CHAPTER XIXMARY THINKS THINGS OUT
Maryawoke 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 complexand 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 forbadehim 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 realman, 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 meinto 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 youwill 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.