CHAPTER XXV
When Maggie sped away from Cedar Crest in the low seat of the roadsterbeside the happy Dick, she felt herself more of a criminal than at anytime in her life, and a criminal that miraculously was making her escapeout of an inescapable set of circumstances.
Beyond her relief at this escape she did not know these first fewminutes what she thought or felt. Too much had happened, and what hadhappened had all turned out so differently from what she had expected,for her to set in orderly array this chaos of reactions within herselfand read the meaning of that afternoon's visit. She managed, with agreat effort, to keep under control the outer extremities of her senses,and thus respond with the correct "yes" or "no" or "indeed" when someresponse from her was required by Dick's happy conversation.
Near Roslyn they swung off the turnpike into an unfrequented, shadyroad. Dick steered to one side beneath a locust-tree and silenced themotor.
"Why are you stopping?" she asked in sudden alarm.
"So we can talk without a piece of impertinent machinery roaringinterruptions at us," replied Dick with forced lightness. And then ina voice he could not make light: "I want to talk to you about--about mysister. Isn't she splendid?"
"She is!" There was no wavering of her thoughts as Maggie emphaticallysaid this.
"I'm mighty glad you like her. She certainly liked you. She's all thefamily I've got, and since you two hit it off so well together I hope--Ihope, Maggie--"
And then Dick plunged into it, stammeringly, but earnestly. He toldher how much he loved her, in old phrases that his boyish ardor madevibrantly new. He loved her! And if she would marry him, her influencewould make him take the brace all his friends had urged upon him. She'dmake him a man! And she could see how pleased it would make his sister.And he would do his best to make Maggie happy--his very best!
The young super-adventuress--she herself had mentally used the word"adventuress" in thinking of herself, as being more genteel and mentallyaristocratic than the cruder words by which Barney and Old Jimmie andtheir kind designated a woman accomplice--this young super-adventuress,who had schemed all this so adroitly, and worked toward it with the bestof her brain and her conscious charm, was seized with new panic as shelistened to the eager torrent of his imploring words, as she gazed intothe quivering earnestness of his frank, blue-eyed face. She wishedshe could get out of the machine and run away or sink through thefloor-boards of the car. For she really liked Dick.
"I'm--I'm not so good as you think," she whispered. And then someunsuspected force within her impelled her to say: "Dick, if you knew thetruth--"
He caught her shoulders. "I know all the truth about you I want to know!You're wonderful, and I love you! Will you marry me? Answer that. That'sall I want to know!"
He had checked the confession that impulsively had surged toward herlips. Silent, her eyes wide, her breath coming sharply, she sat gazingat him.... And then from out the portion of her brain where were storedher purposes, and the momentum of her pride and determination, thereflashed the realization that she had won! The thing that Barney and OldJimmie had prepared and she had so skillfully worked toward, was at lastachieved! She had only to say "yes," and either of those two plans whichBarney had outlined could at once be put in operation--and there couldbe no doubt of the swift success of either. Dick's eager, trusting facewas guarantee that there would come no obstruction from him.
She felt that in some strange way she had been caught in a trap. Yes,what they had worked for, they had won! And yet, in this moment ofwinning, as elements of her vast dizziness, Maggie felt sick andashamed--felt a frenzied desire to run away from the whole affair. ForMaggie, cynical, all-confident, and eighteen, was proving really a verypoor adventuress.
"Please, Maggie"--his imploring voice broke in upon her--"won't youanswer me? You like me, don't you?--you'll marry me, won't you?"
"I like you, Dick," she choked out--and it was some slight comfort toher to be telling this much of the truth--"but--but I can't marry you."
"Maggie!" It was a cry of surprised pain, and the pain in his voiceshot acutely into her. "From the way you acted toward me--I thought--Ihoped--" He sharply halted the accusation which had risen to his lips."I'm not going to take that answer as final, Maggie," he said doggedly."I'm going to give you more time to think it over--more time for me totry. Then I'll ask you again."
That which prompted Maggie's response was a mixture of impulses: thedesire, and this offered opportunity, to escape; and a faint reassertionof the momentum of her purpose. For with one such as Maggie, the setpurposes may be seemingly overwhelmed, but death comes hard.
"All right," she breathed rapidly. "Only please get me back as quicklyas you can. I'm to have dinner with my--my cousin, and I'll be verylate."
Dick drove her into the city in almost unbroken silence and left her atthe great doors of the Grantham, abustle with a dozen lackeys in purplelivery. She stood a moment and watched him drive away. He really was anice boy--Dick.
As she shot up the elevator, she thought of a hitherto forgotten elementof that afternoon's bewildering situation. Barney Palmer! And Barneywas, she knew, now up in her sitting-room, impatiently waiting for herreport of what he had good reason to believe would prove a successfulexperience. If she told the truth--that Dick had proposed, just as theyhad planned for him to do--and she had refused him--why, Barney--!
She seemed caught on every side!
Maggie got into her suite by way of her bedroom. She wanted time togather her wits for meeting Barney. When Miss Grierson told her thather cousin was still waiting to take her to dinner, she requested hercompanion to inform Barney that she would be in as soon as she haddressed. She wasted all the time she legitimately could in changing intoa dinner-gown, and when at length she stepped into her sitting-room shewas to Barney's eye the same cool Maggie as always.
Barney rose as she entered. He was in smart dinner jacket; these daysBarney was wearing the smartest of everything that money could secure.There was a shadow of impatience on his face, but it was instantlydissipated by Maggie's self-composed, direct-eyed beauty.
"How'd you come out with Miss Sherwood?" he whispered eagerly.
"Well enough for her to kiss me good-bye, and beg me to come again."
"I've got to hand it to you, Maggie! You're sure some swellactress--you've sure got class!" His dark eyes gleamed on her with halfa dozen pleasures: admiration of what she was in herself--admirationof what she had just achieved--anticipation of results, manyresults--anticipation of what she was later to mean to him in a personalway. "If you can put it over on a swell like Miss Sherwood, you can putit over on any one!" He exulted. "As soon as we clean up this job inhand, we'll move on to one big thing after another!"
And then out came the question Maggie had been bracing herself for: "Howabout Dick Sherwood? Did he finally come across with that proposal?"
"No," Maggie answered steadily.
"No? Why not?" exclaimed Barney sharply. "I thought that was all thatwas holding him back--waiting for his sister to look you over and giveyou her O.K.?"
Maggie had decided that her air of cool, indifferent certainty was thebest manner to use in this situation with Barney. So she shrugged herwhite shoulders.
"How can I tell what makes a man do something, and what makes him not doit?"
"But did he seem any less interested in you than before?" Barneypursued.
"No," replied Maggie.
"Then maybe he's just waiting to get up his nerve. He'll ask you, allright; nothing there for us to worry about. Come on, let's have dinner.I'm starved."
On the roof of the Grantham they were excellently served; for Barneyknew how to order a dinner, and he knew the art, which is an alchemisticmixture of suave diplomacy and the insinuated power and purpose ofmurder, of handling head-waiters and their sub-autocrats. Having noother business in hand, Barney devoted himself to that business whichran like a core through all his businesses--paying court to Maggie. Andwhen Barney wished to be a courtier, there we
re few of his class whocould give a better superficial interpretation of the role; and in thisparticular instance he was at the advantage of being in earnest. Heforced the most expensive tidbits announced by the dinner card uponMaggie; he gallantly and very gracefully put on and removed, as requiredby circumstances, the green cobweb of a scarf Maggie had brought tothe roof as protection against the elements; and when he took thedancing-floor with her, he swung her about and hopped up and downand stepped in and out with all the skill of a master of the modernperversion of dancing. Barney was really good enough to have been aprofessional dancer had his desires not led him toward what seemed tohim a more exciting and more profitable career.
Maggie, not to rouse Barney's suspicions, played her role as well as hedid his own. And most of the other diners, a fraction of the changingtwo or three hundred thousand people from the South and West who chooseNew York as the best of all summer resorts, gazed upon this handsomecouple with their intricate steps which were timed with such effortlessand enviable accuracy, and excitedly believed that they were beholdingtwo distinguished specimens of what their home papers persisted incalling New York's Four Hundred.
Maggie got back to her room with the feeling that she had staved offBarney and her numerous other dilemmas for the immediate present. Herchief thought in the many events of the day had been only to escape herdangers and difficulties for the moment; all the time she had known thather real thinking, her real decisions, were for a later time when shewas not so driven by the press of unexpected circumstances. That lessstressful time was now beginning.
What was she to do next? What were to be her final decisions? And what,in all this strange ferment, was likely to germinate as possible forcesagainst her?
She mulled these things over for several days, during which Dick came tosee her twice, and twice proposed, and was twice put off. She had quietnow, and was most of the time alone, but that clarity which she hadexpected, that quickness and surety of purpose which she had alwaysbelieved to be unfailingly hers, refused to come.
She tried to have it otherwise, but the outstanding figure in hermeditations was Larry. Larry, who had not exposed her at the Sherwoods',and whose influence had caused Hunt also not to expose her--Larry, whowithout deception was on a familiar footing at the Sherwoods' where shehad been received only through trickery--Larry, a fugitive in dangerfrom so many enemies, perhaps after all undeserved enemies--Larry,who looked to be making good on his boast to achieve success throughhonesty--Larry, who had again told her that he loved her. She liked DickSherwood--she really did. But Larry--that was something different.
And thus she thought on, drawn this way and that, and unable to reach adecision. But with most people, when in a state of acute mental turmoil,that which has been most definite in the past, instinct, habit of mind,purpose, tradition, becomes at least temporarily the dominant factorthrough the mere circumstance that it has existed powerfully before,through its comparative stability, through its semi-permanence. And sowith Maggie. She had for that one afternoon almost been won over againstherself by the workings of Larry's secret diplomacy. Then had comethe natural reaction. And now in her turmoil, in so far as she had anydecision, it was instinctively to go right ahead in the direction inwhich she had been going.
But on the sixth day of her uncertainty, just after Dick had called onher and she had provisionally accepted an invitation to Cedar Crest forthe following afternoon, a danger which she had half seen from thestart burst upon her without a moment's warning. It came into hersitting-room, just before her dinner hour, in the dual form of Barneyand Old Jimmie. The faces of both were lowering.
"Get rid of that boob chaperon of yours!" gritted Barney. "We're goingto have some real talk!"
Maggie stepped to the connecting door, sent Miss Grierson on aninconsequential errand, and returned.
"You're looking as pleasant as if you were sitting for a new photograph,Barney. What gives you that sweet expression?"
"You'll cut out your comic-supplement stuff in just one second," Barneywarned her. "We both saw young Sherwood awhile ago as he was leaving theGrantham, and he told us everything!"
Persiflage did indeed fail Maggie. "Everything?" she exclaimed. "What'severything?"
"He told us about proposing to you almost a week ago, and about yourrefusing him. And you lied to us--kept us sitting round, wasting ourtime--and all the while you've been double-crossing us!"
Those visitors from South and West, especially the women, who a fewnights before on the roof had regarded Barney as the perfect courtier,would not have so esteemed him if they had seen him at the presentmoment. He seized Maggie's wrists, and all the evil of his violentnature glared from his small bright eyes.
"Damn you!" he cried. "Jimmie, she's yours, and a father's got a rightto do anything he likes to his own daughter. Give it to her proper ifshe don't come across with the truth!"
Jimmie stepped closer to her and bared his yellow teeth. "I haven'tgiven you a basting since you were fifteen--but I'll paste you one rightin the mouth if you don't talk straight talk!"
"You hear that!" Barney gritted at her. He believed there was justice inhis wrath--as indeed there was, of a sort. "Think what Jimmie and I'veput into this, in time and hard coin! We've given you your chance, we'vemade you! And then, after hard work and waiting and our spending somuch, and everything comes out exactly as we figured, you go and throwus down--not just yourself, but us and our rights! Now you talk straightstuff! Tell us, why did you refuse Sherwood when he proposed? And whydid you tell me that lie about his not proposing?"
Maggie realized she was in a desperate plight, with these two inflamedgazes upon her. Never had she felt so little of a daughter's liking forOld Jimmie as now when she looked into his lean, harsh, yellow-fangedface. And she had no illusions about Barney. He might love her, as sheknew he did; but that would not be a check upon his ruthlessness if hethought himself balked or betrayed.
Just then her telephone began to ring. She started to move toward it,but Barney's grip checked her short.
"You're going to answer me--not any damned telephone! Let it ring!"
The bell rang for a minute or two before it stilled its shrill clamor.Its ringing was in a way a brief respite to Maggie, for it gave heradditional time to consider what should be her course. She realizedthat she dared not let Barney believe at this moment that she had turnedagainst him. Again she fell back upon her cool, self-confident manner.
"You want to know why? The answer is simple enough. I thought I mighttry out an improvement of our plan--something that might suit mebetter."
"What's that?" Barney harshly demanded.
"Since Miss Sherwood fell for me so easy, it struck me that she'd bepretty sure to fall for me if I told her the whole truth about myself.That is, everything except our scheme to play Dick for a sucker."
"What're you driving at?"
"Don't you see? If she forgave me being what I am, and I rather thinkshe would, and with Dick liking me as he does--why, it struck me as thebest thing for yours truly to marry Dick for keeps."
"What?" Though Barney's voice was low, it had the effect of a startledand savage roar. "And chuck us over-board?"
"Not at all. If I married Dick for keeps, I intended to pay you a lumpsum, or else a regular amount each year."
"No, you don't!" Barney cried in the same muffled roar.
"Perhaps not--I haven't decided," Maggie said evenly. "I've merely beentelling you, as you requested me, why I did as I did. I refused Dick,and lied to you, so that I might have more time to think over what Ireally wanted to do."
Instinctively she had counted on rousing Barney's jealousy in order tothrow him off the track of her real thoughts. She succeeded.
"I can tell you what you're going to do!" Barney flung at her withfierce mastery. "You're not going to put over a sure-enough marriagewith any Dick Sherwood! When there's that kind of a marriage, I'm goingto be the man! And you're going to go right straight ahead with our oldplan! Dick'll propose again if you giv
e him half a chance. And when hedoes, you say 'yes'! Understand? That's what you're going to do!"
There was no safety in openly defying Barney. And as a matter of factwhat he had ordered was what, in the shifting currents of her thoughts,the steady momentum of her old ambitions and purposes had been pushingher toward. So she said, in her even voice:
"You waste such a lot of your good energy, Barney, by exploding whenthere's nothing to blow up. That's exactly what I'd decided to do. MissSherwood has asked me out to Cedar Crest to-morrow afternoon, and I'mgoing."
Barney let go the hold he had kept upon her wrists, and the dark lookslowly lifted from his face. "Why didn't you tell a fellow this atfirst?" he half grumbled. Then with a grim enthusiasm: "And when youcome back, you're going to tell us it's all settled!"
"Of course--if he asks me. And now suppose you two go away. You've givenme a headache, and I want to rest."
"We'll go," said Barney. "But there may be some more points about thisthat we may want to talk over a little later to-night. So better get allthe rest you can."
But when they had gone and left her to the silence of her pretentiousand characterless suite, Maggie did not rest. She had made up her mind;she was going to do as she had said. But there was still that sameturmoil within her.
Again she thought of Larry. But she would not admit to herself that herreal motive for suddenly deciding to go to Cedar Crest on the morrow wasthe chance of seeing him.