But she pulled so determinedly that to have held her would have meant
nothing better than ripping the sleeve out of her coat. So he freed
her and followed her across the sidewalk to the Duchess's door.
"What's the idea?" he demanded, choking with fierce jealousy. "It's
not Larry, after all? You're not going to let him make you go
straight?"
She had recovered her poise, and she replied banteringly:
"As I said, how can I tell what he's going to make me do?"
She heard him draw a deep, quivering breath between clenched teeth;
but she could not see how his figure tensed and how his face twisted
into a glower.
"Get this, Maggie: Larry Brainard is never going to be able to make
you do anything. You get that?"
"Yes, I get it, Barney; good-night," she said lightly.
And Maggie slipped through the door and left Barney trembling in the
little street.
CHAPTER IX
Maggie, as she mounted to her room, was hardly conscious of the ring
of menace in Barney's voice; but once she was in bed, his tone and his
words came back to her and stirred a strange uneasiness in her mind.
Barney was angry; Barney was cunning; Barney would stop at nothing to
gain his ends. What might be behind his threatening words?
The next morning as she was coming in with milk for her breakfast
coffee, she met Larry in the Duchess's room behind the pawnshop.
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