CHAPTER XXIV
Presently Miss Sherwood said something about tea, excused herself, anddisappeared within the house. Maggie saw that Hunt watched Miss Sherwoodtill she was safely within doors; then she was aware that he was gazingsteadily at her; then she saw him execute a slow, solemn wink.
Maggie almost sprang from her chair.
"Shall we take a little stroll, Miss Cameron?" Hunt asked. "I think itwill be some time before Miss Sherwood will want us for tea."
"Yes--thank you," Maggie stammered.
Hunt led her down a walk of white gravel to where a circle of Hiawatharoses were trained into a graceful mosque, now daintily glorious withits solid covering of yellow-hearted red blooms. Within this retreat wasa rustic bench, and on this Hunt seated her and took a place beside her.He looked her over with the cool, direct, studious eyes which remindedher of his gaze when he had been painting her.
"Well, Maggie," he finally commented, "you certainly look the part youpicked out for yourself, and you seem to be putting it over. Always hadan idea you could handle something big if you went after it. How d'youlike the life, being a swell lady crook?"
She had hardly heard his banter. She needed to ask him no questionsabout his presence here; his ease of bearing had conveyed to herunconsciously from the first instant that her previous half-contemptuousestimate of him had been altogether wrong and that he was now in hisnatural element. Her first question went straight to the cause of heramazement.
"Didn't you recognize me when you first saw me with Miss Sherwood?"
"Yes."
"Weren't you surprised?"
"Nope," he answered with deliberate monosyllabioness.
"Why not?"
"I'd been wised up that I'd be likely to meet you--and here."
"Here! By whom?"
"By advice of counsel I must decline to answer."
"Why didn't you tell Miss Sherwood who I am and show me up?"
"Because I'd been requested not to tell."
"Requested by whom?"
"Maggie," he drawled, "you seem to be making a go of this lady crookbusiness--but I think you might have been even more of a shining lightas a criminal cross-examiner. However, I refuse to be cross-examinedfurther. By the way," he drawled on, "how goes it with those dear souls,Barney and Old Jimmie?"
She ignored his question.
"Please! Who asked you not to tell?"
There was a sudden glint of good-humored malice in his eyes. "Mind if Ismoke?"
"No."
He drew out a silver cigarette case and opened it. "Empty!" heexclaimed. "Excuse me while I get something from the house to smoke.I'll be right back."
Without waiting for her permission he stepped out of the arbor and sheheard his footsteps crunching up the gravel path. Maggie waited hisreturn in pulsing suspense. Her situation had been developing beyondanything she had ever dreamed of; she was aquiver as to what mighthappen next. So absorbed was she in her chaos of feeling and thoughtsthat she did not even hear the humble symphony of the hundreds of beesdrawing their treasure from the golden hearts of the roses; and didnot see, across the path a score of yards away, the tall figure of JoeEllison among the rosebushes, pruning-shears in hand, with which hehad been cutting out dead blossoms, gazing at her with that hungry,admiring, speculative look with which he had regarded the young womenupon the beach.
Presently she heard Hunt's footsteps coming down the path. Then shedetected a second pair. Dick accompanying him, she thought. And thenHunt appeared before her, and was saying in his big voice: "MissCameron, permit me to present my friend, Mr. Brandon." And then he addedin a lowered voice, grinning with the impish delight of an overgrown boywho is playing a trick: "Thought I'd better go through the motions ofintroducing you people, so it would look as if you'd just met for thefirst time." And with that he was gone.
Maggie had risen galvanically. For the moment she could only stare. Thenshe got out his name.
"Larry!" she whispered. "You here?"
"Yes."
Astounded as she was, she had caught instantly the total lack ofamazement on Larry's part.
"You're--you're not surprised to see me?"
"No," he said evenly. "I knew you were here. And before that I knew youwere coming."
That was almost too much for Maggie. Hunt had known and Larry had known;both were people belonging to her old life, both the last peopleshe expected to meet in such circumstances. She could only stare athim--entirely taken aback by this meeting.
And indeed it was a strangely different meeting from the last time shehad seen him, at the Grantham; strangely different from those earliermeetings down at the Duchess's when both had been grubs as yetunmetamorphosized. Now standing in the arbor they looked a pair ofweekend guests, in keeping with the place. For, as Maggie had noted,Larry in his well-cut flannels was as greatly transformed as Hunt.
It was Larry who ended the silence. "Shall we sit down?"
She mechanically sank to the bench, still staring at him.
"What are you doing here?" she managed to breathe.
"I belong here."
"Belong here?"
"I work here," he explained. "I'm called 'Mr. Brandon,' but MissSherwood knows exactly who I am and what I've been."
"How long have you been here?"
"Since that night when Barney and Old Jimmie took you away to begin yournew career--the same night that I ran away from those gunmen who thoughtI was a squealer, and from Casey and Gavegan."
"And all the while that Barney and my father and the police have thoughtyou hiding some place in the West, you've been with the Sherwoods?"
"Yes. And I've got to remain in hiding until something happens that willclear me. If the police or Barney and his friends learn where I am--youcan guess what will happen."
She nodded.
"Hunt got me here," he went on to explain. "I'm assisting in trying toget the Sherwood business affairs in better shape. I might as well tellyou, Maggie," he added quietly, "that Dick Sherwood is my very goodfriend."
"Dick Sherwood!" she breathed.
"And I might as well tell you," he went on, "that since that night atthe Grantham when I heard his voice, I've known that Dick is the suckeryou and Barney and Old Jimmie are trying to trim."
She half rose, and her voice sounded sharply: "Then you've got me caughtin a trap! You've told them about me?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Not so loud, or we may attract attention," he warned her. "I haven'ttold because you had your chance to give me away to Barney that night atthe Grantham. And you didn't give me away."
She sank slowly back to the bench. "Is that your only reason?"
"No," he answered truthfully. "Exposing you would merely mean that you'dfeel harder toward me--and harder toward every one else. I don't wantthat."
She pondered this a moment. "Then--you're not going to tell?"
He shook his head. "I don't expect to. I want you to be free to decidewhat you're going to do--though I hope you'll decide not to go throughwith this thing you're doing."
She made no response. Larry had spoken with control until now, but hisnext words burst from him.
"Don't you see what a situation it's put me in, Maggie--trying to playsquare with my friends, the Sherwoods, and trying to play square withyou?"
Again she did not answer.
"Maggie, you're too good for what you're doing--it's all a terriblemistake!" he cried passionately. Then he remembered himself, and spokewith more composure. "Oh, I know there's not much use in talking to younow--while you feel as you do about yourself--and while you feel as youdo about me. But you know I love you, and want to marry you--when--" Hehalted.
"When?" she prompted, almost involuntarily.
"When you see things differently--and when I can go around the world afree man, not a fugitive from Barney and his gunmen and the police."
Again Maggie was silent for a moment. It was as if she were trying topress out of her mind what he had said abo
ut loving her. Truly this was,indeed, different from their previous meetings. Before, there had almostinvariably been a defiant attitude, a dispute, a quarrel. Now she had nodesire to quarrel.
Finally she said with an effort to be that self-controlled person whichshe had established as her model:
"You seem to have your chance here to put over what you boasted to meabout. You remember making good in a straight way."
"Yes. And I shall make good--if only they will let me alone." He pausedan instant. "But I have no illusions about the present," he went onquietly. "I'm in quiet water for a time; I've got a period of safety;and I'm using this chance to put in some hard work. But presently thepolice and Barney and the others will learn where I am. Then I'll haveall that fight over again--only the next time it'll be harder."
She was startled into a show of interest. "You think that's really goingto happen?"
"It's bound to. There's no escaping it. If for no other reason, I myselfwon't be able to stand being penned up indefinitely. Something willhappen, I don't know what, which will pull me out into the openworld--and then for me the deluge!"
He made this prediction grimly. He was not a fatalist, but it had beenborne in upon him recently that this thing was inescapable. As for him,when that time came, he was going to put up the best fight that was inhim.
He caught the strained look which had come into Maggie's face, and itprompted him suddenly to lean toward her and say:
"Maggie, do you still think I'm a stool and a squealer?"
"I--"
She broke off. She had a surging impulse to go on and say something toLarry. A great deal. She was not conscious of what that great deal was.She was conscious only of the impulse. There was too great a turmoilwithin her, begotten by the strain of her visit on Miss Sherwood andthese unexpected meetings, for any motive, impulse, or decision toemerge to even a brief supremacy. And so, during this period when herbrain would not operate, she let herself be swept on by the momentum ofthe forces which had previously determined her direction--her pride, herself-confidence, her ambition, the alliance of fortune between her andBarney and Old Jimmie.
They were sitting in this silence when footsteps again sounded on thegravel, and a shadow blotted the arbor floor.
"Excuse me, Larry," said a man's voice.
"Sure. What is it, Joe?"
Before her Maggie saw the tall, thin man in overalls, his removedbroad-brimmed hat revealing his white hair, whom she had noticeda little earlier working among the flowers. He held a bunch of thechoicest pickings from the abundant rose gardens, their stems bound inmaple leaves as temporary protection against their thorns. He was gazingat Maggie, respectful, hungry admiration in his somber eyes.
"I thought perhaps the young lady might care for these." He held out theroses to her. And then quickly, to forestall refusal: "I cut out morethan we can use for the house. And I'd like to have you have them."
"Thank you," and Maggie took the flowers.
For an instant their eyes held. In every outward circumstance the eventwas a commonplace--this meeting of father and daughter, not knowing eachother. It was hardly more than a commonplace to Maggie: just a tall,white-haired gardener respectfully offering her roses. And it was hardlymore to Joe Ellison: just a tribute evoked by his hungry interest inevery well-seeming girl of the approximate age of his daughter.
At the moment's end Joe Ellison had bowed and started back for hisflower beds. "Who is that man?" asked Maggie, gazing after him. "I neversaw such eyes."
"We used to be pals in Sing Sing," Larry replied. He went on to givebriefly some of the details of Joe Ellison's story, never dreaming howhe and Maggie were entangled in that story, nor how they were to beinvolved in its untanglement. Perhaps they were fortunate in thisignorance. Within the boundaries of what they did know life already heldenough of problems and complications.
Larry had just finished his condensed history when Dick Sherwoodappeared and ordered them to the veranda for tea. There were justthe five of them, Miss Sherwood, Maggie, Hunt, Dick, and Larry. MissSherwood was as gracious as before, and she seemingly took Maggie'sstrained manner and occasional confusions as further proof of hergenuineness. Dick beamed at the impression she was making upon hissister.
As for Maggie, she was living through the climax of that afternoon'sstrain. And she dared not show it. She forced herself to do her bestacting, sipping her tea with a steady hand. And what made her situationharder was that two of the party, Larry and Hunt, were treating her withthe charmed deference they might accord a charming stranger, when a wordfrom either of them might destroy the fragile edifice of her deception.
At last it was over, and all was ready for her to start back to townwith Dick. When Miss Sherwood kissed her and warmly begged her to comeagain soon, the very last of her control seemed to be slipping fromher--but she held on. Larry and Hunt she managed to say goodbye to inthe manner of her new acquaintanceship.
"Isn't she simply splendid!" exclaimed Miss Sherwood when Dick hadstepped into the car and the two had started away.
Larry pretended not to have heard. He felt precariously guilty towardthis woman who had befriended him. The next instant he had forgottenMiss Sherwood and his pulsing thoughts were all on Maggie in thatspeeding car. She had been profoundly shaken by that afternoon'sexperience, this much he knew. But what was going to be the real effectupon her of his carefully thought-out design? Was it going to be such asto save her and Dick?--and eventually win her for himself?
In the presence of Miss Sherwood Larry tried to behave as if nothinghad happened more than the pleasant interruption of an informal tea: butbeneath that calm all his senses were waiting breathless, so to speak,for news of what had happened within Maggie, and what might be happeningto her.