CHAPTER VIMARY SHOWS HER HAND
Mary Reganstood 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 thatsummer 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. Sheknew, 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 youneed 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 undebatableconclusion 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 delayedour 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 tellinghim 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 justYou, 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.