"No, you don"t!" Barney cried in the same m.u.f.fled roar.
"Perhaps not--I haven"t decided," Maggie said evenly. "I"ve merely been telling you, as you requested me, why I did as I did. I refused d.i.c.k, and lied to you, so that I might have more time to think over what I really wanted to do."
Instinctively she had counted on rousing Barney"s jealousy in order to throw him off the track of her real thoughts. She succeeded.
"I can tell you what you"re going to do!" Barney flung at her with fierce mastery. "You"re not going to put over a sure-enough marriage with any d.i.c.k Sherwood! When there"s that kind of a marriage, I"m going to be the man! And you"re going to go right straight ahead with our old plan! d.i.c.k"ll propose again if you give him half a chance. And when he does, 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 fact what he had ordered was what, in the shifting currents of her thoughts, the steady momentum of her old ambitions and purposes had been pushing her toward. So she said, in her even voice:
"You waste such a lot of your good energy, Barney, by exploding when there"s nothing to blow up. That"s exactly what I"d decided to do. Miss Sherwood has asked me out to Cedar Crest to-morrow afternoon, and I"m going."
Barney let go the hold he had kept upon her wrists, and the dark look slowly lifted from his face. "Why didn"t you tell a fellow this at first?" he half grumbled. Then with a grim enthusiasm: "And when you come 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 given me a headache, and I want to rest."
"We"ll go," said Barney. "But there may be some more points about this that we may want to talk over a little later to-night. So better get all the rest you can."
But when they had gone and left her to the silence of her pretentious and 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 same turmoil within her.
Again she thought of Larry. But she would not admit to herself that her real motive for suddenly deciding to go to Cedar Crest on the morrow was the chance of seeing him.
CHAPTER XXVI
During all these days Larry waited for news of the result of the experiment in psychology which meant so much to his life. He had not expected to hear directly from Maggie; but he had counted upon learning at once from d.i.c.k, if not by words, then either from eloquent dejection which would proclaim d.i.c.k"s refusal (and Larry"s success) or from an ebullient joy which would proclaim that Maggie had accepted him. But d.i.c.k"s sober but not unhappy behavior announced neither of these two to Larry; and the matter was too personal, altogether too delicate, to permit Larry to ask d.i.c.k the result, however subtly he might ask it.
So Larry could only wait--and wonder. The truth did not occur to Larry; he did not see that there might be another alternative to the two possible reactions he had calculated upon. He did not bear in mind that Maggie"s youthful obstinacy, her belief in herself and her ways, were too solid a structure to yield at once to one moral shock, however wisely planned and however strong. He did not at this time hold in mind that any real change in so decided a character as Maggie, if change there was to be, would be preceded and accompanied by a turbulent period in which she would hardly know who she was, or where she was, or what she was going to do--and that at the end of such a period there might be no change at all.
Inasmuch as just then Maggie was his major interest, it seemed to Larry in his safe seclusion that he was merely marking time, and marking time with feet that were frantically impatient. He felt he could not stand much longer his own inactivity and his ignorance of what Maggie was doing and what was happening to her. He could not remain in this sanctuary pulling strings, and very long and fragile strings, and strings which might be the mistaken ones, for any much greater period.
He felt that he simply had to walk out of this splendid safety, back into the dangers from which he had fled, where he might at least have the possible advantage of being in the very midst of Maggie"s affairs and fight for her more openly and have a more direct influence upon her.
He knew that, sooner or later, he was going to throw caution aside and appear suddenly among his enemies, unless something of a definite character developed. But for these slow, irritating days he held himself in check with difficulty, hoping that things might come to him, that he would not have to go forth to them.
He had brought Hunt"s portrait of Maggie to Cedar Crest in the bottom of his trunk, and kept it locked in his chiffonier. During these days, more frequently than before, he would take out the portrait and in the security of his locked room would gaze long at that keen-visioned portrayal of her many characters. No doubt of it: there was a possible splendid woman there! And no doubt of it: he loved that woman utterly!
During these days of his ignorance, while Maggie was struggling in the darkness of her unexplored being, Larry drove himself grimly at the business to which under happier circ.u.mstances he would have gone under the irresistible suasion of pure joy. One afternoon he presented to Miss Sherwood an outline for his growing plan for the development of the Sherwood properties on the basis of good homes at fair rentals. He discovered that, in spite of her generous giving, she had much the same att.i.tude toward Charity as his own: that the only sound Charity, except for those temporarily or permanently handicapped or disabled, was the giving of honest values for honest returns--and that was not Charity at all.
The project of reforming the shiftless character of the Sherwood properties, and of relieving even in a small degree New York"s housing congestion, appealed at once to her imagination and her sensible idealism.
"A splendid plan!" she exclaimed, regarding Larry with those wise, humorous eyes of hers, which were now very serious and penetrating. "You have been working much harder than I had thought. And if you will pardon my saying it, you have more of the soundly humane vision which big business enterprise should have than I had thought."
"Thank you!" said Larry.
"That"s a splendid dream," she continued; "but it will take hard work to translate that dream into a reality. We shall need architects, builders, a heavy initial expense, time--and a more modern and alert management."
"Yes, Miss Sherwood."
She did not speak for a moment. Her penetrating eyes, which had been fixed on him in close thought, were yet more penetrating. Finally she said:
"That"s a big thing, a useful thing. The present agents wish to be relieved of our affairs as soon as I can make arrangements--and I"d like nothing better than for d.i.c.k to drop what he"s doing and get into something constructive and useful like this. But d.i.c.k cannot do it alone; he"s too unsettled, and too inexperienced to cope with some of the sharper business practices."
She paused again, still regarding him with those keen eyes, which seemed to be weighing him. Finally she said, almost abruptly:
"Will you take charge of this with d.i.c.k? He likes you and respects your judgment; I"m sure you"d help steady him down. Of course you lack practical experience, but you can take in a practical man who will supply this element. Practical experience is one of the commonest articles on the market; vision and initiative are among the rarest--and you have them. What do you say?"
Larry could not say anything at once. The suddenness of her offer, the largeness of his opportunity, bewildered him for the moment. And his bewilderment was added to by his swift realization of quite another element involved in her frank proposition. He was now engaged in the enterprise of foisting a bogus article, Maggie, upon this woman who was offering him her complete confidence--an enterprise of most questionable ethics and very dubious issue. If he accepted her offer, and the result of this enterprise were disaster, what would Miss Sherwood then think of him?
He took refuge in evasion. "I"m not going to try to tell you how much I appreciate your proposition, Miss Sherwood. But do you mind if I hold back my answer for the present and think it over? Anyhow, to do all that is required I must be able to work in the open--and I can"t do that until I get free of my entanglements with the police and my old acquaintances."
Thus it was agreed upon. Miss Sherwood turned to another subject. The pre-public show of Hunt"s pictures had opened the previous day.
"When you were in the city yesterday, did you get in to see Mr. Hunt"s exhibition?"
"No," he answered. "Although I wanted to. But you know I"ve already seen all of Mr. Hunt"s pictures that Mr. Graham has in his gallery. How was the opening?"
"Crowded with guests. And since they had been told that the pictures were unusual and good, of course the people were enthusiastic."
"What kind of prices was Mr. Graham quoting?"
"He wasn"t quoting any. He told me he wasn"t going to sell a picture, or even mention a price, until the public exhibition. He"s very enthusiastic. He thinks Mr. Hunt is already made--and in a big way."
And then she added, her level gaze very steady on Larry:
"Of course Mr. Hunt is really a great painter. But he needed a jolt to make him go out and really paint his own kind of stuff. And he needed some one like you to put him across in a business way."
When she left, she left Larry thinking: thinking of her saying that Hunt "needed a jolt to make him go out and really paint his own kind of stuff." Hidden behind that remark somewhere could there be the explanation for the break between these two? Larry began to see a glimmer of light. It was entirely possible that Miss Sherwood, in so finished and adroit a manner that Hunt had not discerned her purpose, had herself given him this jolt or at least contributed to its force. It might all have been diplomacy on her part, applied shrewdly to the man she understood and loved. Yes, that might be the explanation. Yes, perhaps she had been doing in a less trying way just what he was seeking to do under more stressful circ.u.mstances with Maggie: to arouse him to his best by indirectly working at definite psychological reactions.
That afternoon Hunt appeared at Cedar Crest, and while there dropped in on Larry. The big painter, in his full-blooded, boyish fashion, fairly gasconaded over the success of his exhibit. Larry smiled at the other"s exuberant enthusiasm. Hunt was one man who could boast without ever being offensively egotistical, for Hunt, added to his other gifts, had the divine gift of being able to laugh at himself.
Larry saw here an opportunity to forward that other ambition of his: the bringing of Hunt and Miss Sherwood together. And at this instant it flashed upon him that Miss Sherwood"s seemingly casual remarks about Hunt had not been casual at all. Perhaps they had been carefully thought out and spoken with a definite purpose. Perhaps Miss Sherwood had been very subtly appointing him her amba.s.sador. She was clever enough for that.
"Stop declaiming those self-written press notices of your unapproachable superiority," Larry interrupted. "If you use your breath up like that you"ll drown on dry land. Besides, I just heard something better than this mere articulated air of yours. Better because from a person in her senses."
"Heard it from whom?"
"Miss Sherwood."
"Miss Sherwood! What did she say?"
"That you were a really great painter."
"Huh!" snorted Hunt. "Why shouldn"t she say that? I"ve proved it!"
"Hunt," said Larry evenly, "you are the greatest painter I ever met, but you also have the distinction of being the greatest of all d.a.m.ned fools."