He
smilingly planted himself squarely in her way.
"See here, Maggie--aren't you ever going to speak to a fellow?"
Something within her surged up impelling her to tell him of Barney's
savage yet unformulated threat. The warning got as far as her tongue,
and there halted, struggling.
Her strange, fixed look startled Larry. "Why, what's the matter,
Maggie?" he exclaimed.
But her pride, her settled determination to unbend to him in no way
and to have no dealings with him, were stronger than her impulse; and
the struggling warning remained unuttered.
"Nothing's the matter," she said, and brushed past him and hurried up
the stairway.
At times during the day, while tutoring with Mr. Bronson, Larry
thought of Maggie's strange look. And his mind was upon it late in the
afternoon when he entered the little street. But as he neared his
grandmother's house all such thought was banished by Detective Gavegan
of the Central Office stepping from the pawnshop and blocking the door
with his big figure. There was grim, triumphant purpose on the hard
features of Gavegan, conceited by nature and trained to harsh
dominance by long rule as a petty autocrat.
"Hello, Gavegan," Larry greeted him pleasantly. "Gee, but you look
tickled! Did the Duchess give you a bigger loan than you expected on
the Carnegie medal you just hocked?"
"You'll soon be cuttin' out your line of comedy.
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