clifford.

And then a further possibility flashed upon Clifford. Since Hilton had
communicated with Loveman and Bradley, what more likely than that they
should still be able to communicate?--which would mean that Hilton was
close at hand on the lookout. And if that were true, what more likely
than that when Mary drove up--

Before this thought had completed itself Clifford had started out.
But even as he laid hand upon the knob there was a knock. He swung
open the door, and Mary, a light summer cloak thrown loosely about her
shoulders, stepped into the room.

“I’m here--what is it?” she said as she entered.

“Miss Gilmore!” exclaimed Mr. Morton, using the name by which he had
best known her.

She glanced swiftly and keenly from one to the other of the three
unexpected men. Then she wheeled upon Clifford.

“What’s this you’ve led me into?” she demanded--“a plant?”

“Bradley and Loveman are uninvited, and were not here when I
telephoned,” he explained. Then he went on in a quiet, dominating,
driving voice. “I didn’t tell you whom you were really to meet, and I
didn’t tell Mr. Morton who was coming, for the reason that I felt you
might each refuse to see the other. Pardon my subterfuge. But I sent
for you, Miss Gilmore, because Mr. Morton wished to talk to you about
Jack.”

Mr. Morton flushed wrathfully. “I talk to her about Jack! After the
letter I’ve had from her!”

“You’ll forget that letter!” Clifford said sharply. “You put this
affair in my hands--and your chief concern is Jack.”

He turned to Mary, and looked at her squarely, meaningly.

“_You’ve_ had your dreams--big dreams. I don’t need to remind you what
they are. And you’ve worked to have those dreams come true.”

He turned back on Morton, and spoke in the same dominating voice. “And
_you_, Mr. Morton--I told you a little while ago that there was just
one thing that might save Jack. Miss Gilmore here is the only person
who has in recent years had any influence on Jack. For a time she had
him working and behaving. You recall her offer that night to take Jack
back to that Riverside Drive apartment and make a man of him. You
turned her offer down--you said you could manage your son--and you’ve
seen the result.” He spoke more dominantly, more drivingly. “That was
your big chance. No matter what you may think of Miss Gilmore, she is
still your big chance, and your only chance.”

Clifford paused and waited. Mary, very pale, gazed at him, her lips
apart. Morton, his proud, masterful face also pale, stared fixedly at
Mary, but said nothing.

“Well,” Clifford prompted him sharply, “here’s your last chance. Speak
up.”

“First of all,” said Mr. Morton, his voice steady with an obviously
great effort and his gray eyes now piercing, “I’d like to ask Miss
Gilmore a few questions. Miss Gilmore, how did you and Jack--”

“One moment!” cut in Peter Loveman, stepping quickly between Mary and
Mr. Morton, and seizing the latter’s arm. Clifford had seen a quick
fear leap into the little man’s face, and he knew the little lawyer’s
impulse was to be first at the explaining and save himself if possible.
“I can answer what I know to be your questions,” Loveman said rapidly.
“That’s one reason I wanted to hunt you up to-night with Mr. Bradley,
because I’ve just learned some things.”

“Loveman!” snapped Clifford, swiftly drawing his automatic and aiming
it over Mary’s shoulder. The little lawyer turned, and all the color
left the face, ruddied by high living. “Loveman, Miss Gilmore and Mr.
Morton have the floor!”

Loveman, dropping Morton’s arm, stepped from between the two. Mary had
not seen what argument had brought about the lawyer’s subsidence; her
eyes, which had shifted to Mr. Morton, had remained steadily upon him,
waiting.

“Mr. Morton, you have the floor,” Clifford prompted him.

Mr. Morton seemed to swallow something--something so large that it
would hardly go down. Then he spoke.

“Miss Gilmore, I’ve done all I can to save Jack--but I’ve failed. The
Broadway life seems to have got him at last. Here is what he seems to
have come to.” He drew apart the curtains of the little dressing-room,
revealing the huddled form of Jack, and then let the curtains swing
together. “As Mr. Clifford has said, I see that there is only one
chance left, and that you are the only chance. Will you be willing to
undertake what you offered to do that night down in front of this café?”

The moment of Mary’s great test--her great opportunity, if she saw it
as such--had arrived. Clifford watched her--waiting--his whole being
taut. Her face had become a mask; she looked with cold, direct eyes
upon the man on the adroit winning of whose favor she had for months
striven to build her great worldly dreams.

“I suppose you mean undertake it on the conditions that were then
mentioned,” she said quietly--“that it is to be what you once termed
the ‘usual Riverside Drive affair’? That we are to be Mr. and Mrs.
Grayson?”

“Of course, I’ll make it worth your while.”

“No, thank you,” she said quietly.

“But I will give you any present allowance you may desire,” he urged,
“and will make any permanent settlement upon you that is in reason.”

“I do not care to run--”

“But, Mary--Miss Gilmore,” gently interrupted Loveman. This affair was
taking an amazingly different turn from what he had expected. After
all, bewildering as it was, matters were falling out in a way to make
his original plan seem once more possible. “Mr. Morton’s offer is fair.
Take it.”

Mary did not heed him, but spoke directly at Mr. Morton. “I do not care
to undertake to conduct a sanitarium for one person for pay--and then
have the patient removed as soon as a cure is effected.”

“But if you were willing to do it before, why not now? I don’t
understand!”

“It is no concern of mine if you do not understand.”

She spoke calmly, coldly. Clifford’s eyes were fixed upon her, trying
to pierce her brain and heart. Morton stared at her discomfited,
desperation growing in his face. There was another moment of silence,
against the background of the dance music which twanged stridently
without.

Mary spoke again. “If that completes what you wish to say to me, Mr.
Morton, then good-night.”

She turned to leave. Her hand was on the knob, when Morton spoke up,
his voice now husky.

“Another minute, Miss Gilmore!” She turned about. “Miss Gilmore, you
are my last chance--and Jack’s last chance.” He spoke more rapidly.
“I’ve simply got to have you--you understand. You must have had some
real kind of attachment for Jack or you’d never have offered what you
did. And certainly Jack likes you or you’d never have had the influence
over him that you’ve proved you possess. Listen--let’s consider it all
from another angle. Miss Gilmore, when you were at the Grantham as
‘Mrs. Gardner’ you told me you had a husband--but excuse me, I do not
believe it. Miss Gilmore”--he halted, there was a super-gulp, then he
went on--“Miss Gilmore, if you are free, I want you to marry Jack.”

Clifford, Loveman, and Bradley, equally astounded, gazed at Mary. She
seemed to be able only to stare at Mr. Morton.

“Whatever I may have said or thought against you, I’ll say this in your
favor,” Mr. Morton continued, rapidly as before--“that you were so
discreet in your affair with Jack, you kept it all so secret, that I’m
sure there will be no scandal. We’ll not have that to face. So I ask
you, as a favor, to marry him.”

Clifford, still dazed by the swift manner in which his plan had leaped
beyond itself, breathlessly held his gaze on Mary. Her dark eyes were
wild, her lips loosely parted--the figure of one bewildered beyond
realization of what had happened. Then she caught a sharp breath and
high excitement came into her face. At that same instant Clifford saw
the magnitude of what had suddenly been opened to her--and he saw that
she was seeing it, too. At last, by a strange twist of circumstances
and of Clifford’s attempt to guide events, she had _won_! Won all that
was included in her original plan! And most amazing of all, what she
had thought to get as the reward of scheming, she was now being begged
to accept as a favor--wealth, worldly position, and all that each could
bring!

And Clifford, in this high moment, realized another thing. All these
months of her big dreams, of her indomitable and skillful scheming, she
had had one great, ever-present fear--that some one might expose her
identity and her past, and bring to instant nothingness her magnificent
dreams. How she had fought exposure--desperately and daringly, with
her all of cleverness! And now, if she were only moderately careful,
she need no longer fear exposure--and when exposure came, if it did,
she would have so established herself that it could no longer injure
her.

Events, Clifford’s efforts, the working-out of conflicting human
impulses, the operations of that erratic thing which we call chance or
fate or destiny--all these could not have combined more perfectly to
be her friend--could not have combined better to bring her the worldly
substance of her daring dreams.

“You’ll do it, won’t you?” prompted Mr. Morton.

Mary did not speak at once. She was even more pale than before; she
was breathing rapidly, almost panting, and her eyes were even more
staringly wide. Clifford, his heart pounding, wondered at her prolonged
silence--wondered feverishly just what was passing in that bold,
daring, worldly mind, which he had found to be so many different minds.

She turned and gave Clifford a long, direct look--a bewildered, almost
startled look. Then she sharply caught her breath, and slowly wheeling
she moved a step nearer Mr. Morton.

“Mr. Morton,” she began in a low, strained voice, “I want to tell you
something--I want to tell you everything--”

“Stop!” came a frantic cry from Loveman--and Clifford again saw fear in
Loveman’s large, protuberant eyes.

In an instant what had been a bewildered tableau became a whirl of
activity. Bradley’s right hand darted for the electric-light switch,
and before Clifford could move there was a click and the room was in
darkness. A shrill two notes, which Clifford knew to be a signal,
sounded from Bradley’s lips. Clifford sprang toward where he had last
seen Bradley, and collided with that burly figure with so great an
impact that both went crashing to the floor, Clifford on top.

Clifford had not drawn his automatic; he wanted no shooting affray--not
in this darkness where bullets would be impartial and irresponsible.
But instinct told him Bradley’s probable first tactic; and he reached
for Bradley’s right hand, and fortunately caught the wrist. Sure
enough, the right hand was jerking out a heavy pistol. With both hands
Clifford seized the weapon, and tried to twist it from the other’s
hand; and grunting, twisting, the two old enemies fought in the
darkness.

Clifford heard the door open and sharply close, heard Mary cry
out--and then heard another struggle, with Mary gasping. He gave a
desperate wrench, and the pistol was his: he did not then know that
his comparatively easy victory over the powerful Bradley was over
a half-dazed man--that his catapultic leap had driven the falling
Bradley’s head against the corner of the table. Raising the pistol,
held club-wise, Clifford twice struck at where Bradley’s head should
be. At the second blow Bradley’s grappling arms relaxed, and he was
suddenly limp.

Clifford sprang to his feet, fumbled for the switch, found it, and
turned it on. Out of the blackness there leaped before Clifford’s eyes
the other struggle, Mary Regan its center, her cloak torn loose and
slipping from one shoulder. Loveman was gripping her left arm, and
Hilton had her struggling right arm in a twisting clutch. A tiny bright
something flashed in Hilton’s right hand and made a stab at the white
arm he held.

But even as this picture was revealed, Clifford sprang toward Hilton;
while Mr. Morton blinking from the darkness, started, bewildered,
toward the two. “Look out!” warningly cried Loveman--but too late, for
as the bright fang touched Mary’s arm, Clifford’s fist caught Hilton
under the jaw. Hilton, fairly lifted from his feet, went spinning and
fell in a loose heap. Clifford whirled upon Loveman, but Loveman was
backing away, a pasty smile on his full face, and his hands held up.

“I’m not doing a thing, Bob,” gasped the little man--“honest, not a
thing!”

“Better keep on doing it!” said Clifford, and blew his whistle.

“What’s--what’s happened?” panted Mary.

“Nothing--except some parties have just tried to kidnap you, first
trying to shoot a hypo into you.”

“Kidnap me! What for?”

“To shut you up--get you out of the way--later, to frame you to suit
their own purpose. But you’re bleeding!” Clifford whipped out a
handkerchief and bound the arm. Then he picked up from the floor the
syringe that had fallen from Hilton’s hand and examined it. “It’s still
loaded, so you got nothing more than a scratch of the needle.”

At this moment Jimmie Kelly entered, answering Clifford’s whistle. With
Jimmie’s help Clifford put handcuffs first upon Loveman and then upon
Hilton and Bradley, who had both begun to revive.

“For the present, we’ll line ’em up against the wall,” said
Clifford--which they did. “Later we can decide what to do with them.”

“But what’s all this about?” demanded Mr. Morton.

“Explanations can wait until later,” returned Clifford. “The first
thing is your business with Miss Gilmore. Miss Gilmore, I believe you
started to tell us something.”

Once more Clifford looked at Mary keenly--back again in that mood of
palpitant suspense as to what lay in her heart--as to what she was
about to say and do--she who this moment held her dream-world in her
hands! Morton, silent, awaited her speech. From the wall Loveman,
Bradley, and Hilton looked on in varying degrees of fear, chagrin, and
glowering wrath.

When at length Mary spoke, she spoke quietly. “The first thing I wish
to tell you, Mr. Morton, is comparatively of no importance. I wrote
you that letter, yes. That was weeks ago. I wrote it the very night
you refused to entrust Jack to me. I was angry. I was determined you
should suffer, too. I was going to lead you on--get you caught in a
predicament that would make you writhe--and then would come public
humiliation.”

“What kind of a predicament?” asked Mr. Morton.

“It doesn’t matter now. But I had my plan--and I think I could have
made it work. You got only that one letter, Mr. Morton. That was
because, when I calmed down, I changed my mind. I did not want to do
what I had planned to do.”

Somehow--though Mary Regan could mean nothing in his life--this
statement brought great relief to Clifford.

She went on in the same quiet voice. “The rest of what I have to
tell you is of more importance. My name is not Miss Gilmore nor Mrs.
Gardner, and never was. My name is Mary Regan. My father was ‘Gentleman
Jim’ Regan, a confidence-man; I’ve helped my Uncle Joe Russell, another
confidence-man. I’ve been something of a confidence-woman, a crook, in
the past. Now I’m what you’d probably call an adventuress.”

“What!” exclaimed Mr. Morton.

Clifford blinked at her, hardly believing what he was hearing. She had
feared exposure--she had fought to ward it off--and now that she had
won all that she had ever dreamed of winning, here she was quietly
exposing herself!

“I met your son,” she went on. “I saw the chance to get something I
wanted through marrying him. So I married him.”

“What--you are already married to Jack!” ejaculated Mr. Morton.
“Why--why--”

“It doesn’t sound believable, I know. You once called the engagement
and wedding rings fakes, which I wore as Mrs. Grayson. I have them with
me.” From a bag which hung from her wrist she took two rings and handed
them to him. “You may look at them. They are both engraved.”

He glanced at the engraving within the golden circles.

“Married!” he repeated.

“I have been your daughter-in-law all the time you believed me Jack’s
mistress. I made him keep the marriage secret. Jack knows nothing about
who I really am. If the marriage became public there was the danger of
you and Jack learning I was Mary Regan; I didn’t want this to become
known until I had made myself indispensable, and then you’d have to
accept me. That’s why I tried to make Jack settle down and go to work.
It was all part of my game.”

“So--you’re a crook!” breathed Morton, dumbfounded.

She went on in her even, controlled voice. “Also it was part of my game
to break off the affair between Jack and Maisie Jones--you remember
that time at the Grantham.”

“What--you were behind Maisie Jones’s action!”

“I told her that I was married to Jack, and that we had to keep the
marriage secret. And so she wrote you, breaking the engagement. She did
that to help Jack--and help me; she didn’t know me, didn’t understand
me, therefore she overestimated me and believed I could make a strong
man out of Jack and could make him happy. For that part of what I
did, even though it was trickery, I am glad. Maisie Jones is too good
for Jack; he would have broken her heart. I saved her from life-long
misery.”

Mr. Morton stared. And then: “But why have you told me all these things
now?--when you had succeeded in your plan?”

“Because I see things differently now,” replied the same quiet voice.
“Jack--he was attractive, and I liked him--but I never really loved
him. I am sick of the things I tried to do, sick of the things I
dreamed of. You may have Jack’s freedom any way you like. I’m through
with it all.” She repeated the last sentence, still quietly, but
vibrantly. “I’m through with it all!”

In Clifford there was wild exultation--a thrilling sense of triumph,
too new as yet for him to think of its possible relation to himself.
He had tried to influence her by influencing the events which touched
her life--but never had he foreseen just such a _dénouement_ of events,
just such a _dénouement_ of character. He had been right all the
while, as to the fundamental worth of her nature!

Morton stared at the pale, composed face of his daughter-in-law, which
gazed with such steadiness into his own. He was utterly without words
for a few seconds. Then he burst out:--

“Even if all of what you have said is true,” he cried desperately, “you
are nevertheless the one person who can save Jack. We’ll overlook what
you’ve been and what you’ve done. You’re Jack’s wife. Well, you’ve got
to stand by him!”

“I’m through with it all,” she said once more.

Morton’s desperate, suppliant manner changed. Once again he was the
keen, powerful personality that made him master of men and things.

“You can’t slide out of it like that, Mary Morton,--to give you your
right name for once,” he drove at her grimly. “Something seems to
have awakened you--awakened you to what you regard as a real sense of
honor. Well, here is something for this new sense of honor to consider:
Whatever your motive was in marrying Jack, in marrying him you have
incurred a definite obligation. It’s your duty, unless you want to be
a quitter, and more of a crook than you were before, to fulfill that
obligation!”

She looked at him fixedly--for a long time. Then she slowly looked
around at Clifford--then she looked back again, and her figure tensed.
For a long time no one spoke.

“It’s an obligation you have incurred!” Mr. Morton drove at her. “It’s
your duty to fulfill it!”

“My duty!” Her eyes grew wide, and she shivered. Her wide eyes remained
fastened in their sickly stare upon Mr. Morton’s grim mandatory face;
she was thinking, weighing the wide alternatives of life; influenced
perhaps by the new point Mr. Morton had made, but not influenced by his
attempted dominance.

“My duty!” she breathed again. Then the life seemed to flow out of her.
Her straight, slender body drooped and swayed, but a hand clutching the
back of a gilt chair held her up. “Very well,” she said in a thin dry
whisper. And then: “Very well--if you’ll let me tell Jack all I’ve told
you, and if Jack then still wants me.”

“You mustn’t tell him!” cried Mr. Morton sharply. “Even _your_ hold
on him is precarious. Telling him might ruin everything. Why, I guess
you’d better not even let him know that I know. Take him back to the
Mordona--be Mr. and Mrs. Grayson for the present--pretend to be working
toward a reconciliation with me. Keep everything a secret until Jack is
established.”

She smiled. The irony of it! How circumstances had reversed their
positions: here was Mr. Morton urging almost the same arguments for
secrecy that she had formerly used upon herself!

It had been a very little smile. She was instantly sober.

“Very well--I’ll keep it secret and I’ll do what I can,” she said.

Clifford gazed at her heavily, a great, numb pain where his heart was.
Then he slowly turned to Lieutenant Kelly.

“Let ’em all go, Jimmie,” he said briefly. “A pinch means publicity,
and publicity is just what this situation doesn’t require.”

Jimmie removed the handcuffs and the three went out, Bradley glowering
vengeance as he passed. “There’ll be a next time, you bet!” he growled.
Clifford made no reply.

“Mr. Morton, you go next,” Clifford said brusquely. “You shouldn’t be
found here by Jack when he comes to--which may be any minute. Mrs.
Morton can take care of Jack. I’ll follow you as soon as I’ve had a
word with her.”

A moment later Clifford was alone with Mary. He tried to keep his voice
steady, but it did not altogether obey him.

“I merely wanted to say that Bradley, Loveman, and the others may not
be satisfied. You exposed yourself completely, but you exposed no one
else. You let them off easy, but they may be afraid of you. What they
tried to-night they may try again. I wanted to ask you to be careful.”

“I will be,” she said.

“And I wanted to say that I hope everything is going to work out for
the best for you. For you know”--he ended lamely, not very sure of
what he was saying--“I really have wanted to be your friend.”

“I know you really have been my friend,” she answered--“my best friend.
And I thank you.”

“Good-night,” he said.

“Good-night,” she answered, in her face a drawn, gray look.

For a moment he seemed unable to stir; then, “Good-night,” he repeated,
and left her, gray-faced, and standing rigidly upright in the midst of
the débris of the evening’s carousal--to wait the awakening of Jack.

Out on the sidewalk Clifford turned into a shadowy doorway; he was
going to keep watch, and from a distance see Mary safely to the
Mordona. Presently he was aware that Loveman was at his side, smiling
his amiable smile.

“Clever work, Bob,” Loveman said pleasantly. “Now that it’s all
finished up, I suppose you are satisfied with the game you’ve played.”

“I’ll not be satisfied till I really land you, Loveman.”

“No?” said Loveman, very softly. “Perhaps--who knows?--the game may
really not all be finished up--for human nature, you know, is human
nature--and perhaps there are several other cards to be played--several
extremely good cards.”

With that the little lawyer moved away. Patiently, with heaviness upon
his heart, Clifford stood motionless on guard in the doorway waiting
for Mary to appear with her charge ... wondering now over Loveman’s
soft remark about cards yet to be played ... now wondering about that
gray, drawn look with which Mary had followed him out....




CHAPTER XXVII

JACK MAKES A RESOLUTION


For an hour--two hours--Clifford continued to stand in the shadowy
doorway near the entrance of the Midnight Café. Presently Mary came
down, Jack with her. The light drug which Clifford had slipped into
his drink to render him more manageable and prevent his going with his
carousing companions, had spent its power. Jack was now sober, though
plainly his nerves were still badly shaken.

Clifford stepped out of his doorway. He wanted Mary to see him, that
she might have the reassurance which would come of her knowing that he
was keeping his promise to watch over her and Jack--to ward off any
possible attempt of Loveman and Bradley--until she got Jack safely in
the apartment at the Mordona, which, months since, they had occupied as
“Mr. and Mrs. Grayson” and which they were again to occupy under that
name. Mary saw him; but Jack also saw him, which last Clifford had not
wished for.

“Hello, there, Bob,--come here,” Jack called. Clifford crossed to him,
and the young man gripped his hand in a hand that twitched. “Bob, old
man,” he went on, his unsteady voice full of feeling, “I want to thank
you. You did me a great turn--and, old man, I’m never going to forget
it. Mary told me how you got rid of dad, and then sent for her to take
me in charge. It was great.”

Clifford did not look at Mary, but he was conscious of her pale, set
face. He fell in with the apocryphal version Mary apparently had given
Jack of what had happened while he had lain in a stupor.

“That’s all right, Jack,” Clifford replied.

“And say, Bob, I want you to know that I know I’ve been a fool--and
things a lot worse than that. But, Bob,--that’s all past now--and past
forever! I don’t deserve what Mary is doing for me. But I’m going to
make good. I’m going to be a good boy--for Mary’s sake! Just you watch
me!”

There was a frank manliness in the young fellow’s voice and manner.
He was deeply moved, and was as much in earnest as it lay within his
powers to be.

“Here’s something I wish you’d back me up in, Bob,” Jack went on. “I
want to tell dad that Mary and I are married; but she objects. Don’t
you think I should?”

Clifford, remembering that scene two hours back where Mary had told the
older Morton everything while Jack lay unconscious, shook his head. “I
think she’s right, Jack.”

“Well, I’m going to tell soon, no matter what the two of you say!” He
gripped Clifford’s hand anew. “Thanks once more, old man. And remember,
I’m sure going to make good!”

They stepped into a taxi-cab. All this while Mary had neither spoken
nor looked at Clifford, and she did not look at him now. But Clifford
saw that her face was still gray, still drawn.

He followed at a distance in another taxi-cab, on the watch for
interruption from Loveman or Bradley, or their agents. But there was
none; and Jack and Mary passed out of sight into the Mordona.

For a space Clifford gazed after them, thinking. Again he had a
profound sense that Jack was fundamentally a fine fellow; that what was
chiefly wrong with him was that he had been swept into the resistless
current of Big Pleasure--and that also he had been victimized by those
who make a subtle business of playing upon the human weaknesses of
those whom Big Pleasure sucks in--and that also, before and behind
it all, he had never been properly guided by his worldly, masterful
father. Clifford wondered whether this frank admission of faults, this
declaration to make good, was merely a flare, merely the final spurt,
of excellent qualities that were almost spent--or whether this was in
truth the beginning of a splendid Jack Morton that was yet to be.

The latter seemed to be the case. Two days later Clifford chanced upon
Mr. Morton at the Biltmore. “Jack came back to work this morning,”
commenced the financier, “and he’s behaving as though nothing is too
hard for him. I guess I owe an awful lot to you for making me see
that Mary was the only person who could straighten him out. She’s
a wonderful woman! The way she’s behaved, it’s something I cannot
understand!”

“Don’t try to understand her,” said Clifford. “Just try to be thankful.”

A new purpose had come into Clifford’s life since that night at Le
Minuit. Rather it was his old purpose, but now more grimly determined
on, and unmixed and undeterred by other considerations. He was out
to get Loveman, and Bradley, and their fellows--and he was also out
to protect Mary. And all this was now nothing more than a purely
professional job, since matters were as they were with Jack and Mary.

Clifford’s long-prevailing reason for holding back on Loveman and
the others--that Mary might be free to work out her plan, and that
Life might have the chance to test her--no longer had any force with
him, now that Mary had exposed herself and renounced her ambition,
now that she had nothing at stake. His determination to get Loveman
was intensified by his certainty that Loveman was trying to get Mary:
Loveman’s soft-spoken, cryptic remark in front of Le Minuit, about the
game perhaps not being finished, and there perhaps being other cards to
play, made him sure that this great spinner of webs had not ceased from
spinning. Clifford, putting himself in Loveman’s place, realized that
the little lawyer had motives for the most desperate action. Loveman
had lost Mary out of his schemes forever; he realized that she would no
longer protect him in order to protect herself; he hated her for having
blocked him; and he feared her, feared her daily, for she had it in her
power to secure his disbarment, to send him to prison.

There was no doubt in Clifford’s mind that Loveman was planning--that
Loveman would act. And he believed that Loveman, in daily fear, would
act quickly. But what would Loveman do?

There was but one way to learn, and that was to keep Loveman
under constant and discreet surveillance; and this now became the
all-consuming routine of Clifford’s life, in which he was aided by
Lieutenant Jimmie Kelly and special men supplied him by Commissioner
Thorne, and concerning which he took counsel with Uncle George. But
days, weeks, went by; nothing happened. As far as the closest scrutiny
could reveal, Loveman was going about his daily round of legal business
and his nightly round of pleasures, and in no way was he concerning
himself about Mary Regan. And likewise Bradley seemed to be confining
himself to his own affairs.

This behavior puzzled Clifford. Why were they holding back? But behind
this seeming quiet, Clifford knew that things were brewing--and big
things. But as to just what they might be, he could get no clue.
However, he kept doggedly at his secret watch. There would come a time
when they would doubtless act, and he must be ready and on the spot to
take action when the moment came.

One day when Clifford was talking the situation over with Commissioner
Thorne, the Commissioner remarked: “They’re undoubtedly up to
something--and you’ll get them in the end, Clifford.” And then: “I hear
that young Jack Morton has braced up?”

“Yes.”

“And I understand that it’s the influence of his wife that’s keeping
him in the strait and narrow.”

“Yes.”

There was no further reference to Mary Regan. But each understood what
was in the other’s mind: Thorne knew of Clifford’s regard for Mary
Regan, and Clifford knew that Thorne knew it.

“Clifford,” the Commissioner went on after a moment, “I’ve twice
offered you the position of Chief of the Detective Bureau. I have a man
in the place now, but he doesn’t like it and I’m going to shift him as
soon as I can. Clifford, I’m offering that job to you again.”

“Thanks, Chief. I appreciate the honor”--and he did. In former times
Clifford had looked up to that position as the glory-crowned but
unattainable peak in his professional career. He hesitated. “It’s a
mighty big thing, Chief,--but do you mind if I don’t give you my answer
until this job I’m on is closed up?”

“All right, Clifford. But remember--I’m counting on you.”

While Clifford kept at his appointed task--always with the sense that
something big was gathering, and always wondering why Loveman was
holding back--the summer grew toward its prime. Jack he occasionally
saw; the young fellow seemed to be keeping his promise made that night
out in front of Le Minuit. And occasionally Clifford saw the elder
Morton, who was remaining in town despite the heat, to watch over his
son in this latest testing of Jack’s fiber. But all this while Clifford
did not again see Mary.

And then in the early days of August there happened what perhaps had
been inevitable this long while--something which was perhaps, despite
halts and hopeful upward turns, merely a following of the direction in
which this affair had been foredoomed to move since he had first come
into it. Clifford first learned of it when Mr. Morton sent for him. He
found the financier with his grim power of control trying to repress
his agitation.

“Day before yesterday was Jack’s twenty-fifth birthday,” said Mr.
Morton, “and Jack came into that legacy left him by his aunt--two
hundred thousand cash, you remember. That same day it was deposited
in his name. And that same afternoon he began drinking. He was at it
yesterday; he did not appear at the office at all. And last night
he did not go home; Mary has not seen him since yesterday morning.
God!”--with a burst of emotion--“I don’t like to be asking you this
again--but do what you can to find the boy!”

“I’ll get him if I can,” Clifford said quietly, and went away.

Clifford did some quick thinking. Jack at last might just naturally
have reached the limit of the endurance of his good resolution--yes,
that probably was the case. But even if so, the weakness of the
eaten-away structure of Jack’s will was not alone responsible for his
break-down and disappearance. All Clifford’s instincts, and all his
cold reasoning, told him that Loveman was concerned in this latest
relapse of Jack. It was, as he well knew, an easy matter to keep a
man--either with or against his consent--hidden in the vast human
wilderness of New York.

More intently, and more carefully, than before Clifford now followed
the little lawyer--about his downtown legal work by day, about the
restaurants and roof-gardens at night. Every hour of the twenty-four
either Clifford, or the men assigned to help him, had the little
man under surveillance. As far as eye could discern, Loveman was
preserving the established routine of his life: a figure at various
public resorts until three--then to bed--up at eight--at his office
at nine-thirty--then with his dinner at seven beginning the round of
pleasure for the night.

But on the fourth evening after Jack’s disappearance there was a
slight variation. Clifford, supping with Uncle George, whose company
he found a boon in this late-houred routine, saw Loveman start home
at a little before two, an hour earlier than was his wont. In a taxi
with Uncle George Clifford followed Loveman’s car, saw Loveman when he
came to one of the upper West Forties,--a street of one-time handsome
residences,--slip out of his car and walk rapidly through the quiet,
deserted cross-street. Clifford also got quickly out of his taxi, and
slipped into the dark shadow of a stoop--where Uncle George, showing a
surprising quickness, joined him a moment later.

A little way down this street, before a black-windowed house, Clifford
noted two empty, shadowy automobiles; he saw that they were alike at
least in this, that both were low and long, built evidently for speed
and the ability to maintain it.

Having reached this darkened and seemingly empty house, Loveman turned
and ran quickly up the high, old-fashioned stoop. The next instant he
had let himself in with a latch-key.

“I suppose you know what that place is?” whispered Uncle George,
gripping Clifford’s forearm sharply.

“Yes,” breathed Clifford--“the house of Joe Le Bain!”




CHAPTER XXVIII

THE HOUSE OF MONSIEUR LE BAIN


Monsieur Le Bain, from catering to the reckless rich and to
spendthrifts who had large sums that abode with them for a flitting
month or so, and to monied persons about whose characters and designs
he preferred to remain safely ignorant--Monsieur Le Bain had discovered
that such as these, on occasion, desired a greater privacy than his
Grand Alcazar or his Le Minuit or any other restaurant afforded
them--a sumptuous exclusiveness in which, without danger of being
seen by uninvited eyes or their merry-making marred or restrained by
the propinquity of strangers, a party might dine or sup _en famille_.
Quick to see and seize opportunities, Le Bain had devised the material
equipment to please such patronage. In addition to the Grand Alcazar
and Le Minuit, which he advertised and to which he welcomed all, he had
set up another establishment which he did not advertise, and of which
few even knew, and to which even fewer ever gained admission.

This was an old brownstone house in the upper Forties between Fifth and
Sixth Avenues, outwardly most discreet and decorous--and, moreover,
inwardly so most of the time. The house was furnished as a private
residence, and richly furnished, too, albeit somewhat garishly since
Le Bain’s latter-day æsthetics had been founded upon the gilt and
rococo of Broadway restaurants. There was a large drawing-room whose
windows were so deftly curtained that no inner light ever filtered into
the street; behind that a large dining-room, in which one might be as
merry as one liked without passers-by being halted by laugh or song--or
by any possible sound of a less happy character that might originate
therein. And in the basement there was a perfect kitchen, which, on
those occasions when the house was briefly inhabited, Le Bain peopled
with his most efficient and reticent retainers--it being understood
that after the dinner or supper had been served, and if the host so
directed, these cooks and waiters and ladies’ maids should vanish.
And that the party might not suffer from such withdrawal, there was
installed in the butler’s pantry an ingenious refrigerator in which
foods were kept cold and wines properly iced--and from which host and
guests might serve themselves.

Such was Le Bain’s other establishment. For the time paid for it was
actually the lessee’s “home”--as much immune from police interference
as any other man’s castle. This Le Bain would sublet possibly two or
three times a week, possibly once a month, to some one he knew or some
one with trustworthy introduction--always at a price commensurate with
the extraordinary privacy he supplied. And he never asked questions;
particularly did Le Bain prefer to know only the name of the renting
host--never of the guests. Then, if anything ever happened there which
got to the police,--and it might,--Le Bain would be able to say to
interrogating officers that he maintained this place for patrons who
wished to give “home dinner parties”--surely a legitimate business
enterprise!--and he knew nothing at all about who was there and what
they did.

When Peter Loveman, at two o’clock in the morning, quickly closed
the outside door, slipped along the hallway, and then drew aside
the hangings and peered reconnoiteringly into the great dining-room
(finished as to walls and ceiling in paneled Flemish oak, lighted by
a sunlike chandelier with multitudinous pendants), he saw just what
he had expected to see, just what he had so skillfully planned and
so adroitly manipulated. About a small, intimate table, food-strewn
and wine-stained,--a table almost lost in this great room which
could have seated a party of fifty,--sat Nina Cordova, Nan Burdette,
Hilton, Jack Morton, and a slight, evilly handsome third man. His
people had done their work well, exactly as per instructions, Loveman
noted: the servants had obviously been sent away, and Jack was in the
desired state of reckless and pliable hilarity. Loveman continued
to look in for a moment, hesitating. He would have vastly preferred
not to be here--there was too much danger for him. But his clever
scheming, whose original outline the interference of Clifford and
the uncalculated elements of human nature in Mary Regan had thrown
repeatedly into disarray, was now nearing the culmination of what was
its latest re-adjustment.

Loveman had held back his many-elemented new plan--two big plans they
were, in fact--because each was dependent in a degree upon the other.
He had not dared act too quickly in the matter of Mary, for such a
course might, by some twist of circumstances or human nature, affect
Jack, and therefore upset what he had contemplated concerning Jack. To
succeed in either he had to succeed in both; and to succeed in both he
had to synchronize them. Whether he had done this, the hour or so ahead
was to prove.

Loveman frankly admitted to himself that his affairs and his own
personal safety were in a critical condition--critical to a degree
never before reached in his career. As he now had matters planned, he
stood to win everything--or almost everything; and also he stood to
lose everything--or almost everything. In such a crisis, where all was
at stake, he had to be on hand--despite any added risks--to watch over,
and if necessary direct, the final moves of this his ultimate plan.

Loveman stepped into the great dining-room, and stepped also into a
scene that was typical of how the forces which are behind Big Pleasure,
which are a part of it, handle those who weakly or unwarily let
themselves be carried too far by its alluring and mighty current.

“Good-evening, everybody,” he called cheerily. “Hello, Jack. This is
certainly one quiet little birthday party you’re giving.” Loveman had
himself instigated it, though these five at the table had brought it to
pass. “Kind of you to invite me, Jack.”

“Got to have ole Peter--else no birthday party,” cried Jack, swaying up
and taking Loveman’s hand, holding on to one of Nina’s with his left.
“Had three birthday parties this week; goin’ have seven next week.
Peter, y’re invited to ’em all! You there, Slim,”--this to the slight,
handsome young man,--“get fresh bottle Pommery, open for ole Peter
Loveman.”

Without taking his eyes off Jack, Loveman let them also include Nina
Cordova. She gave an almost imperceptible nod.

“Thanks, Jack,” said Loveman; and then in an amiably chiding tone: “But
I must say I’m surprised. I thought you had settled down to be a steady
business man.”

“Damn business!”

“But your wife, Jack? I thought you were trying to attend to business
for her sake.”

Jack showed a flash of petulant ill-temper. “Tha’s wha’ make me sore at
her! Always drivin’ me to work. Always work--always business! Man’s
got ri’ to li’l’ relaxation, ain’t he?” His good-nature was back again.
“Tell you wha’, man’s got ri’ to do as he likes. Tell you wha’, nothin’
like bein’ free!”

“Oh, I don’t know,” put in Nina with a challenging shrug of her dainty
bare shoulders, and a disbelieving smile. “That’s what you say--but
you wouldn’t really dare do it and be it. You see, Peter,” with her
pleasing drawl,--she was a better actress off the stage than on
it,--“this bold young gentleman, who believes so strongly in his right
to do as he pleases, has just been trying to tell me how much he loves
me. He’s a nice little boy, Jack,--but I don’t believe him.”

“But, Nina, li’l’ girl, I do love you!” protested Jack. “Here’s Slim
with tha’ champagne. Slim, fill all glasses. Everybody ready? All
ri’--here’s Nina, only girl I love, only girl I ever goin’ love!”

Jack drained his glass. The others merely sipped theirs.

“But drinking a glass of wine doesn’t prove anything,” said Nina, with
her pleasantly provoking drawl. “You say you’re free, and you say you
love me--but you’re afraid really to prove it.”

“Not afraid!” Jack declared stoutly. “Prove it any way you say!”

She gazed at him in amused skepticism--yet a most alluring smile on
her young face. “Oh, no, you wouldn’t, Jack. There’s only one way to
prove your independence and your love. You know what that is--to drop
everything else, and go away with me.”

“I’ll do it to-night!” he cried. “Say, listen, Nina,--know a li’l’
place up in Adirondacks--nice, quiet li’l’ place--”

“No, thanks,” she interrupted. “If you took me off into hiding, that
wouldn’t prove anything. Besides, I want to be where there’s something
doing, and where there’s people--you understand, _classy_ people.”

“Tha’s all ri’! Make it Newport, Bar Harbor, any ole swell resort you
like. I’m no quitter!”

“I believe you really are in earnest,” mused Nina, her large eyes upon
him.

“Sure, I’m earnest! Make it Narragansett Pier--any ole place you like!”

She shook her head, and sighed. “You’re awfully good, Jack, but it
can’t be done. I’ve no clothes--and those places take clothes--and
clothes, the right sort of clothes, they take money--and I have no
money.”

“Wha’s money!” Jack laughed. “Tha’s nothing! I got money. I give you a
check.”

“Really?”--the large, almost childish eyes still upon him. “Yes, you
really are in earnest. But one check wouldn’t buy all I need.”

“You li’l’ fool--pre’ li’l’ fool,” he cried, patting her cheek, and
laughing again. “I can make it one big check.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know anything about checks and banks, but
I know it would take three.”

“All ri’,” he said good-humoredly, tickled by her ignorance. He drew
out his pocket check-book. “How much?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Couldn’t you just sign your name, and let me fill
those spaces when I buy the things?”

“Sure. Peter, you always carry ole fountain pen. Lemme have ole
fountain pen jus’ one minute.”

The pen was handed over. Jack signed three checks and passed them to
Nina. She murmured warm thanks, and then looked from them to him,
apologetic doubt in her eyes.

“A woman’s clothes cost an awful lot, Jack,--more than you guess. Would
it be all right if I had to fill these in for perhaps as much as five
hundred dollars apiece?”

Again Jack laughed. “Sure--you pre’ li’l’ fool!”

“You can laugh, but I want to be certain,” she protested. “I don’t want
to get in trouble by having people come after me for having passed
checks that had no money behind them.”

Again Jack laughed. “’S all ri’, Nina. Listen.” He leaned toward her
confidentially. “Other day, you know, I’m twenty-five; came into nice
li’l’ ole pile money. Soak it away in bank. Since then I buy tha’
nice li’l’ ole car--the car I drive you up here in, Nina--some li’l’
ole car when I turn her loose--nothin’ ever passes her--an’ I draw
out li’l’ spendin’ money. Tha’s all.” He snickered once more. “Five
hundred--is my check good for tha’--oh, say! Listen, Nina. It’s all
down on stubs of my check-book--wha’ I deposit--wha’ I draw out. Look
for yourself--tha’ll show you!”

He handed her the check-book. She examined the stubs, then gazed at him
in stupefaction.

“Why!” she said breathlessly,--“why--over one hundred and eighty-nine
thousand dollars!”

“Sure!” He grinned delightedly. “Am I good for five hundred--eh, Nina?”

“I beg your pardon, Jack. Why--I never dreamed-- Then, of course, it
will be all right if I make them as much as five hundred each.”

Her face broke into a sudden, naïve smile. “And I tell you what,
Jack,--I’ll make them payable to ‘Cash,’ then I won’t have to endorse
them nor will anybody else--and if anybody wants to start a scandal,
why, nobody that sees them will ever suspect, and certainly not be able
to prove, that I got money from you. It’ll protect both of us.”

Nina seemed to have another inspiration--a very business-like one. “And
what’s more, I’ll just fill these in now and have it all done with.
Peter, let me have your fountain pen. Thanks. And, Jack, while I’m
writing, you might pour me a fresh glass, and yourself one, and one for
the others--that’s a dear boy. Remember you’re the host.”

While Jack was unsteadily doing a host’s duty, decanting almost as
much of the amber fluid upon the cloth as into the glasses, Nina filled
out the checks; and as she wrote she three times repeated aloud:
“Payable to--Cash--Five--Hundred--Dollars.”

She returned Loveman’s pen, waved the checks daintily until the ink
had dried, then slipped them within her sex’s invariable postal box.
Loveman glanced at his watch and rose briskly.

“Excuse me a minute or so,” he said. “I promised to call up a party at
two o’clock, and it’s almost half after.”

He disappeared through the heavily curtained doorway through which he
had entered. The next moment he reappeared.

“Nina, just as I started to use the ’phone, there came a call for you.
A woman, but she refused to give her name.”

When Nina had stepped into the hall and the heavy curtains had swung
behind her, Loveman silently held out his right hand. Also in silence
Nina reached within the bosom of her gown, drew out the checks and
handed them to him. He unfolded them, scrutinized them sharply,
refolded them, and slipped them into an inner pocket.

“Nina, you certainly did it great,” he said in a whisper. “If you were
as good on the stage as you are in a play like this, Dave Belasco would
be paying you a thousand a week. Great stuff, Nina!”

And then rapidly: “Go on back in. Remember you’ve got to keep him
going for two days. He mustn’t suspect a thing, and we’ve got to keep
him out of the way until these checks go through.”

“I understand,” and silently that excellent off-stage actress reëntered
the drawing-room.

Beneath the stairway of Le Bain’s house of a hundred precautions was
an item which on occasions helped measurably toward the ultra-private
pleasures of his guests--a telephone installed in a closet. Loveman
stepped through the door of this, closed it, and after a wait was
speaking to Mary Regan at the Mordona--speaking in a well-mimicked
voice:--

“Hello.... This is Lieutenant Jimmie Kelly, of the Tenderloin
Squad,--you know, friend of Mr. Clifford. Mr. Clifford has just found
Mr. Morton--Jack Morton, I mean. Jack is sick of what he’s been doing
the last few days--half crazy with remorse, you understand. Mr.
Clifford can’t leave Jack, and he asked me to telephone you to come for
him. We’re all at”--here Loveman gave the address--“it’s one of those
old private houses made into an exclusive restaurant. Just ring and
I’ll let you in.... All right, then, we’ll expect you in half an hour.”

He called a second number, which he got instantly, and he spoke in his
natural voice, though his words to any other ears save those at the end
of the wire, might have been enigmatic:--

“I wish to report a full crop,” he said. “Immediate delivery is
requested.”

With that he hung up and stepped out of the closet, wiping away the
moisture begotten by the stifling air of the cubicle. The full-bodied
little man, that Fifth Avenue and Broadway knew best as an amiable,
unflurried smile, was now set and grim of face, excited with suspense
and calculations. All had thus far gone well with his plan. Immediately
before him was the next vital development, swiftly approaching its
culmination. If all went there, too, as planned--why, he would be
safe--no man could touch him--and once emerged from the desperate
methods into which his present danger had forced him, he would be more
careful in the future.

Resuming his amiable smile, Peter Loveman rejoined his companions in
the dining-room.




CHAPTER XXIX

CLIFFORD WAITS ON GUARD


For a minute or more, after he had seen Loveman go up the high stoop
of Le Bain’s dark-windowed house, Clifford had stood with Uncle George
in the shadow across the deserted street and had thought rapidly. He
knew the character of that silent, respectable-fronted residence; he
had heard rumors, vague, to be sure, of certain happenings that had
taken place within; and he had heard rumors--again only rumors--of
happenings in which unwitnessed and unrestrained pleasure was not the
dominant purpose of the organizer of the party. He was certain that
some vital phase of Loveman’s shrewd scheming was being, or was to be,
enacted within: Le Bain’s reticent and expensive house was not taken
for ordinary pleasures or commonplace enterprises.

He had to get inside, somehow; he had to know what was happening there.
Without making the test, he knew Le Bain would have upon those two
front doors, stoop and basement, locks of a character that it would be
wasted time to try to pick or force quietly. Of course he might get
police aid, and, ignoring such a mere detail as law, might break down
a door--but that would give the alarm to whoever might be within and
would spoil everything. And then he might ring the bell, and before the
person who answered could slam the door upon him, he could drive his
way through--but this again would give alarm and would ruin everything.
The very essence of the plan forming in his mind was to try to keep
himself in the unseen background, to discover just what Loveman and his
associates had under way, to let them carry their plan through to its
completion, and then, when he had the goods on them, to act swiftly.
That is, if he could. There was no other way.

With Uncle George he reëntered the waiting taxi-cab and hurried
toward Le Minuit. On Broadway he met two of Lieutenant Jimmie Kelly’s
plain-clothes men who were willingly impressed into his service.

At the blazing entrance to Le Minuit Uncle George halted. “I guess I’ll
not go up with you, son,” he said. “I’ll do more good if I don’t openly
mess in police affairs. But I’ll hang about.”

Clifford nodded. With the two plain-clothes men he mounted the wide
bright stairway that led to the Midnight Café.

“Tell Le Bain I want to see him in his office,” he said to the
door-man, and moved quickly among the tables and passed through a
gray-and-gilt door. In less than a minute Le Bain entered.

“Joe,” Clifford began brusquely, without prelude. “I want the key to
that private house of yours, and I want it damned quick.”

Le Bain tried to look blank. “What private house? Why, Bob, I don’t
know--”

“Cut out the stalling!” interrupted Clifford. “It won’t do you any
good--and I’ve no time to listen to it. I know all about that house.
And you needn’t say the people who have it to-night have the only
keys--I know you have a lot of duplicates for the convenience of
members of a party that prefer not to go there in a group. So come
across!”

“But, Bob, honest to God--”

“No time for your lies, Joe! Now, you listen to this if you care
for your own health. The people there won’t know I got in with your
consent, and you’ll not get in bad with them. That is, unless they
are pulling something raw there--in which case I can testify that you
assisted me. On the other hand, if you don’t come across I’ll have
the Commissioner of Licenses revoke your license for Le Minuit within
twenty-four hours, and you’ll find you’ll never be able to do business
again in this town. Quick, now,--let’s have that key!”

Monsieur Le Bain, immigrant from somewhere in that part of France which
lies below Fourteenth Street, slowly turned about and fumbled in a
drawer of his desk. He was a long time about it, but when he finally
turned there was a key in his long yellowish-white hands. Clifford took
the key, but as he did so he caught the fading remnant of a crafty look
in Le Bain’s shifty eyes.

“Boys,” he said sharply, “you stick right here and entertain this
gentleman for two hours. He can do anything he likes except talk to
people--or talk into that telephone.”

Clifford caught the twitch in Le Bain’s face, and he knew he had
forestalled the other’s intent to telephone warning to the brief
tenants of the house.

Clifford was down in the street two minutes after he had entered Le
Minuit. Here he found Uncle George, waiting.

“Hate to use you as a messenger boy, Uncle George,” he said
rapidly--“but you’re the best possible man for the job. Mind
skirmishing around Broadway until you find Jimmie Kelly and some more
of his men?”

“I’m hired,” the old man replied promptly.

“Tell Jimmie to hang around the Knickerbocker on the chance that I may
telephone him. And you might hang around the ’phone yourself.”

“I’ll never leave it!” said Uncle George.

Clifford hurried from Le Minuit, and five minutes later he was
unlocking the heavy outside door, and then the door within that, of
the dark-faced house in the upper Forties. He crept down the dim hall,
muted with Persian rugs, and soon he was gazing through cautiously
parted curtains into the oak-paneled dining-room, and at the six
celebrants of Jack Morton’s third birthday party of that week.

Clifford watched and listened, every sense alert. The last of that
little scene between Jack and Nina Cordova over the checks was being
enacted: he saw Jack, laughing at the business ignorance of the “pre’
li’l’ fool,” sign the checks and hand them over--and he saw Nina’s
scribbling pen fill them in (before Jack’s eyes)--and he heard her
slowly repeat: “Payable to--Cash--Five--Hundred--Dollars.”

Clifford drew a quick breath. He understood it all now--or thought he
did. So that was what Loveman was up to! Well, it was worth Loveman’s
while to pay almost any price for the guaranteed privacy of Le Bain’s
house!

The next moment Loveman was coming straight toward him. But Clifford
had already made a swift survey of the resources of his situation; and
before Loveman was in the hallway, he was behind a pair of tapestries
at the forward end of the hall. The space behind him was unlighted,
but he sensed that he was in the drawing-room. Peering out, he saw the
brief scene between Nina and Loveman. That little scene convinced him
that he had been correct in his conclusion of a few minutes before as
to the significance of this affair in this house that told no secrets.

For a minute Clifford thought he had solved the mystery--that he had
his case complete, all except arranging for his arrests. Then Loveman
entered the telephone booth beneath the stairway. That was a new
element. What could Loveman be about? Clifford leaned out and strove
to listen, but not one word of Loveman’s filtered through the closet’s
sound-proof door.

Loveman left the booth and rejoined the company. Clifford had noted a
slit of light at one side of the darkened drawing-room, and toward this
he now noiselessly made his way. The slit proved to be a parting in
the heavy curtains between the drawing-and dining-rooms. Motionlessly
Clifford watched the group of six--and all the while he wondered what
Loveman’s telephoning could be about. There was drinking, and banter,
and reassertions of Jack’s determination to prove himself a free
spirit, and two stumbling attempts by Jack to dance with Nina to the
music of his own singing--and thus half an hour passed.

Presently there was a ring. At a word from Loveman, the evilly handsome
young man--“Slim” Harrison, Clifford knew him to be, a crack driver of
racing-cars, and a proficient in all the evils of Broadway--rose and
left the drawing-room and passed forward through the hallway. Clifford
heard him open the front door, and remark courteously: “Come right
in--Mr. Clifford is waiting for you.”

Footsteps--two pairs of them--returned down the hallway, and then
Clifford saw Slim Harrison swing apart the other pair of tapestries,
saying, “They’re waiting for you in here.” And then stepping into the
brilliant light of the great dining-room he saw Mary Regan.

Two paces within the doorway she suddenly halted. “Where’s Mr. Clifford
and Lieutenant Kelly?” she exclaimed. Clifford saw her stiffen and
sharply eye the group at the table. Then her gaze fixed upon Jack, and
she said quietly enough: “Jack--I’ve come to take you home.”

Jack swayed uncertainly to his feet, his face sagging with amazement.
“Why--why--Mary--”

But Clifford heard nothing of the next few sentences. That instant he
understood it all--or thought he did. He knew now the substance of
Loveman’s telephone message. He saw now the magnitude of this present
situation just before him. Loveman’s great scheme--the whole of it--had
been planned and drawn together, and timed to take place within that
hour. Clifford did not yet prevision the exact character of the further
developments--but what better place for it than Le Bain’s house, from
which no sound issued, which kept secret all it saw and heard?

Swiftly, silently, Clifford slipped out into the hallway, into
the telephone closet, and closed the sound-proof door. He got the
Knickerbocker Hotel on the wire, and a few minutes later he was
snapping out sentences to Uncle George.

“What, Jimmie hasn’t showed up yet!... For God’s sake, get hold of
him somehow--tell him to come right over to Le Bain’s house--you know
the number--with three or four of his men. Something big is going to
break!--big!--you get me? And tell him to round up Mr. Morton on the
way and see that he comes here after his son. I’ll put the key under
the doormat, so he can get in without disturbing any one. I want the
thing to come to a head before we act.”

Noiselessly Clifford crept out and hid the key. Then noiselessly he
slipped back to his post at the curtains in the drawing-room.




CHAPTER XXX

WHEN WOMEN NEVER TALK


Mary Regan had drawn nearer the table, and pale, her figure tense, she
was gazing fixedly at Jack--waiting. Jack was gazing back sheepishly,
stubbornly,--and Nina Cordova and Nan Burdette and Hilton were staring
at Mary in insolent triumph. Little Loveman’s face was expressionless.
Behind her, near the doorway, ready to move swiftly, if there was need,
stood Slim Harrison.

At that instant Clifford realized that his supreme interest was
centered upon that trapped figure in the next room--and that his
supreme efforts would have as their chief object the extrication of
Mary Regan from whatever crisis might be about to develop. But at
the same time Clifford realized that his duty demanded that he hold
himself in check, and allow Loveman to reveal the details of his
plan by action, and then catch him in the act. He would then have
evidence--real evidence.

“Are you coming, Jack?” Mary was saying quietly.

“Go on with her, Jack,” Nina Cordova taunted him. “None of us believed
you had the nerve really to go through with what you were bragging
about!”

“Man’s got ri’ do wha’ever he pleases--got ri’ have li’l’ fun,” Jack
said obstinately, his eyes still fixed on Mary.

“Are you coming, Jack?” she repeated in the same quiet voice.

He wavered. Clifford sensed that the young fellow’s finer instincts
were trying to struggle through the murk of his being; and mixed with
his disgust he felt a pity for this likable weakling who had been
brought to this low estate.

“All ri’,” Jack said sullenly, and started to leave the table.

“One moment, Jack,” cut in the soft, even voice of Loveman--and
Clifford saw Loveman give Mary a quick, vindictive glance. “Before you
go with her, Jack, I think you ought to know who she is. I only just
now found out myself. Her name is Mary Regan, all right, but she comes
of a crook family, and she herself has been a confidence-woman and
all-around adventuress. She married you solely to do you out of your
money. Ask her to deny it!”

“It’s true, Jack. But--”

“Understand now why she wanted to keep your marriage secret?” Loveman
cut in. “Plain enough: she knew that if it were generally known that
you had married her, you would quickly learn the truth about her and
that would finish her game. And that self-sacrifice business in letting
your father believe that she was your mistress, all in order to protect
you--can’t you see that she was really doing it to _protect herself_,
and protect her own little scheme for playing you along as a sucker?
Want to go along with her now, do you, so she can soak you some more?”

Jack, steadying himself with hands on the table, was staring across at
Mary. “’S tha’ so?” he demanded thickly.

“Part of it. But, Jack, listen--”

“I’ll not listen! Tha’s enough!” he burst out. He had irked at the
restraints she had put upon him; and since for him she represented
the routine life, he had unconsciously begun to weary of her. And all
the while he had been sneakingly ashamed that he had accepted this
supposed sacrifice from her. “I’ll not go home!” he shouted across at
her. “Un’erstand? I’ll never go home! Un’erstand? I’m through with you!
Un’erstand? You crook, you--you li’l’, dam’, sneakin’ crook!”

Mary stared at the inflamed, wine-flushed face thrust toward her. Then
she drew a deep breath--a breath tense and quivering. Then a heavy
voice sounded behind her.

“Guess you’ve got the right dope at last, Morton, on this Regan dame.”

As Mary turned quickly, Clifford’s eyes went to the other curtained
doorway. Just inside it stood the broad, powerful figure of Bradley. So
engrossed had Clifford been in the scene between Jack and Mary that he
had not heard Bradley’s entrance--which had doubtless been effected by
one of Le Bain’s many duplicate keys.

Clifford gasped within himself. The affair was even bigger than he had
thought a few minutes gone. And in a flash he guessed the explanation
of Bradley’s prompt appearance upon the scene: that while in the
telephone closet Loveman had sent _two_ messages--that after getting
Mary’s promise to come, he had notified Bradley.

Mary looked back at Loveman, ignoring Jack. Clifford could see that her
face was very pale; but she was straight and her gaze was unafraid.

“It’s no use trying to make Jack see the truth, Peter Loveman,” she
said in a slow, determined voice. “There’s no denying that you’ve
beaten me. You have removed all my motives for keeping silent about
you. I know enough about you and can produce enough evidence to secure
your conviction on half a dozen counts--and, believe me, Peter Loveman,
I’m going to give all that evidence to Mr. Clifford.”

She turned to Bradley, and her steady voice went on. “You were a crook
when you were in the Police Department--and you’ve been a crook,
playing every sort of crooked, double-crossing game, since you became a
private detective--and I have the evidence on you, too, that will send
you away--and believe me, Mr. Bradley, I’m going to use it!”

Loveman started toward her, but Bradley checked him with a gesture of a
big hand.

“Oh, you are, are you!” he said to Mary, and advanced until he stood
squarely before her. An ugly look had come into his face; her last
words had fired his animal anger. “Oh, I guess you’re not, sister!” he
said with crunching grimness. “I’ve had to hold off on you too long,
but at last I’ve got you where I want you! You ain’t going to expose
me, and you ain’t going to expose anybody else, and you ain’t ever
goin’ to hurt anybody! Do you get me, sister?”

He was glowering with malignant purpose. Clifford was wildly a-pulse
with the desire to leap out and hurl himself on Bradley. But the time
had not come; he had to wait and see the full purpose of this night’s
design.

“And, let me tell you, Mary Regan,” the heavy voice gritted on, “that
I’ve come here myself because I want the personal satisfaction of
attending to you--and because I didn’t want any slip-up on the job. And
I’m going to tell you in advance just exactly what’s going to happen to
you. Why? Because your knowing that is going to make you suffer all the
more--and, damn you, you’re going to suffer the limit! I ain’t afraid
to talk out, because we’re all in this together!”

He paused a minute; then demanded: “Want to know what’s coming to you?”

She stood silent, eyeing him steadily. Breathlessly Clifford waited.
Without being aware of it, he had drawn his automatic.

“I ain’t going to croak you. That would be too soft for you--it would
be over too soon.”

“Help!” she called, with all her voice.

“Go to it, kid,--do it again,” encouraged Bradley. “That’s right,
Slim,”--Harrison had caught her elbows from behind, as she had turned
to run. “I guess you’ll stand still now and hear me through. First
item, sister,--have you heard of that necklace that was stole a week
ago from one of the rich dames that lives in the Mordona?”

Mary did not speak.

“It’s a diamond necklace,” Bradley went on. “Worth ten thousand--mebbe
twenty. I’ve got that diamond necklace on me--never mind how I got it.
Now, as I said, the dame that lost the ice lives in the Mordona. Also
you’ve been living in the Mordona. Also, though they’ve never hung
a case on you, the police know you’ve been a crook. Now, that there
diamond necklace is going to be found by the police on Mary Regan.
That’s item number one.”

He paused to watch the effect of this upon her. White, she looked at
him unflinchingly.

“Here’s item number two. You see Nan Burdette, and Hilton, and Slim
Harrison,--all publicly notorious characters,--and I know I ain’t
offending any of them when I say that if there’s any such thing as
morals, they ain’t never troubled any one of the three o’ them. There’s
a big car outside--it’s got speed, believe me--and Slim is certainly
some driver. In about two minutes Nan and Hilton and Slim and you start
off on a joy-ride--and you’ll be fixed so you won’t do any objecting.”

Mary still gazed at him in white steadfastness. Clifford clutched his
automatic with steely tenseness.

“And waiting in the harbor of Greenport, out at the end of Long Island,
is a swell little motor yacht. The crew has all been fixed. In two or
three hours--Slim here can make the run in about that time--the four of
you go aboard and begin a joy-cruise among those islands and bays out
there where nobody is ever goin’ to bother you. In about ten days the
police will be tipped off as to who stole the necklace and where you’re
to be found--and you’ll be pinched in this crowd here, and the necklace
found in the bottom of your bag. This bunch will swear that you came
along voluntarily--that you really helped get up the party. And the
crew will testify how you and the others behaved--and the bunch here
will admit it. Booze all the time--Slim, here, your special guy--the
lid off everything. I guess you get me!”

If she did not, Clifford did. He drew a deep breath. It was all
devilishly cunning. But tense and excited though he was, Clifford
recognized that the situation was far larger than just this one case on
which he looked; that in a limited way it was typical. Many a woman, in
this world where he had been working these many months, had been the
victim of kindred daring enterprises when necessary for the safety or
the projects of these subtle _entrepreneurs_ of Big Pleasure. And these
women had never dared tell what had happened to them.

Bradley drove on at her. “And your being pinched on a joy-cruise
with this bunch, which will stamp you as being the same sort of
character--and that necklace being found on you--this, with what the
police already know about you, will fix you good and proper! Squeal all
you want to on me or Loveman, or anybody you like--you’ll be so smeared
your word won’t count for a damn with a judge or anybody else!”

Terrible as it was, Clifford almost admired the plan, so ghastly was it
in its completeness, its convincingness. He saw that Mary’s face was
now drawn, her eyes wide--saw that she was perceiving as inescapable
the cunning fate that had been planned for her--saw that she was seeing
it as a thing beyond her ever to explain away.

Taut as a violin string, Clifford directed his senses to the front of
the house for an instant--listening. Why were not Jimmie Kelly and the
others on hand to reinforce him? He was not conscious that this scene,
which had seemed so long to him, was in reality only a few minutes in
the acting.

When he peered back into the dining-room, Jack was lurching toward
Bradley. He halted swayingly and pointed a finger at the detective, the
man that was in him struggling once more to rise.

“See here, Bradley,” he said thickly. “Tha’s no go! I no stan’ f’r raw
business like tha’!”

“Shut up, you booze pup!” Bradley snapped at him. “What we’re doing,
we’re doing as much for you as anybody else. She’s always played you
rotten, ain’t she? Well, we’re just fixing her so she’ll be showed up
in public for what she really is--and so she can’t squeeze any dough
out of you, and so’s you have it easy getting a divorce. So back up,
you boob!”

He glanced at the group at the table. “Get your things on, Burdette
and Hilton,” he ordered. He turned again to Mary and her keeper: “All
ready, Slim,” he announced sharply.

His slow taunting of his prisoner now changed to swiftest action. He
drew from a pocket a heavy strap which he threw in a loop over Mary’s
head and with his huge strength buckled tightly at her elbows. In the
same instant Slim seized her head from behind, and with a fierce,
practiced grip forced a gag into her mouth, which the next instant he
tied.

“Where’s that cloak?” Bradley demanded. Nan Burdette handed it to him,
and he flung it about Mary. “Slim, got your car all ready?”

“Yes.”

“Then gimme that motor-veil, Slim.” It was handed over. “And you keep
out of this, Morton,--remember we’re doing it to help you. Just hold
her, Loveman.”

Nan Burdette and Hilton stepped forward and held apart the
curtains--while Jack, his face still wine-flushed, looked on
waveringly, Nina holding his arm.

Bradley threw the veil over Mary’s head and began to knot it behind.
“Get ready, there, to take her out!” he ordered sharply.

“Why doesn’t Jimmie Kelly come?” Clifford’s wild suspense cried within
him.




CHAPTER XXXI

WHEN OLD FOES GET TOGETHER


But Clifford dared wait no longer for his reinforcements--and he dared
not shoot, with Mary standing between him and his most-desired target,
Bradley. He sprang through the curtains, his automatic in his right
hand, and swung his left fist mightily just beneath the ear of the
unsuspecting Slim Harrison, who went down like a dead man.

“Look out!” shrilled Loveman, loosening Mary’s arm.

Bradley whirled about, instinctively holding Mary before him, from
whose shoulders the unloosened cloak was falling, and from whose face
the as yet unknotted veil fell away.

“Come on, boys,” Clifford cried, as if to a squad behind him. “Guard
the front door, and round up the whole bunch!”

“Beat it through the basement!” Bradley roared to the others. And at
the same instant he hurled Mary straight at the on-coming Clifford. As
she struck Clifford, Bradley leaped upon him and knocked his pistol
flying from his hand, and then, brushing Mary aside with a powerful
sweep, he grappled Clifford in his bear-like arms. The two men went
swaying heavily. Clifford had a brief vision of the others staring on
nonplussed--then they were gone, and he and Bradley were alone, except
for the limp Harrison on the floor.

“So it was all a bluff--those others!” Bradley snarled at him. Exultant
triumph gleamed in his malignant face. “God, I been waiting--long
enough for this--but I’m going to get you at last!”

Clifford tried to struggle free: Mary must have been taken by those
others, and his every impulse called on him to pursue. But there was
no breaking the clutch of those mighty, hate-hungry arms. He tried
only to struggle defensively, hoping for the appearance of Jimmie
Kelly--but in a few moments he realized that if he merely tried to hold
his own against this maddened antagonist he would swiftly be a defeated
man--and that once beaten down he would be maimed to the exhaustion of
Bradley’s fury. And then he realized and accepted this for what it was
and what it had to be: it was that “next time” for which Bradley had
often wished--the “time” which between these two old enemies there was
no avoiding.

This splendid dining-room had in its time looked upon many strange
scenes, but never had it looked upon such a scene as that which
followed. In each man--hostile always, and super-enemies since Clifford
had driven Bradley from the Police Department by the exposure of his
criminal practices--was the same supreme desire to destroy the other,
destroy him physically--to crush him utterly with infuriated muscles.
Grappling each other they went staggering about the great muted room.
The table, with its champagne glasses, its silver-and-glass épergne
of terraced fruit, went toppling over. The next moment a splendid if
incongruous buhl cabinet was a wreck and its ostentatious exhibit of
cut-glass was a thousand fragments upon the floor. And still the two
men-beasts swayed about in their destructive fury.

A minute of this mad straining of muscle against muscle, and that part
of Clifford’s rage which was unbridled madness disappeared--though the
rage itself remained. His head began to clear. He perceived that in
such an animal-like struggle as this he was foredoomed: Bradley was
the heavier and had the greater strength. So he began to try to break
free: if he could change this to a fight with fists, and could keep
Bradley at arm’s length, there would be a different tale, for he knew
himself Bradley’s superior at boxing. But Bradley also knew this and
clung unbreakingly on: his was the art of the New York policeman who
has risen from the “gas-house district”--an art in which no practice
that will maim or win is barred. He kicked fiercely at Clifford’s
shins; he tried to drive his knee up into Clifford’s stomach; suddenly
bending his own body inwardly into an arc, he as suddenly contracted
his gorilla-like arms, with the intent to disable his enemy, caught
unawares--perhaps break his back; and he closed a huge hand upon
Clifford’s face as though it would strip the features from the
skull--and only removed that awful grip when Clifford sunk his teeth
into the heel of the palm.

For the time Clifford had forgotten all but Bradley. Had he thought of
Jimmie Kelly, he would now have resented Jimmie’s entrance.

All this while, whenever he could get a free arm, and dared risk a
blow, Clifford was driving his fist into the glowering face before his
own. He was not directing his blows in the hope of a knock-out; the
range was too short for his fist to secure the crashing power for that;
but he sent his fists at the lips, at the nose, at the eyes. He was
working toward an end, now--working with a cold mind, though with fury
unabated. He wanted those lips and nostrils to stream blood; he wanted
those eyes to puff up and close. That of itself would not win him this
gigantic struggle, since Bradley’s great strength would not be reduced
thereby. But it might cause Bradley to lose all self-control, and in
his huge, unguarded violence to give Clifford the opening for which he
was working and waiting.

Clifford’s nerves and muscles were now remembering something of the
skill that had been his when he had been a member of his university’s
champion wrestling team. But he was carefully masking his plan. To
Bradley he was apparently fighting the same kind of fight as his
own--where brute strength triumphed in the end. And with Clifford there
was the question whether his old skill at its best would avail against
such superior strength as Bradley’s--and also the question, would he
get the chance to use it?

At length there came a moment when Bradley thought that he had won. He
gave Clifford a supreme bear-hug--more than once he had thus cracked
strong men’s ribs. Clifford gave a gasping cry, his mouth fell loosely
agape, his knees gave way, and he hung a dead weight in Bradley’s arms.
Bradley was not primarily a fist-fighter, but he knew the value of a
fist at the right moment.

“I’ve got you now--damn you!” he gasped fiercely, and loosened his
right arm to draw back his fist to drive it into that flaccid face for
the finishing blow.

But that blow was never delivered. With a lightning swiftness Clifford
wrenched free from that too-confident left arm, half dropped to the
floor--shot swiftly up with a backward leap that placed him behind
Bradley, and as he came up his left arm darted under Bradley’s left
shoulder, and his left hand crooked itself upon the back of Bradley’s
bull neck. And in the same instant his right hand shot forward and
caught Bradley’s right wrist.

Bradley gave a sneering laugh. “Want a kid’s horseback ride, do you!”
Snarling contemptuously again, Bradley shook his heavy shoulders as
a great dog might shake its dripping ruff. But Clifford did not fly
off. Instead his body braced itself and his arms stiffened. Bradley’s
head was driven sharply into his chest, his right arm was drawn out
straight. He gave a grunt and set his muscles contemptuously against
this unknown maneuver. Not yet did the man dream what was happening to
him.

Grimly Clifford began to exert his strength, himself wondering if he
could carry this thing through. This hold that he had upon Bradley
was a hold that he had practiced in some fractional degree of its
potentialities in friendly contests--but never had he seen that hold
used upon a human being to the reputed limits of its effectiveness. He
recalled the avarice of this man, the brutal cunning, the ruthlessness,
the devil’s misuse of power--the thousands he had bled financially, the
unnumbered ones he had “framed” and whose freedom he had coldly sworn
away--and Clifford was aflame with retributive rage for all those whom
this man in his might had made suffer. It was as though the strength of
all these sufferers had been transferred into him. Certainly he never
had had such might before. Slowly, inch by inch he drew Bradley’s right
arm back and downward--Bradley straining with outstanding muscles and
corded ligaments to withstand the terrific leverage.

The right arm reached its lowest arc, then Clifford began to bend it
back and pull it up. A groan burst from Bradley--then, “Take a chance,
Slim; for God’s sake, shoot!”

There was a report: a bullet grazed Clifford’s scalp--it must have
missed Bradley’s head by inches. Clifford, raising his set face, his
eyes bulging from his own effort, saw the dazed Slim on one elbow,
aiming at him again. He swung Bradley about, so that his body was
a better protection, and, heaving, panting, went on drawing that
straining arm up--inch by inch.

Suddenly the curtains parted and Jimmie Kelly entered, behind him three
of his men, Mr. Morton and Uncle George. Jimmie saw Slim’s pointed
weapon following the pair, waiting its chance; and leaping in he tore
it from that deadly hand.

“Steady, Bob,” he cried, “and I’ll get Bradley for you!”

“Keep out of this!” Clifford panted hoarsely. “I’ve got him myself.”

They all stood back and stared at those straining, locked figures. The
two seemed hardly to move, so tensely was the force of one set against
the force of the other. But slowly, slowly, Clifford forced the right
arm of Bradley up behind his back. Then summoning his all of strength,
he heaved sharply and mightily upwards, as though he was lifting the
very foundations of the house. There was a sharp report, almost as if
Slim had shot again. A cry of agony burst from Bradley, and he went
staggering across the room, and was saved from falling only by the
embrace of one corner. Even so, he swayed on his feet; gasping groans
came from his lips; and his right arm hung loosely at his side at a
weird angle.

“By God!” Uncle George ejaculated slowly. “I once said that if ever
anybody got Bradley, you would be the man--and, son, you certainly did
get him!”

Himself reeling, struggling for breath, Clifford gazed at the face of
his enemy, pulpy and bleeding and distorted with agony. “Yes, I got
him,” he gasped. Dizzily he walked over to Bradley. “I got you this
time, Bradley,--I got you at last!”

But the loose figure with the misshapen face did not answer; as
a matter of fact, Bradley did not hear. For a moment Clifford,
panting, stood gazing on him; then his mind began to recover from the
all-engrossing fury which had accomplished and motivated and energized
this struggle. It began to return to the larger issues.

He wheeled about. “Yes--I got him. Jimmie, I think you’ll find on him
that Mordona necklace. Hand him over to a couple of your men. Yes,
I got him,” he repeated. “But I got only the body. The brains got
away--Peter Loveman.”

“And Jack?” eagerly put in Mr. Morton.

“He must have gone with Loveman--” And as Clifford answered he was
asking himself a vastly more vital question: where was Mary Regan?

“But where did they go?” cried the father. “Can’t we get him?”

Clifford did not reply. Already his faculties had recovered; they
were working with incredible speed, a speed that made each thought a
flash. He recalled what he had witnessed and heard before Bradley had
come--recalled the details of the plot with which Bradley had taunted
his victim--he totaled them--he made his deduction.

He sprang across the room with new energy and seized Slim Harrison by
the collar. “They wouldn’t have taken your car without you! You’re
going to drive _us_!--and you’re going to show us all your machine has
got! Come on, Jimmie,” he cried sharply. “No, Jimmie, you and Uncle
George go down and look through the basement and see if there’s signs
of any of them there--and meet me out in front! Come on, Mr. Morton!”

And leaving the bruised and unregarding Bradley in charge of Jimmie’s
men, Clifford hurried the dazed Slim Harrison before him through the
tapestries and out of Le Bain’s house of luxurious silence.




CHAPTER XXXII

PLEASURE PRESENTS ITS BILL


Over the black, oiled boulevard that reaches, with many tributaries
and parallels, from Manhattan’s Fifty-ninth Street Bridge to the
twin points of Long Island, Jack Morton’s new racing roadster was
speeding eastward through the heavy three-o’clock night--Jack at the
wheel, Nina Cordova beside him, and Loveman and Hilton in the seat
behind. The little lawyer had thought rapidly; and now, sunk low in
the soft leather, he was counting his chances which had suddenly
grown desperate, but which he still saw as large, if only there were
no more slips and he got his share of luck. And as the car whirred
on, devouring the silent, deserted miles, on and on went his brain,
calculating his chances, shaping the details of his new course--that
brain whose supreme and sole function was to plan--in which function
all other qualities and potentialities of the man had become centered
and concentrated, and for which they and the body itself had come
solely to exist--that brain which would never cease its tireless,
brilliant planning until death should still its mechanism.

He had revised his plans the instant Clifford had entered the
dining-room--had seen instantly what was his best and only way.
Getting Jack where he now sat had been simple. “Come on, Jack,--the
police will get you for this, too!” he had cried. And Jack, befuddled
with drink, and feeling that his lot now lay with these friends, had
obeyed instantly and without question. Into Jack’s waiting car Loveman
had sharply ordered those essential to his revised plan.

“You know the Long Island roads?--the way to Greenport?” he had asked
Jack after they were in their seats.

“Sure.”

“Then make Greenport as quick as you can. Remember that motor yacht
Bradley spoke of?” He spoke with a cunning tone of excitedly pleasant
anticipation. “We’re going to be a bunch of pirates,--going to capture
the old tub--and you and Nina and Hilton and I are going to have a nice
little cruise and wine party all to ourselves. How’s that?”

“Gre’ stuff!” had been Jack’s enthusiastic comment.

The wheel of his new speedster in his hands, there automatically came
on Jack an exhilarating sense that here was another lark. It was just
like so many other parties of months and years before that had started
out hilariously from Broadway for a meteor-like rush through the dark
to distant road-houses--just one more party, but with a thrill and
excitement that topped all others.

Even when drunk--that is, short of insensibility--Jack was a good
driver. His hands seemed to have a peculiar brain of their own--albeit
a reckless brain. Ten minutes after leaving Le Bain’s house they were
across the bridge, and five minutes later they were in the stretches of
the boulevard; and Jack, pointing with his toe to a lighted dial, was
chuckling to Nina:--

“Nice li’l’ piece junk--eh, Nina? Doin’ her li’l’ ole sixty an hour,
an’ ain’t half tryin’.”

“But slow down at the turns, Jack. Please be careful!”

“’M always careful. Never had an accident.” He laughed mischievously.
“Goin’ to show you nice li’l’ breeze when we get out li’l’
farther--goin’ touch her up to ninety.”

In the meanwhile, behind them, little Loveman was planning,
planning--and acting. He drew out a thin morocco wallet, from it took a
stamped envelope, and on this with a pencil he scrawled an address--the
address of a New York bank where he had a personal account which was so
private that there was not a scrap among his papers to indicate that
such an account existed. Into this envelope he slipped the three checks
Nina had given him, sealed it, placed it between the two halves of his
wallet and replaced the wallet in his coat. That letter he would drop
into a mail-box in Greenport.

Once on board the yacht they would make for the ocean--he knew the
vessel to be large and stanch enough to withstand any storm likely to
arise in summer seas--and he knew the government patrol boats guarding
the coast were not interfering with the course of American pleasure
craft. For two days--longer if it suited the exigencies of his plan
as it worked out, and perhaps to the end of the cruise--he would keep
Jack at sea; then he would get rid of him at some convenient port. In
the meantime Jack’s checks would have gone through Jack’s bank. No one
suspected the truth about those checks--so he believed--and it would
be a long time before the truth came out in the routine of business.
Before that he would have managed to draw the funds out of this secret
account--just how he did not yet see--but somehow he would manage it.
And all the while they would be cruising southward along the coast,
slipping into port when necessary to take on oil. And finally they
would make Mexico, where Hilton would find sanctuary--and there or in
some other Latin-American State he would start his career anew--his
and Nina’s. And evading extradition--for what charge could be formed
against him with sufficient evidence to cause a foreign State to give
it serious heed?--they would become great people, people of brilliant
position, he and Nina.

For all the time that he had seemingly been amused at her limitations
and pretensions, and all the time that he had been quite willing to
fit her into his dubious transactions, all this while Loveman had had
one ruling thought concerning Nina--that in the end she should be his.
There had been many women in Peter Loveman’s life, but Nina Cordova,
all of whose flaws he knew and at whom he was ever laughing, Nina was
the only woman he had ever loved.

Thus, as the car spun noiselessly through the heavy night, the shrewd,
tireless brain schemed on and on--as that brain would scheme on and on,
brilliantly, fascinated by its schemes and their working out, until
death should bring its blankness....

       *       *       *       *       *

In the meanwhile, some miles back, another car was spinning toward the
east and toward the dawn. But before that car had been launched on its
flight several things had happened back on Manhattan.

When Clifford came out of Le Bain’s house, thrusting the scruff-held
Slim Harrison before him, and saw as he had expected that the red car
belonging to Jack was gone, an officer in uniform halted before the
high stoop. He was holding a woman by the arm, and the woman Clifford
saw to be Nan Burdette.

“I saw her sneakin’ out the basement door a few minutes ago,” explained
the officer, “and as she’s a well-known character, and as she was
actin’ suspicious, I thought I’d better see what she’d been up to.”

“So they dropped you, Nan,” said Clifford. “I understand--you weren’t
of use to them any longer. But what did you hang behind for?”

“None of your business,” said the woman.

“I guess I understand--if they were pinched you didn’t want to get
pinched with them, so you waited to make your getaway.” Then, very
sharply: “But what did they do with Mary Regan?”

“I don’t know,” she answered sullenly.

“Hold her, officer,” Clifford ordered. “Lieutenant Kelly may have a
definite charge against her in the morning.”

Just then Jimmie Kelly and Uncle George emerged from a shadowy doorway
beneath the stoop. There was some one between them, and at sight of
this person Clifford stepped quickly toward the two.

“Mary!” he ejaculated. “Mary--where were you?”

“Mr. Loveman pushed me into the pantry and locked the door.”

“I see,” said Clifford rapidly. “Their plan against you would now not
help them--you were now just excess baggage to them--and they merely
wanted to get you out of the way for a while.”

There was no time then for fuller explanations. “We’re just starting
after Loveman and Jack.”

Mr. Morton had moved toward them. “Mary,” he said, his voice steady
only through great effort, “I’d like to have you go along to help bring
Jack back--if Mr. Clifford doesn’t mind.”

She hesitated, then glanced questioningly at Clifford. Clifford nodded.

“All right,” she agreed.

“Here’s where I resign,” said Uncle George--“on the grounds that I’m
too old, that I’m too fat, that I’m not needed, and that there’s no
room for me. The best of luck to you!”

“Thanks, Uncle George!” And Clifford gripped his hand.

They hurried into the long, low, gray car--the car which was to have
borne Mary upon that cunningly devised saturnalia. “Jimmie, if you
don’t mind, sit in front with Slim Harrison,” said Clifford, and
himself took the rear seat with Mr. Morton, Mary between them. He
leaned forward and spoke with harsh dominance into Slim’s ear. “Slim,
I know this is a great machine, and I know that when you want to be
you’re a great driver--and understand this, your only chance of getting
out of this affair halfway easy is for you to get us to Greenport not
later than the car ahead. Now, turn her loose.”

Slim turned her loose. Once he was well across the Fifty-ninth Street
Bridge, he lived up to all that the sporting pages had ever said in
praise of his ability. The new car, clinging tight to the glass-smooth
oiled macadam, flashed in a breath through villages--past dimly seen
summer “cottages” of New York millionaires, grand ducal in their
leisured magnificence--and on over the motor parkway through the humid,
deserted night.

In the rear seat there was silence, except for the gale begotten by
the machine’s great speed. Now and then, by the swift-passing lights
of a village, Clifford saw the face of Mary Regan: it was pale and
set, seemed without expression, and was fixed unchangingly ahead, not
so much upon the brilliantly illumined road before them as upon the
spaces of the night. He wondered what she was thinking of--she who had
experienced so much these last few months, so many things that her
calculations had not foreseen. But the swiftly gone glimpses of her
white face gave him no clue....

And now and again Clifford saw the face of Mr. Morton beside her. Also
the face of this masterful man of business, who ruled his thousands of
men and dominated a score of companies, and yet had failed to direct
his own son in the way he would have him go--also Mr. Morton’s face was
drawn and pale, but it was fixed with straining impatience upon the
roadway. Now and then Clifford saw him turn and gaze at Mary, whose
forward-fixed look never shifted, and then turn back to the road,
wetting his drawn, thinned lips....

All the while Clifford’s own mind was working. The professional part of
Clifford felt the exultation of triumph already won--and the exultant
excitement of the chase, which, if successful, would make triumph
complete. He had already got Bradley; he felt certain that he soon
was to get Loveman and the others. That much done, the dominating
professional purpose would have been achieved. He would have won....
But there was the man element in Clifford, and it also was thinking as
the car flew through the night. His success meant that Loveman, and
Bradley, and Nina, and the others, who had subtly worked to undermine
whatever of good there was in Jack, would be removed as factors in
Jack’s life--and free of their influence and unopposedly under the
influence of Mary, he and Mary might-- Well, that was the way Life
worked out. For long he had expected for himself nothing more....

On, on they sped, always silent, through the August night--the car
relaxing its speed only when there were sharp curves, and then at once
picking up its flashing pace. An hour slipped by--another hour. They
were now come upon the upper of the two fingers into which the eastern
third of Long Island separates--and the blackness of the night had
changed into a thick, sluggish dawn, that murky dawn held back and
muffled by the heavy fogs which lie upon the outer portions of the
island on humid days of late summer and keep the horns and sirens of
the shore at their discordant singing until noon.

Presently Clifford half rose in the machine and pointed forward. “There
they are!” he exclaimed.

Before them in the murk was a swiftly moving something, now visible,
now vanished in a thicker portion of the fog. The others saw, but said
nothing.

Clifford leaned forward and spoke into Slim’s ear. “Just keep about
this distance from them--they’ll have to stop in Greenport and we can
get them before they can go aboard.”

Slim nodded. Keeping this quarter of a mile behind, they rushed on
into the fog--flashed through Southold--over miles of marsh-bordered
road--skirted for a space the single track of the Long Island
Railway--skimmed more miles of marsh-bordered roadbed--swung about a
curve--and then--

They clutched each other, their horrified eyes staring ahead. “My God!”
gasped Clifford; and Mary gave a sharp cry--and a wrenching groan came
from Mr. Morton. Instantly and instinctively Slim had shut off the gas
and applied the brake--and slowly they rolled onward, staring wildly.

That thing which they had seen, happening all in an instant, was
a commonplace of newspaper headlines. Long Island is a choice
speeding-ground for that tribe known as “joy-riders.” “Look out for
Crossings” reads a placard in every passenger-coach of the Long Island
Railroad--and the same placard bears a picture of what may befall
those who do not. Jack, who had taken ten thousand risks and never had
an accident, had risked his fortune just once too often. Driving at
reckless speed, his ears filled with the roar of the wind, he had only
his eyes--and too late had his eyes seen that freight engine thrust
itself out of the fog....

Clifford helped Mary out of their halted car, and silently they all
began the work of examination--soon helped by the crew of the train.
Jack’s new red car was a tangle of twisted steel.... First they
found Nina and Hilton; both were conscious and crying out in their
pain--each shrieked when touched. And then they found Peter Loveman:
he was alive, but unconscious. Not far from him Mr. Morton picked up a
morocco wallet, which he slipped into his pocket, Clifford not seeing
this. And then Clifford and Mary found Jack: he also was alive and also
unconscious. Strangely enough, his clothes were but little disordered,
and there was not a visible scratch upon him. Lying with his pallid
face toward the sky, the hair falling back from his forehead, he looked
handsome and boyish and irresistibly likable and endowed with qualities
which go to make an unusual man. Never to Clifford had that face looked
so promising as it now looked.

There is a good little hospital in Greenport, and in half an hour the
four were in it--and in less than another half-hour two famous New
York specialists were in attendance, for many New York doctors have
summer homes near Greenport, and are professionally connected with this
little hospital. The first report of these two men, based on a hasty
examination, was that Nina and Hilton had many broken bones, but would
undoubtedly in time be as sound as ever; as to Jack and Loveman, a
more careful examination was necessary before they could really tell
anything.

There was nothing Clifford could do but merely wait. Through an open
doorway--all the patients were on the same floor--he saw Mary Regan
sitting at a window. He entered. She gave him a look from her pale
face, and without saying anything looked back out the window. He drew
a chair up beside her, and they both sat gazing out--at the flag with
a white field and a cross of blue which told that this little hospital
had become an auxiliary hospital of the United States Navy--and beyond
at the harbor, with its scores of small white craft, one of which was
doubtless the yacht of Loveman’s visioned voyage--the voyage that now
would never be.

Neither spoke; there were no interruptions--Mr. Morton was at Jack’s
bedside, and had not left it. Clifford felt numb: part of this was
physical weariness, part the shock of what had so swiftly happened, and
part the sense of large issues (he was not then conscious of what they
all were) that remained still in the balance. An hour of this heavy
silence passed--two hours; Mary, with white, set face, continued to
gaze out upon the harbor of tiny ships.

At length Clifford rose mechanically and went out into the corridor,
and paced to and fro. Presently he saw a nurse come from Jack’s room
and enter Loveman’s, and after a moment he saw the doctor who was
with Loveman--Dr. Peters, Clifford knew him to be, a great nerve
specialist,--emerge followed by the two nurses and enter Jack’s room.
He noted that Loveman’s door had been left open; and first, without
purpose, merely as a break in the routine of his walking, he paused and
looked in. Then he entered and crossed to Loveman’s bed.

To his surprise Loveman’s large bright eyes were wide open; they
recognized him--and Clifford saw that they were alive with all of
Loveman’s intelligence. He gazed down at the sheet-covered figure, and
something of the fury revived which had lain dumb in him these last two
or three hours.

“Well, Loveman, I’ve landed you at last!” he said grimly.

The little lawyer made no response.

“Make no mistake about it, Loveman,--I’ve got you for fair this
time--and got you eleven different ways from Sunday!”

Still the little man did not speak, though his eyes showed that he
understood every word. Clifford was provoked at the manner in which
Loveman ignored him.

“Haven’t you any come-back at all, Loveman--you were usually quick
enough with your tongue.”

“See here--what are you doing with my patient?” a sharp voice called
from the door.

Clifford turned. Approaching was Dr. Peters.

“He may be your patient, but he is my prisoner,” Clifford returned
stiffly, still under the influence of his revived fury. But at once
he was himself again. “I beg your pardon, Dr. Peters, but this man
here is responsible for all that has happened.” And then: “He seems to
have very much of a grouch against me--rather natural, I suppose. He
wouldn’t even say a word to me. What’s the matter with him?”

“What’s the matter?” Dr. Peters repeated, looking at him keenly. Then
he drew Clifford aside, out of Loveman’s hearing. “All that’s the
matter with Mr. Loveman,” he answered slowly, “is that the accident
caused a hemorrhage affecting the sensory and motor portions of the
brain causing a permanent aphasia.”

“What’s that mean, doctor, in plain English?”

“It means that he has permanently lost the use of legs and arms, and
that he’ll never speak again.”

Clifford stared. “But he seems to understand!” he cried.

“He understands everything. His brain is as good as it ever was, and
it will be as good as ever for perhaps thirty years to come. But by no
possibility can he ever communicate to a second person what that brain
is thinking of.”

Clifford stared at the doctor, mumbled something, and unsteadily walked
out. In the corridor he leaned against a wall and drew a deep breath.
As the full significance of the doctor’s words sank in, he was awed,
appalled. That great clear brain fated by the momentum of a life’s
habit to go on planning--never to be able to put any of those plans
into action himself--never able to communicate a plan to an agent or
accomplice--but always planning--tirelessly planning--for thirty years
or more!...

After a time he straightened up and entered the room of Hilton, who
was in less pain, but who just then hated all mankind; and with Hilton
he had a few grim, direct words. After that he had a few words with
Jimmie Kelly, who was waiting below. Then he went back and sat down
beside Mary, and briefly he told her what had befallen Loveman.

Again they sat in silence, gazing out upon the harbor. Perhaps another
hour passed. Then Mr. Morton entered. He was haggard and gray of face.
Clifford and Mary rose.

“Jack?” breathed Mary, moving toward him.

Mr. Morton seemed at first unable to speak. But when his voice
did issue, though husky and low, it was controlled and strangely
emotionless.

“Jack never regained consciousness,” he said. “Jack--Jack has just
died.”




CHAPTER XXXIII

THE STUFF IN MARY REGAN


There was again a long silence. Clifford’s heart leaped strangely at
Morton’s announcement, as perhaps hearts should not at words of death.
Then Mr. Morton spoke once more, still in the low, controlled voice,
his words and steady eyes directed at Mary.

“I shall arrange to take Jack to Chicago. Since you are his widow,
of course you will come along.” And then the emotionless voice of
this hard-driving man of great affairs broke with emotion. “And,
Mary,--I want you to come because you are my daughter-in-law. I know
now you did all a woman could for Jack; I have come to respect you
for what you are. You are all I have--I need you, Mary. I hardly need
tell you,--since it may make little difference to you, you are so
strange,--but all I have will go to you, and your life is to be the
life of my daughter.”

Mary stood staring at him, loose-lipped, and did not speak. Clifford
watched her, dazed by this last turn of circumstances. He saw the
realities and prospects that Morton’s words had given her. She now
possessed, open and aboveboard, all that she had ever dreamed to gain
by trickery--yes, and more! And she had it all unhampered! All these
months he had tried to make Life test her--and Life had responded by,
in the end, giving her everything!

Still Mary did not speak. Mr. Morton went on, a note of urging, of
reassurance, in his subdued voice:

“And, Mary,--whatever I may have said in the past,--you have nothing
to fear from me. You are my daughter, and you have my respect. And you
have nothing to fear from any one else, since I know everything....
There’s an afternoon train out of here; we’ll be taking that, Mary.”

And then Mary spoke. Her voice was low, but its tone was steady.

“I shall be willing--and glad--to do all I can to help. But I cannot go
with you as your daughter.”

“What?” cried Mr. Morton. And then: “I don’t understand.”

The low voice went on:--

“I married Jack solely to make money and gain position. Even before
last night I had decided never to take them. And now, after what has
happened, even more can I never take them. Believe me, I mean no
offense to you, but I cannot be your daughter-in-law.”

“What?” repeated Mr. Morton.

Clifford gazed at her, stupefied.

“While Jack lived my marriage to him was a secret,” the low voice
went on. “Now that he is dead, I prefer to have it continue to remain
unknown, if that can be managed. I think it can. If the few who know
are made to believe that I am trying to force myself upon you, they
will keep silent out of pure malice toward me. That is, I want it to
remain unknown, unless Mr. Clifford needs my testimony to convict in
his cases.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Clifford. “Loveman’s case
is closed. As for Bradley, Lieutenant Kelly found that Mordona necklace
on him, and Hilton, seeing that the game is over, has just turned
State’s evidence and confessed that he and Bradley stole it. That
should be sufficient to take care of Bradley.”

Mary turned again to Mr. Morton. “Then I prefer to have it all remain
as it has been--unknown. I do not want even the profit out of this of
having Jack’s name.”

Then came a quick set to the jaw of this man long accustomed to having
his own way. “But I can publicly proclaim you to be my daughter!”

“But you will not,” she returned quietly, “since I ask you not to.”

The set look continued for a moment. Then it relaxed.

“All right--just as you say.” He drew an envelope from an inner pocket.
“But if you will not accept my fortune, you cannot escape Jack’s,
for it is this moment automatically and legally yours.” From the
envelope--it was the one Loveman had addressed in the car--he drew
out three slips of paper and handed them to her. “There it is--three
checks totaling one hundred and eighty thousand dollars. And you do not
need to reveal yourself as Jack’s widow to get the money, since the
checks are made out to ‘Cash.’ All you need to do is to deposit them.”

She gazed at the checks, then looked up at him. “If Jack had had no
wife, I suppose his fortune would revert to you.”

“Naturally.”

“You understand, I can make nothing out of this--nothing.” Slowly she
tore up the checks. “I can be of no service to you?--or Jack?”

“None. Except in ways you have refused.”

She turned to Clifford. “Am I needed here?”

Clifford shook his head.

“Then I think I’ll be going back to town,” she said quietly.

Morton held out his hand, which she took. “You are the strangest person
I ever knew,” he said huskily. “Good-bye, Mary,--and--and God bless
you!”

“Good-bye,” said his daughter-in-law.

She turned and went out. Clifford watched her as she passed through the
broad hospital corridor and then disappeared down the wide stairway.

“Mr. Morton,” said Clifford, “I’m not needed either--Lieutenant Kelly
will remain in charge here. I’ll be going back to the city, too.”

Mr. Morton gripped Clifford’s hand. “Thanks, Clifford--and good-bye.”
The habitually hard face softened yet further, and his voice lowered.
“And, Clifford,--you’re a lucky man, if it turns out the way I think it
will!”

       *       *       *       *       *

It did. In the deepening dusk of a month later, from an interior and
out-of-the-way county seat whose records were rarely looked over by
inquisitive eyes that had an interest in transmitting what they saw to
New York City, Clifford was driving a small roadster at an easy pace,
one passenger beside him. A few minutes before that passenger had
undergone a change of name. In New York City, if all went as expected,
it would merely be known that she had changed her name from Mary Regan
to Mary Clifford.

The marriage had been the ultimate achievement in privacy. No one had
journeyed here with them. But one person, who had insisted on being
taken into their confidence, had appeared discreetly and anonymously
at the brief ceremony in the little court-house--Uncle George. And
after the ceremony was over, he had kissed Mary with a simplicity, a
sincerity, a tender dignity that sophisticated, cynical Broadway would
have been amazed to see in its favorite.

“Mary,”--his hands on both her shoulders, his voice quavering a
bit,--“I’m glad I’ve lived long enough to see the daughter of one old
pal, and the niece of another old pal, definitely turn into this road.
Yes, I’m mighty glad. It’s the only road that’s worth traveling--and I
guess I ought to know. I know you’re going to be happy. God bless you,
my dear!”...

And now, as the pair moved easily through the closing twilight, all
bars at last were down between these two--all barriers of pride, of
reserve, of reticence, of opposing wills, all the long masking of
hearts. Their souls were very close together.

They had been riding for several miles in silence, both still awed by
what had just taken place in the little town behind them--when Mary
spoke softly:--

“You promised to tell me when--when this was over, what you and
Commissioner Thorne were talking about this morning. Aren’t you going
to tell me what it was?”

“Commissioner Thorne again offered me the position of Chief of the
Detective Bureau.”

“And you?”

“I turned it down.”

“It was a wonderful chance!” she exclaimed. “You refused because of me?”

“No. But I thought you might think so; that’s why I didn’t want to tell
you until everything was settled between you and me. I had thought it
all out before. It was a big job he offered me, yes,--but primarily
it was an office job, a routine, administrative job. I wanted to be
out where I would be in contact with people and their problems; where
instead of touching life only through the reports of subordinates, I
would touch life at first hand. I felt that in my case I could be of
more service in such a way. You understand?”

“Yes,” she said. “And I think, perhaps,--if you’d let me,--I could help
at that kind of work.”

“I know you could!” said Clifford. He went on, after a brief pause:
“And we talked of something else, Mary,--the Chief and I. He told me
again of that talk he had had with you when you went to him almost a
year ago; and, Mary,”--his voice lowered,--“our talk became for me a
searchlight thrown backward upon all that has happened these last few
months, and especially a searchlight upon you, Mary. You may have had
many motives for deciding against me, and for doing what you did. But I
now know there was one big motive which I never before fully realized,
and of which you perhaps were never conscious.”

“And that?” she asked.

“You did what you did partly because you loved me, and because you have
loved me all along. You believed that for you to marry me would injure
what you saw as a big public career for me; you thought you were not
the right wife for me. As for Jack, you didn’t really care for him--and
in the beginning you weren’t concerned in what your action might mean
to him. But me--me you didn’t want to hurt in any way.” He repeated
himself: “I see that clearly now--even though you did not know it,
that was one of the motives that ruled you.”

“I would not dare say that in my own behalf,” she whispered. And then
she went on: “But if, after all, I have turned out what you thought
me, it is because you believed in me so long--and because your belief
in me, and the way you handled me, forced me to become something
different.... But it must have been hard for you--very, very hard!”

“It’s been a thousand times worth it all, Mary,” he breathed, “a
thousand times worth it all!”

He caught her hand and held it tight beneath his on the steering-wheel--
it was as though now they were jointly steering their united lives; and
they sped on through the soft, star-blossoming night, in the silence of
full understanding, southward toward the great city where so long they
had fought each other, and where now at the last they were to begin to
build a life together.


THE END




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  =Coming of the Law, The.= By Chas. A. Seltzer.
  =Conquest of Canaan, The.= By Booth Tarkington.
  =Conspirators, The.= By Robt. W. Chambers.
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  =Double Traitor, The.= By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
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  =Eyes of the World, The.= By Harold Bell Wright.

  =Felix O’Day.= By F. Hopkinson Smith.
  =50-40 or Fight.= By Emerson Hough.
  =Fighting Chance, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
  =Financier, The.= By Theodore Dreiser.
  =Flamsted Quarries.= By Mary E. Waller.
  =Flying Mercury, The.= By Eleanor M. Ingram.
  =For a Maiden Brave.= By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss.
  =Four Million, The.= By O. Henry.
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  =Girl From His Town, The.= By Marie Van Vorst.
  =Girl of the Blue Ridge, A.= By Payne Erskine.
  =Girl Who Lived in the Woods, The.= By Marjorie Benton Cook.
  =Girl Who Won, The.= By Beth Ellis.
  =Glory of Clementina, The.= By Wm. J. Locke.
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  =God’s Country and the Woman.= By James Oliver Curwood.
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  =Going Some.= By Rex Beach.
  =Gold Bag, The.= By Carolyn Wells.
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  =Guests of Hercules, The.= By C. N. & A. M. Williamson.

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  =Happy Island= (Sequel to Uncle William). By Jeannette Lee.
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  =Heart of the Hills, The.= By John Fox, Jr.
  =Heart of the Sunset.= By Rex Beach.
  =Heart of Thunder Mountain, The.= By Elfrid A. Bingham.
  =Heather-Moon, The.= By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
  =Her Weight in Gold.= By Geo. B. McCutcheon.
  =Hidden Children, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
  =Hoosier Volunteer, The.= By Kate and Virgil D. Boyles.
  =Hopalong Cassidy.= By Clarence E. Mulford.
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  =Pool of Flame, The.= By Louis Joseph Vance.
  =Port of Adventure, The.= By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
  =Postmaster, The.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
  =Power and the Glory, The.= By Grace McGowan Cooke.
  =Prairie Wife, The.= By Arthur Stringer.
  =Price of Love, The.= By Arnold Bennett.
  =Price of the Prairie, The.= By Margaret Hill McCarter.
  =Prince of Sinners.= By A. E. Phillips Oppenheim.
  =Princes Passes, The.= By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
  =Princess Virginia, The.= By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
  =Promise, The.= By J. B. Hendryx.
  =Purple Parasol, The.= By Geo. B. McCutcheon.

  =Ranch at the Wolverine, The.= By B. M. Bower.
  =Ranching for Sylvia.= By Harold Bindloss.
  =Real Man, The.= By Francis Lynde.
  =Reason Why, The.= By Elinor Glyn.
  =Red Cross Girl, The.= By Richard Harding Davis.
  =Red Mist, The.= By Randall Parrish.
  =Redemption of Kenneth Galt, The.= By Will N. Harben.
  =Red Lane, The.= By Holman Day.
  =Red Mouse, The.= By Wm. Hamilton Osborne.
  =Red Pepper Burns.= By Grace S. Richmond.
  =Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary, The.= By Anne Warner.
  =Return of Tarzan, The.= By Edgar Rice Burroughs.
  =Riddle of Night, The.= By Thomas W. Hanshew.
  =Rim of the Desert, The.= By Ada Woodruff Anderson.
  =Rise of Roscoe Paine, The.= By J. C. Lincoln.
  =Road to Providence, The.= By Maria Thompson Daviess.
  =Robinetta.= By Kate Douglas Wiggin.
  =Rocks of Valpré, The.= By Ethel M. Dell.
  =Rogue by Compulsion, A.= By Victor Bridges.
  =Rose in the Ring, The.= By George Barr McCutcheon.
  =Rose of the World.= By Agnes and Egerton Castle.
  =Rose of Old Harpeth, The.= By Maria Thompson Daviess.
  =Round the Corner in Gay Street.= By Grace S. Richmond.
  =Routledge Rides Alone.= By Will L. Comfort.

  =St. Elmo.= (Ill. Ed.) By Augusta J. Evans.
  =Salamander, The.= By Owen Johnson.
  =Scientific Sprague.= By Francis Lynde.
  =Second Violin, The.= By Grace S. Richmond.
  =Secret of the Reef, The.= By Harold Bindloss.
  =Secret History.= By C. N. & A. M. Williamson.
  =Self-Raised.= (Ill.) By Mrs. Southworth.
  =Septimus.= By William J. Locke.
  =Set in Silver.= By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
  =Seven Darlings, The.= By Gouverneur Morris.
  =Shea of the Irish Brigade.= By Randall Parrish.
  =Shepherd of the Hills, The.= By Harold Bell Wright.
  =Sheriff of Dyke Hole, The.= By Ridgwell Cullum.
  =Sign at Six, The.= By Stewart Edw. White.
  =Silver Horde, The.= By Rex Beach.
  =Simon the Jester.= By William J. Locke.
  =Siren of the Snows, A.= By Stanley Shaw.
  =Sir Richard Calmady.= By Lucas Malet.
  =Sixty-First Second, The.= By Owen Johnson.
  =Slim Princess, The.= By George Ade.




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.