rough Maggie's
dark, eager eyes to the very core of Maggie's being.

"Will you get Larry word?" Maggie repeated impatiently.

The Duchess came out of her study. There was a sudden thrill within her,
but it did not show in her voice.

"Yes."

"At once?"

"As soon as telling him will do any good. And now you better hurry back
to your hotel, if you don't want Barney and Old Jimmie to suspect what
you've been up to. Though why you still want to hang on to that pair,
knowing what they are, is more than I can guess."

She stood up. "Wait a minute," she said as Maggie started for the door.
Maggie turned back, and for another moment the Duchess silently peered
deep into Maggie's eyes. Then she said shortly, almost sharply: "At your
age I was twice as pretty as you are--and twice as clever--and I played
much the same game. Look what I got out of life!... Good-night." And
abruptly the Duchess wheeled about and mounted the stairway.

Twenty minutes later Maggie was back at the Grantham, her absence
unobserved. Though palpitant over Larry's fate, she had the satisfaction
of having achieved with Larry's grandmother what she had set forth to
achieve. She did not know, could not know, that what she had accepted as
her achievement was inconsequential compared to what had actually been
achieved by her spontaneous appearance before the troubled Duchess.

CHAPTER XXIX

As the Duchess had gazed into Maggie's excited, imploring eyes, it had
been borne in upon her carefully judging and painfully hesitant mind
that there was better than a fifty per cent chance that Larry was right
in his estimate of Maggie; that Maggie's inclination toward criminal
adventure, her supreme self-confidence, all her bravado, were but
the superficial though strong tendencies developed by her unfortunate
environment; that within that cynical, worldly shell there were the
vital and plastic makings of a real woman.

And so the long-troubled Duchess, who to her acquaintances had always
seemed as unemotional as the dust-coated, moth-eaten parrot which stood
in mummified aloofness upon her safe, had made a momentous decision that
had sent through her old veins the thrilling sap of a great crisis, a
great suspense. She had tried to guide destiny. She was now through
with such endeavor. She had no right, because of her love for Larry, to
withhold longer the facts of Maggie's parentage. She was now going to
tell the truth, and let events work out as the