o a
question long enough to reason out its possible answer.

Just what was that game in which Maggie was involved?--a game which
required that Grantham setting, that eminently respectable companion,
and Maggie's accouterment as a young lady of obvious wealth.

Whose was that vaguely familiar second voice?--that voice which he still
could not place.

But what he thought about most of all was something very different. What
had caused that swift change in Maggie?--from a fury that was both
fire and granite, to that pallid, quivering, whispering girl who had so
rapidly led him safely out of his danger.

To and fro, back and forth, shuttled these questions. Toward two o'clock
he stood up, mind still absorbed, and mechanically started to undress.
He then observed the roll of paintings Hunt had given him. Better for
them if they were flattened out. Mechanically he removed string and
paper. There on top was the Italian mother he had asked for. A great
painting--a truly great painting. Mechanically he lifted this aside to
see what was the second painting Hunt had included. Larry gave a great
start and the Italian mother went flapping to the floor.

The second painting was of Maggie; the one on which Hunt had been
working the day Larry had come back: Maggie in her plain working
clothes, looking out at the world confidently, conqueringly; the
painting in which Hunt, his brain teeming with ideas, had tried to
express the Maggie that was, the many Maggies that were in her, and the
Maggie that was yet to be.

CHAPTER XVIII

The next morning Larry tried to force his mind to attend strictly to
Miss Sherwood's affairs. But in this effort he was less than fifty
per cent effective. His experience of the night before had been too
exciting, too provocative of speculation, too involved with what he
frankly recognized to be the major interest of his life, to allow him
to apply himself with perfect and unperturbed concentration to the day's
routine. Constantly he was seeing the transformed Maggie in the cerise
evening gown with the fan of green plumes--seeing her elaborate
setting in her suite at the Grantham--hearing that vaguely familiar but
unplaceable voice outside her door--recalling the frenzied effort with
which Maggie had so swiftly effected his escape.

This last matter puzzled him greatly. If she were so angered at him as
she had declared, if she so distrusted him, why had she not given him up
when she had had him a