"Yes, you are
coming my way--sometime, if not now! And now if I can make you!"
Their embattled gazes gripped each other. But now Larry was seeing
more than just Maggie. He was also taking in the room. It was close
kin to the room in which he had left Miss Grierson: ornate,
undistinguished, and very expensive. He noted one slight difference: a
tiny hallway giving on the corridor, its inner door now opened.
But the greatest difference was what he saw over Maggie's smooth white
shoulders: a table all set with china and glass and silver, and
arranged for five.
"Maggie, what's this game you're up to?" he demanded.
"It's none of your business!" she said fiercely, but in a low tone--
for both were instinctively remembering Miss Grierson in the adjoining
room. And then she added proudly: "But it's big! Bigger than anything
you ever dreamed of! And you can see I am putting it across so far--
and I'll be putting it across at the finish! Compare it to the cheap
line you talked about. Bah!"
"Listen, Maggie!" In his intensity he gripped her bare forearm. "This
is bad business, and if you had any sense you'd know it! Don't you
think I get the layout? Barney is your cousin, Old Jimmie is your
uncle, that dame in the next room and this suite and your swell
clothes to help put up a front! And your sickness that wouldn't let
you go to the theater is just a fake, so that, not wanting to
disappoint them entirely, you'd have an excuse for having supper
here--and thus adroitly draw some person into the trap of a more
intimate relationship.
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