t her mercy? Could it be that, despite her words,
she had an unacknowledged liking for him? He did not dare let himself
believe this.

Again and again he thought of this adventure in whose very middle Maggie
now was, and of whose successful issue she had proudly boasted to him.
It was indeed something big, as she had said; that establishment at the
Grantham was proof of this. Larry could now perceive the adventure's
general outlines. There was nothing original in what he perceived; and
the plan, so far as he could see it, would not have interested him in
the least as a novel creation of the brain were not Maggie its central
figure, and were not Barney and Old Jimmie her directing agents.
A pretty woman was being used as a lure to some rich man, and his
infatuation for her was to cause him to part with a great deal of
money: some variation of this ancient idea, which has a thousand
variations--that was the plan.

Obviously the enterprise was not directed at some gross victim whose
palate might permit his swallowing anything. If any one item essentially
proved this, it was the item of the overwhelmingly respectable chaperon.
Maggie was being presented as an innocent, respectable, young girl; and
the victim, whoever he was, was the type of man for whom only such a
type of girl would have a compelling appeal.

And this man--who was he? Ever and again he tried to place the man's
voice, with its faintly familiar quality, but it kept dodging away like
a dream one cannot quite recall.

The whole business made Larry rage within himself. Maggie to be used
in such a way! He did not blame Maggie, for he understood her. Also he
loved her. She was young, proud, willful, had been trained to regard
such adventures as colorful and legitimate; and had not lived long
enough for experience to teach her otherwise. No, Maggie was not to
blame. But Old Jimmie! He would like to twist Old Jimmie's neck! But
then Old Jimmie was Maggie's father; and the mere fact of Old Jimmie
being Maggie's father would, he knew, safeguard the old man from his
wrath even were he at liberty to go forth and act.

He cursed his enforced seclusion. If only he were free to go out and
do his best in the open! But then, even if he were, his best endeavors
would have little influence upon Maggie--with her despising and
distrusting him as she did, and with her so determined to go ahead in
her own way.

Once during the morning, he slipped from the library into his